Deferred Maintenance

So when I got the house appraised a couple of years ago, generally things were good but there were several "deferred maintenance" issues. I thought that was the best way I could remember of someone calling me lazy. It's like saying, you know there is work to do (plaster falling off the walls, rotten floor boards, etc... ) but that you are just too busy (football season, sleeping in, drinking beer... ) to get to it today: deferred maintenance.

Anyway, I realized that if left up to me actually doing the work, it was likely that the maintenance would be deferred another decade or so, so I asked around and, hopefully, found the right guy. He's the brother in law of a co-worker and is a construction foreman by day. Weekends and night he does side jobs like -

1) replacing the buckling plaster and nasty sconce cans in my living room by hanging new dry wall. I know some of you out there like sconces, but tough. They're gone.


2) framing and hanging dry wall on that ridiculous 4th door leading into the master bedroom. Can anyone really NEED four doors in the bedroom. If you need to get out of that room that fast then there are probably much more serious issues.


3) actually making a real closet out of the "window" closet I've been living with since I bought this place. Why would anyone have a closet that didn't go all the way to the floor or left about two feet of ceiling space inside that was inaccessible. Weird. Oh, and it turns out that the closet used to be a door. So FIVE doors into this room. Seriously, why?


OK, now this isn't gonna sound PC but I was hesitant on hiring the guy to hang dry wall because he, well, he's got a hook where one of his hands used to be. I know, I know, bad Mat... but have you ever wrestled with dry wall? The stuff is brittle, heavy and just plain a pain in the ass. I asked my friend and yes, it is weird but he's really good so just do it. So Salvador shows up with all the gear and promptly starts kicking ass. So far so good. He is busy taping up the dry wall joints in the living room and it all looks good. But I have to wonder, there are a few small holes in the middle of the panels that he has taped over that look suspiciously hook sized.