Since the permit cost almost half the damn insurance check, it left me with little to make the repairs. Dave to the rescue….He had a friend he met that was in the construction business that lent Dave the tools needed to fix the house. All I had to do was to provide the materials and make sure they were both fed and had “drink” available. It ended up costing me slightly less than the lowest estimate for a total out of pocket of $952. to fix the front of the house. They repaired the small roof and re-attached it, caulking the seam.

Unfortunate as the repair was it revealed a much larger problem that required immediate attention. The main floor beam was rotted in several places down the right hand side of the house. Where it was not rotted it had fallen off the foundation. This explained the slope of the floors and the bow in the wall on that side. Since I still had the permit to fix the “walls” I had them replace the foundation beam, and the walls (studs and mortar) down that complete side. I maxxed out my Home Depot Card and put more on a Visa getting the materials. For payment I built a custom computer for Dave’s friend and gave Dave $1,200 worth of material charges for his house.

It took me several months of scraping to get the cards paid down in preparation for the next stage of remodeling. The next target had to be the bathroom. It was a real pain and inconvenience for Mark to have to use his bathroom while I was there to work. So Dave and I got to work on the bathroom. (O.K. mostly Dave) I knocked out the old mortar ceiling, pulled out the toilet and sink, and generally did the tear down. He put in the new wall board, drop ceiling, sink, and cabinet. It was O.K. and most importantly usable, when he was done, but it didn’t really meet my expectations. The cheap glass tub doors and the drop ceiling really turned me off. I would have to make changes later on in that area.

Mark was working at a window manufacturer in town at the time. The company had some over runs of a very nice custom made windows. He asked me if I wanted to buy any of these to replace windows in the house. Of course the windows that where in the living room and in the kitchen where in sad shape so I agreed to pay for the materials and told him that I would give him rental reductions for doing the install.

I went on another week long business trip. (To Canada in the winter!) I came back to find that Mark had removed the two side windows in the living room and replaced them with one beautiful triple slide window. It really looked nice. It was tinted, had tempered glass, and was nitrogen filled. The wood he used as the sill was a good 12 inches wide so it left a nice sized sill for decorations or to just sit in the window. This is probably the best change so far to the house. Good job Mark!

Dave went up to New Jersey to see his son and ended up meeting a woman. This was a very good thing for him. He finally has someone to give his attentions to and get his mind off his ex! (The bitch was still using him to do things for her) Well this gave him incentive to finish up his house so that she could visit.

I spent a little time helping and a lot of time watching him work on it. It was nice to see him happy and enthusiastic after two years or more of being the kicked dog. Well to make a long story short; she came down, they got married, and he continued working on his house until he re-ruptured his hernia. Apparently the doctor didn’t use the screen when he “repaired” the muscle relying just on the stitches instead. While in the hospital he got pneumonia and sepsis. The lung shunt was removed one day and he died of drowning the next.

My personal opinion is he died from being poor. The doctor that repaired his hernia did the least he could get away with and the second hospital skimped on his care to the point that he died by drowning in his own fluids! I have never been to Manatee Hospital since.

Back to the house:

At this point the side of the house near the driveway was bare mortar and the rest of the house was covered in a faded and peeling white paint. Dave’s mortar job was a bit on the rough side while the rest of the house was smooth. So I contracted the next door neighbor to recover the house with a knock down finish with some extra architectural details to make it look nicer.

I first used my pressure washer to remove as much paint as possible. This took a full weekend in itself. If you have ever taken a 3500 PSI pressure washer to house paint you know it strips it off in small chunks that fly all over the place. Clean up is a real pain.

Warning: Do not lean shutters up against your car when using the most powerful setting on the pressure washer. You WILL strip the paint from your car!! Yes it’s funny now but I was not amused at the time.

Well the next door neighbor went to work on the house starting at the rear and working around. He did pretty well at first but I noticed that each day a little less work got done and a little more beer got drank. I didn’t care if they drank as long as the work was done right. But when a month had gone by and they had still not finished I was getting a bit antsy. When I asked him about the timeline he let me know that his normal work had increased dramatically and he had less time for my place. Again, I can understand that. A real job always takes precedence over a side job. It ended up taking about two months give or take for the mortar job. A long time but well worth the wait. It cost me another custom computer and $1,200.

Next was paint time. My wife has an eye for decorating so she picked out the colors and back to Home depot I went. I rented an airless bucket sprayer and put Ten gallons of primer followed by fifteen gallons of off white onto the house for the base color. A light blue and a peachy color finished up the trim and architectural components. It came out looking very, very nice. Probably the best on the block!

I was headed over to the house a few Saturdays later when I saw a fireplace at a garage sale. I stopped to look it over thinking it might be a replacement for the one that had been torn out. It was sized about right. (Guessing of course) and was pretty much self contained. A screen curtain slid across the front as a spark arrester, the inside had an iron log holder, and the entire inner surface was lined with a heat type stone material. The top of the unit was equipped with a stove pipe coupling that looked close to the size pipe inside the chimney at the house. After a bit of haggling I loaded into the truck and continued on the way. (A great buy at $25)