Construction Report: Screened Door...

I may have mentioned my brother-in-law, Junior before. He has been known to dabble in the trades and can usually figure out an efficient way to build or fix most things. Like the time that he found it to be more cost effective to repair a leaf rake, rather than splurge for a new one at the Home Depot.

You might recall that during a brief hiatus from my regular line of work, I did some freelance craftsmanship for him, just to help pass the time.

So this past weekend, we were over at my Mother-in-laws house, and Junior had come up with a plan to build a screened door for the cabana out back. The thinking was, with scrap wood and some screen from the shed, he could whip together a nice door for less than the $23.00 that one of the big box stores wanted for the cheapest model on sale.I suppose I could just cut to the chase and tell you that nothing ever seems to work as planned, and as evidence, I offer you this picture of a stool Junior made out of scrap wood.The only thing missing is the yellow caution tape. But, on to the project. First, as Norm Abrahm, the guy on The New Yankee Workshop says, safety first. Never mix power tools with beer.

Actually, Junior came up with a really good design. The door frame is made from 1x3 wood left over from some other project (see stool above) with a thin piece of plywood on the bottom for sturdiness and to keep a little dog from scratching on the screen. At about mid point, there is a 1X4 horizontal stabilizer, not only for sturdiness, but to allow two separate pieces of screen to be used. Pretty smart, eh? But the screen was too short (even in two pieces), and he still needed the hardware. Plus, with all the inadvertent nicks and chips, he had to purchase some wood putty to fill the voids. Before we ever did a dry fit, we had to make a quick run over to Culebra Hardware to get some supplies, and by now, the parts and pieces (not even considering the time) had exceeded the $23.00 Junior was trying to save. Another brother-in-law, Ed from Rockport, got in on the action. In total, four of us got our hands dirty on this project. Bob Vila would be spinning in his grave (if he were in fact deceased).Please don't misunderstand - it isn't that we aren't all capable of a simple project like building a door to slap on to the front of a cabana, I think it is the overall effect of having four different people measuring, cutting, stapling and screwing. Screwing the door to the frame.After multiple attempts, we figured out where we needed to make a few trims and shaves of the existing frame, and eventually, a grill full of fajitas and a few 12-packs of beer later, we had the door in place.The final touch was a fresh coat of paint, added by another brother-in-law, Armando (no relation to Armando Montelongo). Looks pretty good for a little more than $23.00 and about 4 hours of labor from four of us.

Yard Work Report: Need a Rake?

My wife and I spent the day at her mom's house so we could help out with a few chores that needed to be done. The city is supposed to start brush pick-up in her neighborhood Monday, so we went over for some tree trimming, fence mending, pecan picking, and a little entertaining rake repairing.By the time we arrived, my brother-in-law Junior, had made quite a project of the deforestation of the yard. The house, over in the Lackland area of town, has pecan trees, front and back. But, many of them have outlived their pecan life and the branches fall without warning. So, some major trimming had to occur.

My big project involved the replacing of an old gate with an older gate. I know, doesn't really make sense, but what the heck. A few months back, I had built a new gate for my own privacy fence with the intentions of throwing the old one out with our brush collection. My mother-in-law saw it and said it would be perfect to replace one on the back of her yard. She has a small section on the side of her shed that we often store old wood and stuff in, and the gate covers the ugliness from view. Plus, when some people drink beer, they often get the urge to pee outdoors, and that little closed area allows them the freedom to be one with nature, but not offend anyone else. I know what you are thinking, and no, I prefer to use any of the three "regular" facilities available. I can't take my wife anywhere. Just kidding.So, the gist of it is, I pulled off the old gate with no problem but found that the new old gate was a bit wider and heavier and was going to need some heavy duty hinges. So, a trip to Home Depot, then a trip to my house to grab my circular saw, and we were in business.During the course of all this work, my wife and her sister started picking up pecans. This led to Junior throwing a leaf rake into the tree so as to shake loose some of the pecans. The end result was that my mother-in-law's favorite gardening tool was damaged during the turbulent flight into one of the unforgiving and unyielding tree branches.Junior made a valiant attempt at hiding the damaged rake from view, but my wife promptly ratted him out to the mother-in-law, and over the next hour or so, he began a rather unorthodox attempt at repairing the yard implement.Luckily, my late father-in-law Nando, was always good for having some spare screws, washers and other assorted items handy in his workshop, so Junior had all he needed, provided his imagination held out.

In the meantime, my sister-in-law's husband Armando, used a plastic spatula tied to a rope to lasso a dead branch from the tree and pull it down. Everyone cheered when on his 7th or 8th attempt, he found success.My son watched from mid tree.Naturally, we couldn't let this day pass without some vittles, so the grill was lit and we threw on some chicken, ribs, and a few burgers for good measure.Armando repaired an extension cord that had seen better days.Finally, after several screws, a few pieces of hardware and lots of sheer determination, Junior had successfully put the rake back into clean, dry, and serviceable order. And he even took it for a test drive to prove it.The only problem is, it requires safety gloves, eye protection and a hard hat to use it, due to the China-like refusal to follow any acceptable OSHA standards!

Crappy Job Report: The Time I got Poop in my Eye...

The other day while my wife and I traveled through some of the older parts of town to avoid contact with the construction on Loop 410, I was reminded of a brief period that I was working with my brother-in-law while waiting for details of my current contract to be worked out.

I'm not in the construction trade, but what guy would pass up the opportunity to be like Bob Vila for a few weeks while making a few dollars? If you are familiar with the neighborhoods in between IH-10 and Loop 410 between Vance-Jackson and West Avenue, you get the idea of where I am talking about.

My brother-in-law, Junior as we call him, works in the trades business. He is certainly a jack of all trades and can do electrical, plumbing, general construction, and he has also done repair of restaurant equipment and other things. This is no free advertisement or anything - so please don't e-mail me asking to see if I can get you a good rate. During the time of this story, we had been working to refurbish several rental properties around the city and had a few different property managers and Realtors that would call us for bids.

So anyway, he calls me and asks me if I can go look at a property to help him assess the situation. He says that this Realtor has a property that was vacated by the renters and that the house needs to be cleaned up. Now keep in mind, you all know that when people leave a rental property, they usually just un-ass, take the stuff they want and leave the rest. The result is, the landlord is stuck with hauling out the trash, getting rid of a dead couch and cleaning things up. A few guys and a pick-up truck can usually clear out a house in no time.

The Realtor said that “Before you make your bid, you really need to go look at the place.” Junior was pretty adamant that he could get the job done for less than $500.00. The Realtor again said, “No, you need to see the place”.

You have no doubt heard of cat ladies that have 68 cats living in a house, crapping everywhere, newspapers piled up, opened cans of cat food sitting all over the place. This was worse. No cats.

The people who lived in the house were no doubt sick.

When I first peered through the window, I though I might be in beer drinker’s heaven. It was this experience which taught me to take my camera with me everywhere I go. If I had the camera to take pictures, you might find it easier to believe this.

This 3 bedroom, 2-bath house was a sea of beer cans and trash piled 2 feet high. But, they had small paths leading to strategic locations like the refrigerator, the bathroom, and the front door. I refused to enter the house for fear of rats. The beer cans and the 18-pack cardboard cases were left in place as if the occupants had simply arranged to have a non-stop supply of beer delivered, and that they sat there and drank one beer, dropped the can and opened the next. When the first case was finished, they simply opened the next and so on and so on until their was an 1,800 square foot house full of beer cans, pizza boxes, dirty laundry, discarded tissues and so on.

Oh, the bathrooms were a hoot. And yes, beer cans in the bathrooms. The walls of the shower stall and the tub were covered in mold. And for some reason, they stopped putting the toilet paper in the toilet – they just wiped their butts and threw the toilet paper on the floor. Perhaps they had visited Mexico and decided to be exotic or something.

So, long story short, Junior had to hire some other workers he found to clear out the entire house. In addition to $650.00, he told them they could take anything that wasn’t nailed down that they wanted (nice side by side refrigerator at Best Buy - $1,200 – the mold encased version, free). These guys came in with gloves, masks, shovels and a huge truck and cleared the place in a matter of hours.

You can empty the contents, but you can’t empty the filth. That’s when I showed up with a power washer. Bob Vila would never recommend using a power washer inside a house on solid wood floors and sheetrock. I march to the beat of a different drummer I suppose.

The worst part was when I aimed the power washer at one of the toilets.

Big mistake.

Apparently, when they decided that the toilet was running too much, they decided to turn off the water supply to it. Well, apparently, that didn’t stop someone from taking a dump in it. By the time I got there with my power washer, the poop in the pot had dried. Dried feces and 2300 psi from the power washer equals a whole new game of foul smelling doo-doo flying back at you.

Thank God I have fast reflexes. But I could not dodge the smell. I literally threw up on the spot.

I ran out of the house and threw up in the yard. I waited a few minutes to regain my composure and decided to go in for another whiff. I threw up again.

In the end, I had to hold my breath long enough to get a hose through the bathroom window into the toilet so I could try to clear things up. I let the hose run full blast for 15 minutes before it cleared the funk from the bathroom. Oh, it was a total of 4 times that I threw up.

Okay, three days later, the house was clean and the real estate lady did not even recognize the place. She was in shock. Turns out, it was her house and she had been letting her daughter and her family live there, and the reason the house was vacated was that she had moved them into a new house she bought in a nicer neighborhood.

Attention residents of Stone Oak: Your new neighbor is Joe Dirt!