Apr 1, 2008

Handyman

I had something of an adventure today. A lot of people might not call it an adventure, in fact some people might wonder if I've lost my marbles, because it involved some hard work for not so much money. It all started when one of the regular customers in the hardware store asked me if I was interested in doing a little side work. He does home repairs. In one of those 'it seemed like a good idea at the time' moments, I said yes. Then I immediately regretted it, because I have a little bit of fear of the unknown, plus the work I already have is more than I need. The reason I agreed to be this guy's helper for the morning, actually three hours, is that I have always thought that I would like to try being a handyman. Minor electric, plumbing and that sort of thing. This seemed like a good way to see what that is like. The job this morning involved taking out a double sliding glass door, and putting in a set of French Doors. Let me be clear that when it comes to hanging doors, I got no skills, but ripping up stuff is right up my alley. The old door was built in the 1940's and was a solid steel frame. Nothing like you would find in today's lightweight materials. It involved a lot of sawing, prying and banging. What's not to like about that? It was kind of fun and I got paid enough to cover my golf this week, with enough left over for lunch. The old win-win. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

5 comments:

Steve Reed said...

Wow! I wonder if that old door had some value? Maybe they should have kept it! At any rate, I'm glad the project worked out. There's something very satisfying about making home repairs -- I guess even to someone else's house.

Bobby D. said...

I'm impressed, Merle--I watched two guys install french doors, and I had to walk away. They were having a difficult time. The doors were heavy and awkward--and the guys had not installed French doors before.

They look much better than the old sliders, and they don't need window treatments like the sliders did. (opaque glass)

Kurt said...

I replaced the little wheels on some sliding doors once. Not fun.

Coffee Messiah said...

Kudos for the attempt.

When we had our store, we had very large, uneven sized windows, sort of like 6 ft by 12 ft or some such. Even those measurements were off top to bottom etc.

We had a crack in one and it had to be replaced. There was an older man, and a younger one. The older guy took the measurements and a few weeks later when it had been made, they came back.

I tell ya, that older guy put that window in as if it were like handling a book or something.

Sometimes, if'n ya know what you're a doing, everything goes according to plan.

We've done some minor work here and, well, we make Laurel & Hardy look pretty good! ; )

dennis said...

Dennis wants to know what you had for lunch.