Renovating Tyrell's Apartment

I don't know, man. I don't know why I feel so good. Maybe it's the two consecutive nights of 5 hours of sleep. Maybe it's the fact that the shipping depot was almost empty yesterday. Maybe it's the fact that it's Labor Day and I don't have to work. Whatever the reason, I feel good and should take advantage of this rare feeling by posting. I have at least 10 posts in my head, so I'll try to get out as many as possible until this feeling wears off. And I'll start with Property 2...

The renovation for Tyrell’s apartment was to be done by the soon-to-be-great Handyman Ahkenaten Kor, and I started off with the walls. Like Property 1’s downstairs apartment in July, I had the easy job of painting white over white. After cutting, one coat pretty much did the trick in the living room and dining room. I also did one bedroom, leaving the second one alone because it didn’t really need it. Next was the floors…

Looks sanded, right?

A little bit of scraping and I saw just how sad my sanding skills were, and it was because I was using the wrong sander. By the time I realized that I needed a drum sander rather than a square sander, I had used up a good amount of low grit sandpaper and my back was killing me from lugging that heavy-ass sander around. My choice was to either get a drum sander and do it all over again, or apply the polyurethane and hope for the best.

"Finished" floors. I left the job half done and applied a nice thin coat of polyurethane to bring out that shine that tenants love.

The next part was the bathroom. I took a bunch of “before” pictures, but they’re not on my phone for some god-awful reason. There was an extremely ugly medicine cabinet hanging above the sink, and the bathtub was dirty. Because the electric wiring was hooked up to the old cabinet, I had Handyman Alfonso safely unhook it and put up the new cabinet. While he was there, I had him clean the bathtub too:

Old medicine cabinet, and a real piece of shit. I needed Handyman Alfonso to disconnect the wire because I didn't know how

$163 for the new medicine cabinet. There are cheaper cabinets but I needed a 30 x 30, big enough to cover the ugly area around the old cabinet.

The coolest thing about this renovation was Handyman Alfonso showing me how to do a few things:

I replaced a couple of lights and switches after Alfonso showed me how. I wrapped the wire in electrical tape after it was done. The coolest part is turning the power back on and flipping the switch or plugging an appliance and seeing everything work. That was all me!

I know these are simple tasks for most people, but for me… wow. Caulking and changing switches and outlets… that sense of accomplishment felt really cool. It was especially nice (and a bit stupid) of Alfonso to show me these things, knowing that I’ll need him less as my repair knowledge increases.

As with Property 1’s renovations, in July, I did a half-assed job. The floors should really have been sanded down to its original base, so they’ll continue to look like shiny crap. And I really wanted to replace those basic kitchen cabinets with higher quality ones. But I’m getting better at this stuff. The next renovation will not be a half-assed job, and I’ll be very proud of myself. Until then, one new repair at a time…