One word explains my feeling at the moment, “YAHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!”
Prior to the tenants being selected and beginning their process of moving in. Several huge things were done to the apartment upstairs. See it all started about last weekend (April 28). From the advertisement within Craigslist, several people (about 15 in all) were interested in the apartment. I would say that I had a good turn while using Craigslist. On a side note, I certainly recommend updating the ad every Thursday. Many people only looked at the latest ad's…Anyway many of the people that viewed the house were not really ready to move in until June… With so many of the people saying that they didn’t want to move in until June… Mentally I had shut down the thought that the apartment needed to be completed before May… So I relaxed all weekend (April 28). The weekend prior I was in Virginia for work. So to help relax, I purchase a new rocking chair and Adirondack chair and enjoyed the beautiful weekend that we had…
I sat on the back porch drinking ice tea all day Saturday and Sunday… It was so relaxing…I even feel asleep on the porch… Well on Sunday around 6:30 pm. I got a visit from two potential tenants. They want to be roommates… No problem... I asked when they would like to move in… MAY 1st…. OK slight problem...After submitting their paperwork for the standard credit and background checks, I went into high gear to finish the apartment… The week started out with me trying to install new door handles for the closet doors. Well it turned out that the closet door thickness would not work for any standard handles that I had purchased… So instead of sweating over trying to find new handles that would work, I decided to update the doors…. What a bad idea that turnout to be… Well not really but because of this decision it caused me to not get to bed at a decent time for the entire week…
I thought the doors would be quick and easy to install. Well it turned out that I was wrong once again… Because the original doors were not standard in thickness nor were they standard in width, I had to customize the jambs by adding addition wood. Two of the doors widths were about 30 inches… So instead of purchasing a 31 inch door and rip the extra width down… I decided to purchase a 29 inch door. Plus I also saved a total of 60 dollars for purchasing 29 inch doors…
Here is the closet door in the master bedroom...
After installing the new door, a gap can be noted. Plus the door tried to swing into the closet. Thus stressing the hinges.
Here is picture showing a new strip of wood that minimizes the gap...
Here is a picture of the living room's new closet door installed…I also decided to install new floors within two of the closets… At first I was not, but after looking at them for a long period of time… I felt that it would be best… Here is a picture showing the master bedroom closet floor.
Crappy!!!!
Here is a picture showing the living room closet. Both closets look similar before and after.The final push in completing the apartment was taking way too long… So by Wednesday, I decided to take a day off from work and focus finishing the entire apartment. By the end of Wednesday night, the new closet doors were installed, damage plugs were replace, new blinds were also installed for 10 windows, a damaged floor trim was fixed, a new lock for the attic installed and the closet floors were newly updated.
The only thing that was left by Thursday night was painting the doors, clean and get all of the paperwork in order before Friday’s afternoon signing. I believe on Thursday night, I was in bed by 3 am and only slept for about 4 hours… To be honest, the excitement of finally getting a tenant upstairs carried me through the day on Friday… A sense of accomplishment certainly did hit me when I handed the keys over to the new tenants…
With that said, I want to thank you for joining me on my journey, although this is certainly not the end…I will be starting a new project in the next couple of weeks…Let's see... new steps (front and back), new hardwood floor for the front entrance, new lights for the basement, motion lights for outside, and also my apartment... But I think I deserve a little break for a while…Especially since my Birthday is on Wednesday... what do you think? So until next time, happy building…
Here I am in Richmond, Virginia. (April 19, 2009)
