Professionals Are Worth It

In my unplanned quest this year to redo, fix and upgrade parts of our house that we have lived in for 22 years I have now entered the largest phase, redo of the play room and breakfast room. I had no idea at the turn of the new year that I would fix the driveway, refinish the floors, and recover all the furniture, paint and spiff up the biggest room in the house.

The driveway had been plaguing us as with each larger and more ferocious storm more and more of our gravel would wash down the street making a treacherous gulley at the joint of the driveway and the road. So many times I had rolled our giant wheelbarrow with the one leaky tire down the street to shovel gravel from the storm drain and attempt to roll the flat-wheeled barrow up our long hill to fill in our driveway. Then one day I went to garden club and met a speaker who was sent from heaven to fix my driveway. It was easy, all I had to do was make a few decisions and write a check.

Then I went to get my floors done. I hired the best people I could find. Although I had a lot of work to prep the house the actual floor refinishing was perfect and when they turned my house back over to me there was not a spec of dust or a drip of varnish or whatever they covered the floors with anywhere. Paying was becoming favorite way to redo my house.

That brings me to my most recent project. To redo the playroom I had to get the electricians to replace all the ceiling lights, move the cable lines, add electrical outlets which involved getting our old faithful carpenter to remove baseboards and then replace them after the electrical work was done. Since the whole back of the house needed to be painted from the top of the fourteen-foot ceilings to the trim I hired my neighbor’s painters who they have been using for 27 years.

Five men and one woman dressed up as a man showed up at my house yesterday and in the last two days have painted everything with such precision that not a drop of paint is on the floor and the walls are as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Now I can paint and if you watch any DIY shows they always tell the homeowners to paint since it can save you a bunch of money to do it yourself.

But I can’t paint like these steady handed craftsmen from heaven and certainly not with the speed that they can. I also could not balance a ladder on one step while painting the crown molding fourteen feet up. Tomorrow is the last day when they are finishing up painting the kitchen ceiling and the few feet of kitchen walls. This is one check I will be happy to write. Paying to have this big job done so quickly and efficiently is worth every cent. I might be changing my cheep skate ways.