@wwwiebe: I finished the inside already. The only thing left is to resand a floor that he put Old English scratch cover all over the dining room! Victor, can you believe this? I cannot. Even a five-year-old would know better. But, better than the wood stove that he bought and installed to save $ on the heating bill. I have radiators. So I have to pull up the tiles off my antique floor and resand that (he put it in the hallway, so I can see it as I walk in the door) OMG. and repoint the chimney that he vented it into. I am whining, but, the fact is, I did want him to feel like home, I just didn't think he would be a homewrecker! It is coming along fine and, in fact, because of him being so careless, things are getting fixed up better than they already were.
So, should I thank him?
One of my other brothers showed me how to shingle when he was redoing the lake house, it was only one level, so I wasn't afraid. :) He put a piece of wood on the roof to make me feel like I wasn't sliding down. :) It was actually quite simplistic, once you got the pattern going. It surprised me, especially when I know how much the roofing cost. Of course, he peeled everything off before I got there, so all the hard work was done.
House projects never end. Never!!
The pecans and black walnuts are collected and I cannot believe it, but, this is the third house that I have had lots of pecan trees. The other place that had as many was in Texas. I usually send some (I sometimes get to bring them) to my siblings and my neighbors on both sides love when I leave them some. I send the black walnuts to a shelling place where they do it as they are so messy! Ewww! and my hands get black! And sticky!! Do you have any nut trees where you are?
No, you shouldn't be thanking him for trashing your house; you would have gotten to the needed repairs anyway, and you wouldn't have been feeling negative about it.
Roofing isn't difficult, it's just a big ass mess. I was glad to not need to worry about any of the trash, or adding additional air flow into the roof (there was none before, and the attic paid the price).
I've got no nut trees; the trees I have in the yard are all either ornamental or dead (seriously, I watched one of them die this year - it'd be sad if I hadn't wanted to not have it anyway). I do have a boatload of roots though! Aboot the entire back yard is one big underground root. I can't dig anywhere.
@wwwiebe
The only repair the truly needed to be done was the roof. He was trying to change the soffits and literally made a mess out of them oh, so I have to have them torn out and done professionally. The house was painted right before he moved in and he didn't power wash it every year so it picked up green moss on the north side of the house oh, so I need to do that and when I power washed some of it I started feeling a little bit of paint up on the Gingerbread. What a bummer! But it's okay because it will look fresh as a daisy when the trim is repainted. As I write this I can honestly say that the trim is finished on the porch and the first coat of primer is on so that's kind of exciting. Inch by inch. I think I will be able to get some of this done. As for the roots in your yard oh, there must be a tree that's sending out feeders. I have a silver maple that I took from my house upon the Canadian border hand planted it there. Inside of two years it had feeder Roots all the way through several acres and I had silver Maples popping up everywhere. Every week I cut them down a little bit more and pretty soon I will cut the roots and pull them out. I'm going to take a look out at the trees tomorrow because believe it or not pecans have a season where they bear a lot of nuts and then the next year hardly any. Because I haven't really seen much I'm wondering if this is the ultra a year but I'll let you know and if there's the break is over abundance I will be happy to send some your way. Be a pal and say that you'll take them off my hands. I'll keep you posted on them.
Oh yes, I do have a tree in the backyard. Nine trees, in fact, but one in particular that is causing me headaches. It needs to come out, but is going to cost me between $4,000-$6,000 that I'm not looking forward to spending. I'm giving some serious thought to forgetting my age and cutting it down myself, piece by piece.
I was happy to have the roofing guys do the soffits, too. That's another chore I could have done, but was happy to watch someone else do.
Oh yeah, I'll take some pecans! And I will make pie! Now that I'm already looking forward to!