Mom the Builder

Mom has been on me for years to fix up my house. So she called me one day with what she thought was such a great idea that she was surprised she hadn’t thought of it earlier. She would act as my General Contractor and find people to do work on my house and all I would have to do is pay and make any necessary decisions. She would research contractors, get estimates, meet people at my house, etc. Since I was really needing my roof replaced I agreed that would be a good test and then we would evaluate from there. She would charge me a commission for the work she was doing.

She didn’t waste any time. A couple of days later she had lined up a couple of contractors to give her estimates and came over to the house to wait for them to show up. The first one was the guy who did Jeb’s roof. I didn’t even know Jeb had had his roof replaced recently. He ended up being the one we picked and his crew of about 5 Latino men came over today. They got to the house at about 8:15 and when I left at 9:20 they had most of the shingles off of the house.

Because Mom had to work the election today, she said she would send her “assistant” to check up on the progress at 11:30. Dad said they had everything down to the wood and were removing nails when he got there. When I got home at 5:30 they had most of the shingles up on the front of the house. By the end of the work day they had all but the sides of the roof and the ridge vent done. They had also installed new vents for the existing bathroom fans (previously venting under the eaves which I worried would cause moisture buildup and rot). Because they are putting in a ridge vent they were able to remove 6 existing attic vents and they also replaced a few cracked boards. Though Grant said I should have had them install new shingles over old, I think this turned out a lot better.

Anyway, the first job for Julie General Contracting (JGC) went pretty well. Now she wants a list of other jobs she can get done. As a bonus she took all of my screens to Ace in Tucker and had them rescreened (I took them down and put them back up). I wish I had more notice on what day the roofers were coming because I wound up rushing around to buy roof vents that I didn’t end up needing and find a place to keep the dogs during the work. As it was, Austin was home for all of today, but Jenny picked him up so that he will have some peace and quiet tomorrow. Katie stayed at Susan’s. And her assistant needs some help using the cell phone. He wondered why I didn’t answer my phone, leaving 4 messages for me on my home phone (3 of them while he was at my house).