David Starkweather

Everytime it used to rain the gutters on our front porch would overflow and drip over the edge. I tried to keep the gutters clear (cleaning them about four times a year) but inevitably they would overflow. This was more due to a poorly pitched gutter than them actually being clogged.

So after about a year or two of this drip, we noticed some rotting wood right below the corner of the gutter that had the drip. Thus, we have the problem,
looks like a small hole right…

Except when I finally got around to fixing the “problem”, I found out what the REAL problem was

Thats right, if you can’t tell from the foggy picture (because I did this on the hottest day of the summer), there is no header supporting the corner that had the drip because it had completely rotted away! Which would explain why the gutters weren’t pitched properly

So I ended up calling in the professionals. Remember that Linchpin I talked about in my review of Seth Godin’s book, Linchpin? yep, thats who I called. Night and Day Remodeling. They were referred to me by someone else and I absolutely recommend them to you, Call Orwin if you have anything that he can help you out with.

After Orwin and his crew replaced the header (they also tore down the old 70′s decorative supports and installed a new downspout!) We caulked all the new boards to make sure we didn’t have the same problems down the road.

Lastly, we replaced the old fascia board with a simple and contemporary 1 x 8 cedar trim board across the front and sides of the porch giving it a much more modern look and feel.  What a difference!

Just over a year ago we finished the basement but we never really got around to finishing the half bath that was down there. It was partially “finished” if you want to put it that way. There was a sink and toilet and thats about it.

We ended up painting the walls at the same time that we finished the rest of the basement but there was still no mirror, a nasty light fixture, no bath hardware and just a green painted concrete floor and lonely looking sink.
 
All that changed recently. The walls were already painted so we started by pulling out the nasty black rubber “baseboards”. and then we laid vinyl tile on the floor, which I have to say looks exactly like real tile (but much easier to install). After that we installed real baseboards around the bathroom which combined with the tile makes a huge difference all by itself.

The rest of the update was primarily cosmetic; adding a new mirror, new light fixture, new bathroom hardware, light switch covers and the misses even sewed a sink skirt.  All in all it wasn’t much work, but it makes a huge difference.