Handy Hubbies

I'm so thankful for Handy Hubbies, aren't you? What would we do without them? My mom and I would have to agree that our homes have been richly blessed by our husbands. This past weekend was even more confirmation.

When Hugh and I bought our foreclosed home, we knew that #1 it was a fixer-upper and #2 it would take forever to get everything we want done, knowing that we are on a very tight budget. One project was replacing the "threshold." (Hugh just told me what that was called.) Just look at the picture below so you know what I'm talking about.

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The wood had rotted because gutters were never put on our house nor was there a storm door, so the rain water would hit the wood plate and sink down into the sub-floor, rotting the wood over a span of fourteen years. That's how old our house is. We really didn't know what to expect, but we didn't think it was going to be as big of a deal as it really was.

Last Friday, Hugh bought a new threshold and assumed there was going to be an even swap. Guess again. Much to his surprise, he was able to pound out the sub floor with a little tap-a-roo of his screw-driver. So....we had a GAPING hole in our floor, one that could be seen even with the door closed. All I could think about were snakes. You know everybody ALWAYS says, "Watch out for snakes" when someone is headed into the crawl space. I remember seeing a snake skin in our crawl space when we were buying the house. Yikes!

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The problem was that we had pergo flooring that was glued together into one "big-mama" piece. If we pryed off some pieces to replace the sub-floor, we'd be ordering more wood flooring for the WHOLE living room. So, what did he do? My mom and dad's visit could not have come at a more perfect time. Hugh was working on limited time and rain was in the forecast, so having my dad there to teach him what to do, made this a one-day job. There's nothing like learning first-hand from someone. Yeah, you can spend hours upon hours studying, but why would you opt for that if you can learn from experience? My dad having thirty plus years of carpentry under his belt, having taken carpentry classes and being one that always thrives off of handy-man projects, knew exactly what to do, what to buy, what tools were needed and how to do it. Whew! Praise the Lord for His provision. They had to replace the sub-floor, all from underneath the house. It took Hugh and my dad ALL DAY Saturday. They came out with stiff, sore backs from being hunched over in the crawl space working for most of the day. What a project!!!

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Hugh was MORE THAN excited to use his saw. Arr! Arr! Arr!

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Here's Dad handing tools to Hugh, who was under the house.

Everything looks great and as good as new!!! What does the finished product look like? (I will be posting that soon!)