Happy Handyman = Happy Day.

I stand thoroughly corrected about my first thoughts of the new handyman and his son.  I guess on that first day, they were just getting adjusted to the work here, and hadn't hit their stride yet. They have since not only hit their stride, but have surpassed it.  Happy day.

The fence is all painted and ready to be re-assembled... the whole thing had to be taken down because it was sitting in front of all the roses bushes.  Down it came, they scraped it all and gave it two coats of paint, and up it will go again, looking like a brand new picket fence.  That was supposed to happen today, but it rained most of the day.  Handyman Sr. asked me yesterday if we had any inside work for him and Handyman Jr. to do today..... he had checked the weather forecast and he knew about today's rain. (Extra points for thinking ahead goes to Handyman Sr.)

I did have inside painting for them to do..... the walls surrounding the stairway going up to the second floor, and the large hallway in the center of all the second-floor rooms.  I had bought the paint in January, thinking my husband and I could get that done.  It never happened, because we really needed a scaffolding set-up because of the high walls over that stairway.  So the paint cans have just been resting comfortably in the pantry all these months. Not anymore.

Handyman Sr. took a look at the hallway and the stairway walls before he left yesterday..... he said a scaffolding could be rented, but setting up a ladder with a long board running from that to the top of the staircase would work just fine.  He assured me that he had done the same thing many times before, and I trusted his judgment (not his first rodeo, he told me).

The rain started pouring down during the middle of the night.  Shortly before that, I heard a family of coyotes howling at the moon, sounding as if they were right outside the house. This morning, I saw a family of vultures, picking at the bones of whatever the coyotes had killed last night... those huge ugly birds were out in the field behind the barn at first light.  (Not exactly the high point of my day.)

Handyman Sr. and Handyman Jr. finished painting the stairway walls and the second floor hallway at one o'clock this afternoon...... they started at 9:00 this morning and worked straight through.  It looks beautiful....... gone are the white walls that looked like egg-shells from white chickens, and now there's a warm creamy beige on all those walls.  The furniture in the hallway looks much better sitting against the beige, and the stairway walls are perfectly done, no streaks, no smudges against the ceiling, no drips.  Happy day.

We have not only found one very good and reliable handyman... we have found two.  Happy happy day.