Handymen

So far we have two handymen working on the house – both named Paul so it’s a little confusing. I will hereby refer to them as Electrician and Carpenter (a la Karen Walker from Will & Grace) to simplify things.

Electrician is obviously working on our electrical needs. He had his eye on the dishwasher we replaced, so he’s doing some work in exchange for it. He has taken down all the exterior lighting and will put up the new fixtures once the painting is complete. Electrician is also swapping out all outlets and light switches. They had been painted over in the past and we opted to just replace them. We are working on finding the perfect lighting for each area of the house, so as we purchase those he will install.

Carpenter is working on, you guessed it, carpentry. First on his list is installing quarter-rounds and molding (some baseboards need to be replaced throughout the house and the kitchen currently doesn’t have any crown molding). Last night he measured, then we went to Lowe’s and purchased the materials plus 12 interior doors, a sliding glass door (to replace the wonky French doors in the den) and a garage people door. The doors will take about three weeks to arrive, so plenty of time to get everything else done first! We also asked him to add inserts around the dishwasher and microwave as the new appliances are smaller than the available spaces – right now you can see the pipes behind the dishwasher and the microwave looks like it’s floating in the middle of nowhere. In addition, Carpenter is making either a mega-sized drawer or cabinet doors for under the kitchen sink as nothing is there at this point – fabric concealed the space beforehand. I’ve also inquired about him making a kitchen bench to provide a breakfast nook, but we’re waiting to find out his estimate. He will be tiling the floor in front of the fireplace as well. I think Carpenter might be my new best friend – he’s going to be around a lot!