Reno Diary #15: I Hand off the Task List to the Handyman

nvilu7

Oct 1

3 min read

62 Days to Moving Day

Supplies for kitchen demo — Doug is ready to rumble.

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The day I closed on the house I also ended a 10-year stint as the volunteer property manager for my HOA.

It was a lot.

So, for the first time since I saw the house, I took a day off.

Today marked the beginning of my labor of love to save my house and bring it from 1950 to the 21^st century.

I talked to my real estate agent and agreed to put my condo on the market in 30 days. He thought that it would sell quickly, but that I’d be able to stay in the condo until the beginning of the following month.

Which gave me roughly 62 days to get the house move-in-ready.

Time flies whether you’re having fun or not.

My first post-close task was meeting with Doug the handyman, reviewing his task list and timeline, and getting him started.

The Handyman Renovation Timeline

Handyman Reno Task List — Doug’s complete task list. Every project had a deadline.

I printed two copies of the list, one for me and one for Doug. I wanted to go over it one more time with Doug before he got started.

This would be the third time we’d reviewed the list. But for me, that wasn’t overkill.

I had no qualms about Doug’s ability to do anything on the list.

What I wanted to make triple-sure was that he could stick to the timeline—because most of the reno projects being done by other trades were contingent on Doug getting his projects done on time.

For example, if Doug wasn’t able to complete the first two projects on time, I would have to reschedule the electrician, plumber, and flooring installer.

If Doug wasn’t able to complete the exterior repairs on time, he wouldn’t be able to complete the exterior painting before the inevitable Pacific Northwest winter rain started in October.

And I really needed to get the house painted before winter to avoid further damage.

Chipped paint on an old home — I needed to get the exterior painted before the winter rains arrived.

The Task List Handoff

I headed to the house and got there a little early.

Doug arrived on time with his tools to start tearing out the original kitchen cabinets.

A good sign.

We reviewed the list. I could see that Doug just wanted to get on with it and not talk through the tasks again, but I insisted.

Last chance for changes.

Doug was fine with the timeline as is, which meant that I didn’t have to rework my current master plan at all.

Awesome.

As I turned to leave, Doug mentioned that his wife was leaving that day for China to visit her family for a month (half of the time I had to complete the reno), leaving their two grade-school kids with him.

So he wouldn’t be able to get here until 9 am, and he could only stay until 3 pm.

My timeline for his projects was based on an 8-hour workday, which had suddenly been compacted to 6 hours.

It turned out that this trip had been planned for months.

I was a little irritated that he didn’t bring this up when I engaged him for the job two weeks ago.

“Do you want to rework the timeline a bit and add some extra days?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I’ve got enough time to get everything done.”

“OK,” I said.

But I made a mental note to check on his progress during my daily check-in at the house—and every day he was scheduled to work on the reno.

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