Chapter 9

The electrician was first tradesman to work on the building. He pulled in the saw service, while Tom’s son worked with a battery powered saws for the first half hour. He also was scheduled to come back the next week, but only after I had the roof repaired. He suggested, “Water and live electrical lines is the recipe for disaster.”

Once Tom got started, not only did he finished the first bay, but he also finished the other bays in the two days he had allotted for his first bite at the apple. He just couldn’t do anything inside, so he pulled off the job until I got the roof repair done next. It was Tom’s suggestion that the AAA roofing crew come in to at least give me an estimate next.

Since I trusted Tom, I called AAA Roofing Company. The owner came out with a long ladder and a badly stained truck. I met him in the parking lot of the car wash. I also parked as far as possible from his nasty truck.

“You Rogers?” he asked as I approached him.

“Yeah that’s me. I have to admit I don’t know shit about flat roofs, so help me understand what has to be done in order to fix this one.” I suggested.

“First, I’m Jack Brooks. Tom Jones said I could trust you, and to treat you right, so lets don’t bullshit each other. Now I need to take a good look at it, inside and out.” With that he put his ladder up against the outside wall of bay one. Then he went inside each bay. He took pictures of the old roof deck from that perspective.

“Here is the news, good or bad I can’t say,” Jack informed me. “There is less roof deck damage than I expected. You are going to have to remove the last roof, haul away the trash, repair the deck, then redo the rubber membrane. This is the place where I tell you do not walk on it, ever. If you get a leak call me to repair it. It is guaranteed not to leak for ten years, after that you will likely need to replace it when it leaks. The price for your roof will be $3350 plus tax in advance.”

“I’ll hand you the cash when you show up in this parking lot with the crew and your materials,” I said.

“Tom said you were a hard ass.” Jack removed his calendar then added. How about start on Thursday and finish it by Friday?”

“Then two grand first thing Thursday, and the balance on Friday when you are finished?” I asked.

“Done,” he said.

That completed the first week’s work. I wanted no more than one trade at a time working in the car wash. Since I had four and a half more months, I was in no hurry to finish it.

I had the electrician in next, so I also had his bill next. He installed metal tubes to carry the wires from the ceilings to the wall receptacles. Then I had him install an extra circuit in the kitchen for the microwave. I did that just to make sure there wasn’t an overload. I also told him to rewire the shop/laundry area for power tools as well as the electric clothes dryer. He did all that in a day, as well as drop the wires for an overhead light in every room.

“I hate table lamps,” I explained when I paid him the $1150.

After I cleared all that up, at least money wise, the plumber came in. He ran the pipes everywhere. He ran them through the drain trenches in the floors of the wash bays. Then from those the pipes branched of into the concrete. He broke tracks in the floor leading to the spots where the sink, toilet, and shower cabinet would be. After that he had to run the plumbing line for the kitchen sink, and the washer and utility sink.

He explained that he would be back when Tom finished the floors, and I chose the fixtures. He still had to set the toilet, shower cabinet and three sinks. Yes I had let him talk me into a slop sink in the Laundry room.

Even with the cheapest fixtures and the smallest amount of work the whole thing was going to be just over $4,200 bucks. But that included the fixtures which he insisted on picking up so there would be no wasted time waiting for them to arrive.

When I went by at the end of Tom’s initial week, there were holes in the walls between the wash bays. They were for the three connecting doors. There was a front door, and a rear patio door both had been set eight inches above the concrete. Obviously Tom was planning on a raised floor. That had been pitched to me, and it made sense, so I went along.

Tom finished his work in about a week. Later he handed me his bill on the job site. It was for his labor only. It was for fifteen hundred bucks so I didn’t question it. The extra was for building and installing cabinets, counters, and shelves during the two days of the last week. He had also finished the framing for the new interior walls. However he didn’t paint it. I noticed it had low ceilings because he raised the floors. The house also had lots of insulation, so I expected low heating and cooling expenses.

So in two months of juggling schedules it was all done. I still had two and a half months left on my lease. The plan was to move my furniture from The Haven to the Car Wash and never go back to The Haven again. So I locked the door on the Car Wash and just visited it a few times to add things myself.

I was the one who painted the new wood trim, and interior walls. Every thing was low enough to paint with a three step ladder. I even did the ceiling with it. It took me as long to finish the painting as it took Tom to do all of his work.

Tom came back and added a deck on the front and the rear. Then I had an aluminum awning placed over the front and back decks. I was afraid I would cry so I postponed the final accounting for the month after I declared the job complete. That was just before Christmas, since I didn’t declare it finished until I had the painting, cleaning, and appliances present.

The final expenses so far totalled slightly over $62,000 which included the appliances, decks, and awnings. I was going to have an expense for doing something to the parking area and yard as well. That could and would wait until spring.

Most of the built in shelves came from inspirations from my studio at the Haven. The ten foot wide twenty four foot long bedroom and bath bay, consisted of a six by ten foot bathroom, and a ten by eighteen foot bedroom space. The wall on one side of the bedroom area was nothing but shelves. With one hanging rod and space built into it.

My small twin bed would fit in the emplty space fine. It would have a blanket trunk at the end of the bed, thanks to Thia. Since the living room was the same size as the other rooms, it had a small sofa, chairs, and a study desk in the corner created by the patio door and the kitchen wall. Everything else was going to be just be squeezed in somewhere.

I didn’t show or even tell Thia about it until my last week at The Haven. That was also the last week of January. The Car Wash had been finished over two months by that time.

The big Christmas news had been that Alison had been commissioned to write the script for a TV four hour mini series. It was to be based on her soon to be published novel. I had no idea how I felt about that. But I still wished her luck publicly.