home repairs

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How to Rebuild Your Home or Office after an Emergency Caused by Inclement Weather 

Act with caution

When you have been given permission to return to your neighborhood and home, act with caution.

  • Check the outside of your house to see if there are cracks in the foundations or chimney and to check if the roof is sunken, loose or if there is any sign of deterioration.
  • Do not force the opening of a door if it is stuck. I could be holding the structure of the house.
  • Contact your insurance company. Ask what are the steps to follow to assess the damage to your home or business.
  • If you need a place to stay, you can find refuge through the Red Cross.

You may discover that due to the damage caused by the disaster it is necessary to do an intensive repair in your home or in your business, or directly a demolition. The availability of funds from insurance settlements and the assistance offered by the federal government to homeowners can be an opportunity for scammers to take unfair advantage of the situation. It is no secret that opportunistic scammers are alert to weather emergencies attracted by the demand for repairs and the availability of funds.

If a weather disaster causes serious damage to your home or business and you intend to repair the property, make sure you can do it legally. When you submit a work permit, local inspectors will determine what federal regulations you must comply with. Check the construction permit well to see what restrictions apply to your property and to check if the new structure meets the corresponding height standards.

If the structure is basically intact, but you need a contractor to help with some repairs, ask first and pay later. Remember that it must be SKEPTICAL: control the expenses that are charged to your name in the store of construction materials.

How to choose a contractor

  • Ask for recommendations from friends, family, neighbors, work colleagues, insurance agents or liquidators of insurance claims.
  • Stay away from contractors who encourage you to spend money on temporary repairs, offer “special prices” in exchange for your credit card number, or promise a loan in exchange for an advance charge.
  • Only deal with contractors who have the corresponding license and insurance. Ask the contractors for copies of their general liability and workers’ compensation insurance policies. Contact the local Home Builders Association office and consumer protection officials to find out if they register complaints against any of the contractors you are considering.
  • Get a written quote that includes all the verbal promises of the contractor. Before allowing someone to come into your home to make a budget, do not forget to ask if they will charge a fee for the budget.
  • Take your time to sign a contract. Ask for explanations about price variations, and do not automatically choose the lowest budget. Do not make deals with a contractor that asks you to pay all the work in advance. The norm is to pay a deposit equivalent to one-third of the total price of labor. Pay only by check or credit card, and only pay the final sum when the work is finished and you are satisfied with the result. Do not pay in cash.
  • Before signing a repair contract, ask a friend, family member or lawyer who is knowledgeable about these issues to review it. Before the work begins, get a copy of the signed final contract.
  • Before the work begins, ask your contractor to deliver a lien release. This is a document that states that workers and material suppliers will not claim money once you have paid the contractor. In any case, never sign a landlord’s statement that says you, the property owner, will cover the costs of the materials and labor if the contractor does not pay them.

How to pay for repair work

Never endorse your insurance payment check to a contractor. Instead, process a Certificate of Completion with your bank. The bank will pay the contractor for each completed stage of the work only after you express your agreement.

If you get a loan to pay for repair work, be careful to put your house as collateral: If you do not pay the loan on the agreed terms, you could lose your home. Consider asking a lawyer to review the loan documents.

If you used your credit card to pay for a product or service that you are not happy with, you may be able to recover your money if you dispute the charge. Write a letter to your credit card company detailing the matter; You must do so within a period of 60 days from the date you receive the invoice that includes the charge for the product or service disputed.

Using a credit card to pay for products and services offers you additional protection. In general, you can dispute the charges for unsatisfactory goods or services (even for issues related to the quality of an item) if you made a good faith effort to resolve the dispute with the seller, if the charge exceeds $ 50, or if you made the purchase in your state of residence or within a 100-mile radius of your current billing address.

If you are thinking to sell your home and going to shift to a new home than consider Hudson Movers for moving service.

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Attempting to Be the Next Chip and Joanna Gaines By Installing Weaber’s Weathered Wall Boards for Our New Headboard for Our Bed

My wife and I put the labor in Labor Day Weekend, that’s for sure…

Though undeniably, it was my parents who were the driving force for us to be able to get our projects completed:

While mom watched the kids the entire time, my dad led the projects. I served as the right hand man to him, and my wife handled some of the smaller projects.

We replaced the headboard of our bed using Weaber’s Weathered Wall Boards in Nantucket Gray. Here’s a link in case you’re interested in buying a similar product for the cheapest price on Amazon.

At Home Depot, we bought 3 boxes at $25 each, plus the $5’s worth in nails.

After using every single board, we created a 6 foot long, 5 foot 7 inch tall headboard.

But before we could start nailing the boards to the wall, we had to paint the walls first, as my wife find the perfect new color to compliment the boards, which is called Icicle (SW6238) from Lowe’s.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the wall I was painting, my wife was tackling the guest bathroom, with the new color Refresh (SW6751).

She also found a really cool mirror for us to replace the one that came with our house when we bought it new in January 2015.

By the time the paint dried, my wife felt the tone was darker than she imagined it would be, so we bought a $15 painting to offset the color a bit.

My wife also repainted the wall decor of our dining room, to make it look a little less dusty. She just simply used a can of spray paint for the job.

And speaking of the kitchen, since my dad and I got the new headboard finished quicker than we had hoped, we got started on the next project, which was to install shiplap as a backsplash for the kitchen.

It might have been possible to have completed the project in time before my parents had to go back to Alabama, but my dad realized that when the marble counters were installed, they were uneven. That meant he had to customize the bottom boards to match, so that all the other boards above it would be even.

We’ll finish up that job next time. As for now, my wife is very happy with the fruits of our labor; so that means I am happy.

 

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Our New Pull Down Kitchen Faucet by Pfister: Stellen LG529-SAC, Polished Chrome

Now that our family has been in our “new house” for over two and a half years, it was no surprise to learn that our standard kitchen faucet that came with our home was starting to leak. I just expect the need for minor repairs at this point.

Fate would have it, though, that Pfister reached out to me, asking if I would write a review on their website for the Stellen Pull Down Kitchen Faucet by Pfister if they sent me the product. I first mentioned it to my wife, then quickly agreed to the arrangement!

Admittedly, I’m on the opposite end of the spectrum of “handyman”…

However, my dad happened to be in town last weekend so we were able to get the new Stellen Pull Down Kitchen Faucet installed.

My wife loves our new faucet! It’s taller than the one we had before, so larger pots and pans get fit in the sink easier. We are always doing so many dishes at our house, so it really is great to have this new Pfister faucet to make things more efficient for us as part of our daily routine.

Another thing my wife specifically appreciates about this faucet is that the spray nozzle actually detaches from the faucet itself; as opposed to being separate like the one we had before.

Not to mention, our new faucet really adds a lot to the look of our kitchen. It’s one of those things you subconsciously notice when you walk into someone’s kitchen.

Especially if you have plans to sell your home at some point in the near future, upgrades to your kitchen and bathrooms can really go far as to impressing potential buyers.

So if you’re considering getting the Stellen Pull Down Kitchen Faucet by Pfister, I can tell you, we love ours. I hope my testimonial today gives you a glimpse of what it would be like to have one in your own kitchen.

But really, it’s this simple for me: My wife loves it, therefore I love it.

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Come Hell or High Water (or Both)

October 5, 2011 at 10:57 pm , by 

Ten months.

Exactly five years ago this very moment, on October 5th, 2006, I met my wife. And that’s exactly what I intended to write about today. I was going to explore how differently our lives would be today if that fateful night at a taping of a CMT show never brought us together and ultimately, how Jack would not be here today as the star of The Dadabase.

But instead, I’m psychologically processing the fact that this is a picture of our recently water damaged living room in our townhouse which we are supposed to be moving back into this weekend. God bless this mess:

And this is actually one of the tamest pictures. The rest are saved on a friend’s digital camera to send to our insurance company, State Farm. But I don’t have the right cord to upload them to my laptop tonight.

Truly, I am the kind of person who avoids drama at all costs. Some people are wired for it, like the people on Facebook who seem to constantly attract romantic partners who are destined to cheat on them. But not me. I duck out every chance I get when it comes to the mindset “why does it always rain on me?”.

Is it “the blogger’s curse” that I am experiencing?

In a cosmic effort to make sure I always have something interesting and relevant to say, must I feel compelled to move back to my hometown in Alabama only to move back so that I can learn to manage my finances better, then literally on the move back to Nashville have one of our cars break down so that we have to buy a new car, only to find that a few days after our renters moved out of our townhouse, that there was a loose washer on the upstairs toilet, causing my thousands of dollars worth of water damage?

Thank God our insurance policy was written up right before this happened and that our deductible is only $500. That goes well with the unexpected $250 I had to pay for two new tires on my car last week because I evidently ran over two nails in the road and the day of work missed last week when my wife was sick.

I get it that that trying times like these only mold us into more mature versions of ourselves. And I totally I am obsessed now with budgeting and saving as much money as I possibly can in every way. So really, I’m over this whole “life lessons” thing for a while. I would love a mental break.

We (jokingly?) said to each other if only pot were legal, tonight would be the night to try it. But then again, we’ve said that inside joke to each other more times than we can remember, throughout all the other challenges we have faced during these past few months.

In this moment, I am not seeking life lessons of self improvement and maturity. I’ll settle for mediocre and immature. Maybe I should start watching reruns of Two and a Half Men.

We are strong and we will soldier on. We may be lost and holding hands, but we’ll find out way out of this mess. It helps that Tom Petty’s song “I Won’t Back Down” has been playing on repeat in my head all day. (“You can stand me up at the gates of Hell but I won’t back down.”) My wife is taking this so much better than she should and I think she’s dealing with it slightly better than me. I am so blessed to have her and our son.

Our house will be repaired with enough (insurance) money; hopefully. But my wife and son are beyond priceless. Thank God for them.

*Editor’s note: I am letting my wife sleep instead of making her correct today’s Dadabase post; considering the circumstances. So do me a favor, leave me a comment for any typos or punctuation errors that you find and I’ll take care of them. Thanks!

 

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Extreme Makeover: House Painting Edition

October 4, 2011 at 11:25 pm , by 

Ten months.

I think the best way to begin is to share a few things that I would rather do than paint two bedrooms with vaulted ceilings:

1) For the next three months, I would have to replace my bio picture here on The Dadabase (featured right) with one where I have an un-ironic mustache.

2) For three nights in a row, I would have to sleep on one of those inflatable alligator pool toys in the middle of a swimming pool in Wisconsin, where it’s colder. Also, I would have to sleep fully dressed so that when I regularly fell into the cold water, I would remain that much colder.

3) Fly to Sacramento and back with my infant son, again.

Some of our very good friends have been kind to take us in as we have waited for the renters in our townhouse to move out. This weekend, we will finally move back into it and make it our own.

For me, making our townhouse our own means the three of us moving ourselves and our stuff back into it. And the guest room officially becomes Jack’s bedroom. I would say that pretty much makes it our own.

But my wife helped me realized that in order to truly make our townhouse our own, we would need to paint the two bedrooms.

It didn’t matter that neither of us had ever actually painted the interior of a house before, nor did we have any painting supplies or equipment, or even someone to watch Jack on short notice. Painting had to be done to make this townhouse of ours our own.

On Saturday, I was able to recruit my highly experienced friend Jason to teach me how to tape off the walls and how to, basically, paint a room. He also had a ladder for me to get the job done with. Then the next day, our friends who we have been staying with watched Jack as Jill and I tackled his bedroom.

Ultimately, something I have realized about my wife and I is this: When we really want to get a job done, no matter how outlandish and impractical it may seem, we find a way to get it done.

We did it; painted both bedrooms (with vaulted ceilings) within a weekend. My preconceived ideas about painting were accurate: painting is a miserable experience. But we survived it!

I want to brag on my wife’s ability to pick out colors. For our bedroom, she chose a very light green named “River Reed,” which has a breezy Caribbean feel  to it. Jack’s bedroom is Ranch Mink; a chocolate brown. We’re calling Jack’s bedroom his “boy cave.”

Want to see finished pictures of our fine work? Wait until we move in this weekend and I will surely deliver.