Everything old is (mostly) new again!

Back in the spring Troy and I attended a charity fundraiser for the father of one of my neighbors. They held a silent auction and we bought/won 8 hours of work done by a professional handyman. Sweet! In the 8 years that I've lived there, I've torn out carpet, painted walls, laid linoleum tiles (thanks Mom!), made curtains, etc, etc, etc. However, my house is 60 years old and I don't touch anything electrical or plumbing-related. That's when I call in the professionals!

This last weekend the professional came to my rescue. I had 4 hours at my disposal and I intended to use every minute. Kenny (the handyman) had come out to assess the jobs ahead of time and we decided on 3 projects to keep him busy. First, we would replace the less than attractive light fixture hanging over my kitchen table. It had been there since I moved in, I never liked it and now I think the electrical components were starting to go. That's not good! (The white one is the old one and the brown one is new.)

He would then install some security lights on my house and garage to illuminate the backyard. I don't live in a bad neighborhood or anything, but I grew concerned this winter when I saw some (big) man-sized footprints in the snow in my backyard. It's completely fenced in and there's no reason for anyone to be back there unless I know they are there.

His final task would be in the back room of my house. It's basically used as a poker room and holiday gathering space when I have lots of people over now. It was added on when the previous owners of the house came into some money in the late 70s. Its previous life was as a back porch. It's a good sized room, but the remodel was done on the cheap. They didn't insulate (doh!), installed a REALLY crappy gas heater and simply built over the cement entry step. The heater was taken care of about 5 years ago (the gas man who took it out said it was so bad that he wouldn't have installed it when it was brand new!) and my dad dry-walled over the hole left by the old heater, so now it was time to deal with that extra step that LOTS of people have nearly hurt themselves on.

When we ripped up the carpet and laid linoleum tiles back there, we tried to fix the problem by building a wooden box (step) to cover the cement step. Unfortunately, the box has been cracking since then which has also messed up the linoleum on top. Kenny's job was going to be to tackle that old step.

Boy, did I underestimate the work required to complete that task! He spent several hours with a HUGE mallet and chisel trying to dig it out. Finally he gave up and he's supposed to be bringing a jack hammer over tonight to finish the job. I can hardly wait to have a jack hammer used INSIDE of my house! Not!

I'll keep you posted on how everything turns out and I'm make sure to show the before and after pictures.

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