Every House Has a Secret - 12

 

 

Monday morning Rand met Nick, the contractor, at the house to tell him exactly what they wanted him to do. When Rand kidded that he could stick around to supervise, Nick told him that would be fine, but it would add to the cost of the job. "Or the amount of security Brady puts on my building."

 

"Um, I'm leaving…now," Rand replied, and did.

 

That evening, Brady and Rand installed new clothes bars in the closet, after painting the interior. Then they set to work painting the bedroom—which they finished Tuesday evening.

 

"We probably should have sanded the floor first," Brady pointed out halfway through.

 

"With what? We haven't rented the sander yet. By the time we get to that point the paint will be dry enough in here we won't have to worry."

 

"You're right. So tomorrow night we tackle the cracked plaster in the living room."

 

Rand twirled a finger, getting a grin from his husband as he replied, "Like you said, the hard stuff first. We'll save the sanding until the weekend."

 

They were just crossing the back yard to the garage when Ken came to the fence. "Your contractors are doing a fantastic job on your porch."

 

Rand looked at Brady, then they hurried around to the front of the house. Ken joined them, grinning. "You haven't seen it yet, I take it."

 

"Nope. We've been using the alley," Brady admitted as he stared at what now looked like a whole new porch. "Damn, it's great."

 

The bricks had been sandblasted clean of the flaking white paint. The wooden porch pillars, and the framework around the top of the porch and the door and window frames, had been cleaned of the brown paint and sanded. Two of the pillars were already varnished.

 

Brady lifted a corner of the tarp covering the stairs and saw that the crack in the concrete between two of  them was gone, filled with fresh concrete which matched what was already there.

 

"I'm going to have to give him a top-of-the-line security system," Brady said. He'd planned on doing that, but now he'd add all the bells and whistles to boot.

 

"Have you talked with Nick about the kitchen?" Rand asked.

 

"No. That's on my agenda for tomorrow."

 

* * * *

 

Wednesday morning, Brady took some time from work to return to the house to talk with Nick.

 

"Have you chosen new cupboards, yet?" Nick asked when Brady showed him the kitchen.

 

"Nope, but we will. I figure we can take down the old ones ourselves, to save time."

 

Nick shook his head. "Let us do it all. It works better that way. What are we bartering for, for this?"

 

"Free background checks?"

 

"Works for me. Let me know when you've picked what you want installed. I'll take measurements and email them to you, so you get the right sizes."

 

"Great. I hate to admit it but that didn't occur to us."

 

"It would have, once you were trying to decide." Nick grinned. "Then you'd have been back here with a tape measure. I'm saving you the extra drive."