A worker, Warren, and I recovered about 350 bricks from the neighbor's yard. I'll use them as a small border around my back yard lawn or elsewhere on the property. We got a couple extra sprinklers in the front and the "lawn" border relocated to a better place. Good effort for one day's work. The doors had been shaved in their previous home. Even if I knew that was a bad thing before, then I know it doubly now. This explains in part why they were so poorly fit in their original jambs. Warren almost worked magic and got them hanging just right with very few tweaks. I will need to do a little gap filling with a small wedge of wood and some sanding and painting to make the tops align.
The doors are all rehung on nice solid brass hinges. It turned out that the "lifetime finish guarantee" Schlage hinges that I had weren't so confidence inspiring and we used some Brainerd brand hinges that Warren had around. He only had 5, however, and we couldn't find more at Home Depot or at the local mom and pop hardware store. During an online search Sunday night for the missing 6th hinge (now installed, plus 6 more for the next French door) I found out that Lowes carries Brainerd hinges. Strangely, this wasn't too easy to do with the obvious Google searches - I had trouble finding the Brainerd web site. Once found, it became apparent that Brainerd is owned by a holding company called Masco. Masco also owns many other medium to medium high end brands of home improvement supplies such as Hansgrohe, Liberty, and Delta. The interesting part about learning this that seeing that Masco is trading at about $27 with a ~13 P/E. It seems to have fallen along with the housing builder stocks, but is that really a fair valuation?
Immediate Path Forward:
wire new outlets / switches (add audio?)
paper and mesh screen house
haul trash to dump
get rev 1.0 of the front yard ready (grade, reposition sprinkler?, plant, mulch)
gutter porch
grade lawn away from porch
secure threshold and seal
secure door jambs to framing permanently
install new door hardware
sand, prime, gap fill, and paint doors
Near Future Path Forward:
stucco house
plaster interior
paint house exterior (area of repair?)
get bids for electrical service upgrade
"Here we are, two PhDs working on our own houses. I thought I was getting a PhD so that I could hire someone else to work on my house. Turns out the plumber makes more than I do." - WM
That's ok, Warren. When I graduated w/ my PhD and said goodbye to my car mechanic in Boulder, he asked me why I would leave Boulder for LA. I told him about my job. He asked me how much I would be making.
ReplyDeleteWhen I told him, he said, "Why don't you work for me? I made 80k last year working part-time. I can teach you. You are way smarter than all my brothers that my mom makes me hire."