Month: November 2016

I tend to market myself as a “small project specialist,” as opposed to someone who can build a deck for you.  I do like doing little fixes that have the greatest impact.

A client in an apartment building had some window sills that were in need of some love and attention.  One was above a kitchen sink, and over time the finish had worn off and water was getting into the wood (from the watering of plants that lived there).  So I sanded off the vestiges of the old polyurethane finish (in painting and refinishing, surface prep is EVERYTHING) and started to apply new.

I won’t bore you with the many interim steps– suffice to say I applied multiple coats and it just came out wonderfully:

Talk about job satisfaction 🙂  I really prefer to finish wood with tung oil but for this often moist environment, the waterproof poly was the way to go.  Next I have to paint the trim!

 

 

 

 

So again, I am what I think of as a basic handy . . . man.  Guy.  Person.   Whatever.  I don’t have a big truck full of power tools.  My #1 tool is my little problem solving brain.

That said, I have a customer who wanted some shelves for her basement.

A little aside here, one thing I learned about “handymanning” is, you rarely ever just do a single job.  Once people have me in their house doing one thing, they right away bring out a list, and I end up being a regular caretaker.  I have my monday client, my tuesday client, for a month or two at a time.  Or more.

So anyway . . . AGAIN . . . I don’t build things, I don’t install doors or windows, I fix existing . . . BUT . . .  this one customer, oddly enough, had a whole workshop with a work bench and a circular saw (which is all you really need to build shelves aside from basic tools), she said help yourself, and I love new toys, so, off I went to Sterritt Lumber in Watertown.

And just 3 hours later, voila:

Being simple basement shelves, I have a simple design system of placing supports on the two end pieces, tacking them into place, and then when the main shelves are on them I can drill holes and put in screws to hold the shelves for real, and everything is nice and and level.

In this basement they had an odd situation with a window, so I added some carefully cut extra pieces to extend the top all the way to the window for extra space.

Not bad for a guy who does not build shelves 🙂