Okay, it finally stopped raining so my handyman can start working on some outdoor projects. Today he started on my front stairs. I know they are in bad shape and have been leaking. I can see the water damage under the stairs. The city made my contractor seal under the stairs with drywall. I was annoyed at the time because when I needed to work on the stairs I would have to tear out the drywall.
Today was that day. First the handyman cleaned the stairs. Then he began digging out the caulking step by step. About five steps in, he called me over to show me that there is a space between the wall and the stair. Uh oh.
We went under the stairs and he tore down the drywall. It was damp as I suspected. The drywall practically came right off. There is rotted wood but not as much wet stuff as I suspected. No mold. I guess the holes in the caulking kept the mold from forming. Finally a highlight!
We created a plan of what to do. The main supports seem fine since they are concrete. The wood on one side is rotted out for about 4 feet. We found supports that the previous contractor put in but didn't put them all the way to the ground. Weird. My handyman is going to put a new wood piece and support it. He is going to put full supports where there are partial supports. He is going to remove all the drywall so I won't have this problem again. Then once the stairs are all supported again, he is going to caulk the remaining stairs and then come back and seal the stairs.
By the way they look beautiful. I forgot how white the stairs are. They have been so dark grey and dirty for so long.
The handyman keeps saying to me, "why did they do this?" I keep telling him it will drive him crazy if he keeps asking himself this. Just assume my previous contractor jerry-rigged things everywhere and the house is almost 100 years old so things are going to be done in an unorthodox way. He is here to fix their mistakes! Lucky him.
The handyman also put screws in a door, fixed my french door hinge, took my stove pipe off and redid it, and fixed a lock. It was a busy day. I am super happy about the stove pipe. I have an old Wedgewood stove/oven and it has the old silver stove pipe that goes into the wall. The last person working on it installed it backward. He took it apart and found out it was not connected correctly. It looks great now. The stove also has an exhaust hole that goes up to the roof that had some newspaper stuffed in it. I pulled the paper out and fortunately had a bucket under the hole. A bunch of stuff came out. It looked like roofing material and dirt. I cleaned it out as best as I could but the handyman will have to fix it and put a screen on it. I am so happy this finally got done. The kitchen will be correctly ventilated when the stove/oven is on now.
Hopefully this heatwave will end soon. Poor Lucky is not a happy camper. She hates the heat.
Until tomorrow...
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