Apartment Emergency for the Handyman

Back in the days when I did a lot of Handyman work for Realtors I received an interesting call from a Realtor friend of mine named Mary. Mary called to tell me she had a lead on some drywall repair from one of her recent clients. She told me that her client had listed his ten unit apartment building with her and now it needed some emergency drywall repairs. She gave me her client’s name (Ernie) and phone number and asked if I could call him ASAP.

I called Ernie and set a time to meet him at the apartment building that day. After I met Ernie I learned what had happened. Apparently Ernie had put a considerable amount of money in the building for renovations and updates, and needed to have it on the market quick, especially since the building was completely vacant. He had the painters scheduled to paint the interior yesterday, but what they found was going to be a set back in plans. Ernie told me what happened to his building, and thought it was one of the renters that had recently moved out of the building that did the damage.

In the past I had made repairs on vandalized houses and apartments, but this was the first time I had seen this. Somebody did not like Ernie very much, and you won’t believe what they did. But you will have to come back tomorrow to find out what they did.

Handyman Finds Exhausted Drywall

Sometimes finding the cause of a problem is not an easy job, but after you finally discover the cause, you always feel stupid for not figuring it out earlier. This was exactly the case at Nancy’s house.

The facts I had were: the wall was an interior non-load bearing wall, between the kitchen and the living room, and there was no water source anywhere near the wall. I looked in the attic where the wall ended and found nothing. Okay, if you have already figured it out, you won’t feel as silly as I did after spending over an hour trying to find the problem, with out any luck. I told Nancy that the cause of the problem was not where I could see it, and I recommended I start by taking down the bad drywall.

Nancy agreed, so I got the tools I needed and tarped the living room floor. I started by knocking a hole in the drywall between the studs, and the smell rolled out of the wall with the very first hammer strike. As I made the hole bigger the smell got worse, and I also noticed the drywall was very greasy. Figured it out yet?

Well it took me until I had removed just about all of the damaged drywall, to find out the damage was caused by kitchen grease. Yes, Kitchen grease. When the house was built ten years ago the person that installed the vented range hood thought it was okay to let it exhaust into the wall cavity. The drywall job also turned into venting the range hood to the outside, so now the wall will not fill up with grease. This makes it a lot easier to keep paint on the walls...

Handyman Finds a Surprise in the Drywall

I started the week out busy for a January, but by Thursday I realized I barely had enough work to get me through the next week. The phone rang and it was a call for a routine drywall repair, well I thought it was a routine repair. The client (Nancy Dully) said that she had a “bubbling soft spot of drywall” in her living room about two feet wide that went from the ceiling to the floor.

Okay I was thinking the same thing you are thinking, but we would both be wrong, it was not a water stain or water damage, it was not even on a perimeter wall. The next morning I drove out to the Dully’s house to give a bid on the drywall repair. The Dully’s had only owned this house for a year, but had already painted this part of the drywall five times, and the paint just kept peeling off. Nancy showed me the problem spot, and it was just like she described, but with very dark stains. I probed the drywall and found it very soft in the area with the staining. I figured out what it would cost to repair the drywall damage, but I told Nancy we also had to find out what caused the drywall damage in the first place. With out remediating the cause of the drywall damage the new drywall would also become damaged.

More tomorrow.

The Handyman sheds some new light on the project

The house was really coming together and looked better then when Tim and Jen bought it almost twenty years ago. The kitchen was looking a little dated and needed better lighting. Danny suggested lighting under the wall cabinets and can lights in the ceiling.

Jen liked it so much; she put new lighting in the dinning room and the living room. The new lighting in the kitchen showed up the old cabinets and counter top. Tim did not want to spend the money for a new kitchen, so they went with Danny’s suggestion. Danny suggested to replace the cabinet doors and hardware and a new counter top.

Tim and Jen’s house is starting to look like the house they had always wanted, thanks to the handyman.

Jen’s Handyman crazy

This project of Tim and Jen’s started out with a little trim in the living room and ended up with new floor in three rooms. I guess that is not true, it did not end there, and probably has not ended. After the new floor in the three rooms, it seemed like the logical thing was to install new baseboard trim in the rooms with the new floor. The crown molding looked so good in the living room Jen could not help but to have it put in the hall and the dinning room.

Did Jen stop here?

You will have to see tomorrow.

The Handyman made the room look too good

After Tim and Jen had the living room trim work done, they decided they needed a new floor because the trim looked better then the rest of the room. They wanted to stay with the wood look, but did not know what to choose, so they called me again.

I recommended a Handyman again, hey this is not rocket science, so since they had such a good experience with Danny, they called him. Danny was over in a few days with some samples of the floor. Tim and Jen liked the wood look floating floor system that Danny had showed them. After Danny had installed the floating floor in the living room, Jen decided it made the dinning room, and hall look bad, so wile Danny’s crew was still there, Jen had them put the same floor in the dinning room and hall.

This gets better.

Handyman adds Value

A friend of mine called me about a month before Christmas of last year, and wanted some tips to spruce up his house, well the living room to be exact. His house is a two story, built in the early eighties, kind of plain. The kids are grown and out of the house, and Tim and Jenny are ready to make the house nice for them selves.

Okay back to the living room. I recommended some formal wood trim in the living room. I gave them the name of a handyman that could give them some suggestions of what type of trim to use, and give them a price for the work. After some nice two-piece crown molding in the ceiling, Jen let Danny (the handyman) talk her into some two-piece chair rail molding. Boy, did that make a big difference in the living room.

Did they stop at the living room?