If You Hire a Good Handyman

If you hire a good handyman, he's going to come over to see your project and give you a quote. You're going to have to wait six weeks because that's how far out he's booked. He has lots of good referrals so you decide to schedule in his next opening despite being a month and a half away. But that's ok because it'll give you time to order the doors and pick them up.

After 4 weeks of back and forth with the store, your doors are ready for pickup. You rent a Uhaul because you don't own a truck and then you and your spouse load the doors onto a hand truck and wheel them through the backyard to the patio. You're very proud of your hard work, and even your toddler says, "Those are the doors Mommy and Daddy carefully moved out of the big van" without you ever teaching her.

The doors we moved all the way to the back by ourselves.

When the day arrives for your new doors to be installed, he will start to uninstall the first existing door and frame carefully. You ask him to be careful with the trim because you want to reuse it if possible. He does a great job removing the door and frame. Unfortunately, you didn't measure the door correctly, and he forgot to check as an oversight. So your door is 4 inches too wide. 

Panicked, you call the store, ask them if they have the correct sized door in stock. They in fact do have two on hand, so the handyman graciously offers to drive the doors back to the store to do an exchange for the properly sized doors. 

An hour later, your husband and the handyman return with the properly sized doors. He continues to install the first door and finishes it at the end of day one.

The next day, he installs the second patio door, which goes much smoother than the first one. He puts all the trim he removed back on and caulks around the edges. You can hardly tell it's been redone. When he's all finished and done, he gives you the final bill and didn't even charge you extra for the trip to the store. In passing conversation, you also learn he is now booking jobs 3 months out. 

He leaves, you clean up, and you proceed to paint the door, inside and out. Except you overlooked the weather conditions and realized you painted with oil paint on a cold, wet day. So the edges don't dry properly and were partially ruined.

At least the inside paint looks great. 

However, painting is really not that big of a deal to you, , and since you're doing it yourself anyway, you decide you will fix it later in the summer once the temperature rises to unbearably hot again and oil paint can completely dry in a few hours. 

And later in the summer when you finally get around to repainting a second coat on the exterior of the doors, you'll be reminded again of the wonderful handyman who installed these doors and how he was worth the 6 week wait. 

*inspired by If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff *

If You Hire A Bad Handyman

If you hire a bad handyman, he's going to show up to your house guns blazing and start cutting and drilling. As he starts cutting and drilling haphazardly, he will miscalculate, and rather than cut a nice circular hole in the ceiling, he's going to cut a few circles because he encountered some ceiling rafters. Since he had to cut a few circles, he needs to patch the drywall around the hole. 

As you realize how unprofessional this handyman is turning out to be, you realize you have to watch his every move and make sure he's doing what he's supposed to do because you seem to actually know more than he does about this project. When he gets on the roof, you get on the roof with him because you want to make sure he installs the vent properly so there's no leaking in the roof. As he starts cutting, he starts making you nervous because you don't think he actually knows what he's doing.

You ask him to watch a YouTube video because you've brought your iPad up on the roof with you. As he watches the YouTube video with you, he realizes the guy in the video is actually doing a good job. And then you teach him another trick you learned from This Old House. And he tells you he likes that trick and he's learned something new. (Oh dear...🤦🏻‍♀️)

And somehow you end up being this handyman's assistant on the roof because you decided to get on the roof with him to keep an eye. And his actual assistant is simply on the grass looking up watching. And because you only remembered to change into tennis shoes and are still wearing non-work pants, the caulking gun he placed on the roof next to you with a tube of tar sealant has leaked out and smeared on the calf of your jeans.

The handyman will tell you they're ruined, and in the moment, you're not too disturbed by ruining $10 Forever 21 jeans. But as the days pass, you'll keep thinking about the pair of cheap, dark wash skinny jeans with tar on them which you actually liked. So you do a quick google search, bust our your bottle of Goo Gone and an old toothbrush, and you scrub that spot. And after the wash, you hang them up to air dry in hopes the stain is gone.

But it's still there. So you change your technique. You place an old piece of fabric inside the jean leg, spray Goo Gone on the outside, place another old piece of fabric on top, and press firmly to blot out that tar as the Goo Gone loosens it. 

And lots of darn brown is starting to bleed onto the rags. So you're hopeful. And as you run it through the wash again and let it air dry a second time, you still see the slightest hint of tar.

But it's better.

So, you might see me wearing my cheap dark wash skinny jeans with a dark stain on the right calf. And if you do, you might ask me what happened. And if you ask me what it is, I'm going to remember that it's roofing tar. I'm going to remember that time we wanted to install a ducted range hood vent, and I'm going to tell you not to hire a bad handyman. 

*Inspired by If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff*