Month: July 2018

Ceilings, and not the popcorn kind

susanmyoungLeave a comment

We all hate popcorn ceilings. So why do builders do them? Because they are easy. They save time. You hang your drywall, apply the texture and you are done. I have helped Don remove many popcorn ceilings over the years. It’s fairly easy although labor intensive and the finished product is a nice, flat ceiling, just as the almighty intended (if he cared about interior ceilings).

Flat ceilings are labor intensive. You hang the drywall, mud, tape, sand, prime and paint.  Imagine doing this 18 feet in the air. Our living room, kitchen and dining room all share one large ceiling that vaults to approximately 18 feet. This allows us to have clear stories above our covered porches and brings in plenty of sunlight throughout the day.Clear Story

Not long after Don was out of the turtle shell for his burst vertebrae, we tackled this ceiling. We had two layers of scaffolding with a drywall lift on top and wheels below. Our routine was to pull the 12 foot sheets of drywall into the loft, lift them onto the drywall lift, I would then hold it steady while Don wheeled us in place. I then cranked the lift up until the drywall was where it needed to be. Don would climb the scaffolding and screw the drywall in place then climb down and wheel us back to the loft for the next sheet. Rinse and repeat several more times. I have hung 12-foot drywall in the past. It is not as easy as 8 foot sheets as it’s more prone to breakage if it bends even a little too much. We were handling this drywall a lot and the more you handle it, the higher the chance of breaking. Somehow we managed this with most pieces intact, maybe because after all of these years of assisting Don, we have a system that works. In this living room, it tested our system to the max. You can’t imagine the feeling of exerting all of this effort to hang a sheet of drywall just to look back over the ceiling and see something on the scale of a postage stamp hanging there. Intimidating to say the least. We got it done, taped it, sanded it and painted it. Painting was fun. Instead of ceiling white, we agonized over a paint color that was a darker beige than our wall color only to have friends ask what color we planned to paint the living room and ceiling……..

The dining room was next with a beadboard barrel ceiling. Yeah, that was fun. We put wet towels on the back of the beadboard in an attempt to make them bend easier. Then you have to bend it in a curve and attach the center to the middle of the ceiling making sure that you are straight and square. Now imagine doing this with 12-foot sheets of drywall because that was the NEXT project when we did a barrel ceiling in our bedroom.  Honestly, I thought MY back would break from this work, let alone Don’s already recovering spine.

Is it worth it? You tell me. It’s this kind of detail that adds value to a home. I would do it again in a heartbeat. It’s worth the labor to get the finished results.

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Barrel Ceiling done in drywall

 

 

It’s Back Breaking Work………part 2

It’s Back Breaking Work………part 2

susanmyoung3 Comments

Part 1 of this story………..

June of 2004 was a miserable month. Don was laid up after a ladder kicked out from under him, bursting his L1 vertebrae and breaking a bone in his wrist. On the advice of a friend who was a surgeon, he was opting against surgery and instead wanted to give his back a chance to heal on its own. He was resting in bed (which was in the garage) in a turtle shell, trying not to move too much. The neurologist wanted to do surgery and warned that paralysis could happen without it. We both felt that healing on its own was the best option, but it was a scary option.

To make matters worse, our lender was threatening foreclosure. Don was our builder/contractor and now he was out of the picture. I had started my new real estate career earlier in the year which incensed our loan officer. She wanted me to stick it out at my previous job, not understanding that my position was going away and I would have been laid off if I hadn’t of quit first. When we started this project we owned our 8-1/2 acres and the garage/apartment free and clear. We had over $130,000 in assets that the bank was holding and they were threatening to take it all. The loan officer felt it was better to ruin us rather than risk any repercussions with her job.

Then there was the house. The windows had just been delivered and needed installed. We also needed the roof shingled and a few things done to shore up the house and completely dry it in. We were hoping that Don could recover and continue on but honestly, we didn’t know how things would turn out.

Also, keep in mind that I was only six months into a new real estate career. That in itself is stressful. Our life was a mess. I spent plenty of time in our shell of a house, trying to think of only the coming weeks and what needed to be done. I cleaned up the job site and hung Don’s tool belt on a nail. A sparrow found it and thought it was the perfect place to build a nest and raise her young. I let her have it. We had a long way to go before Don could use it again.

My favorite saying is “don’t be afraid to go out on a limb because that’s where the best fruit is.”  Dons favorite saying is “careful thought enhances luck”. Many times Don and I have been willing to put ourselves out on a limb but it was also done with plenty of careful thought. That thought always involves the advice of friends who have provided us with valuable input through the years. One friend that I called was a lender, Kay Taffer who I had started working with. Kay and I spent a lot of time going over our situation and she pulled out a miracle. She got my loan refinanced with a new lender. Another friend who came to our aid was Larry Ohl, who Don had worked with when we had first moved to Asheville. Larry spent several days helping me install the windows. My fellow real estate agents helped track down a roofer. Soon we were dried in.

The neurologist had told Don to expect three months in the turtle shell. At the end of the three months, Don called our laborer and put him to work decking the front porch, with his instruction. Don was feeling much better, his back appeared to be healing and the sparrow had left her nest in his tool belt. It was time to start working again. About that time he received a phone call from the neurologist who asked him what he was doing. He happily replied, “I’m working on my house!”  The neurologist was not thrilled with that answer and proceeded to tell Don all the many ways that his spine could still collapse, leaving him paralyzed for life. When I arrived home that day I found Don lying in bed, feeling completely dejected. I reminded him that most likely it was the doctors CYA talk, take it with a grain of salt. It turned out to be the last conversation that he had with his neurologist who pretty much washed his hands of him.

Don eventually went to physical therapy on the advice of his family doctor but his real physical therapy was working on our house. He started laying nearly 3,000 feet of oak hardwood floors while still in the turtle shell. The neurologist had said 3 months and since he was no longer communicating with us, we felt that 4 months was a safer bet. Don started by laying a few boards, then going to our bedroom in the garage and resting his back for a half hour. Then a few more boards and another rest. The boards eventually grew into a bundle a day then several bundles a day. He made hash marks on the kitchen wall to track his progress. By the end, he had worked himself out of the turtle shell and was back to work, albeit cautiously. Our new loan was in place. we were ready to move forward once again!

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