Happiness is...finding a good handyman

Who knew?

My sweet husband Corin is a lot handier (more handy?) than he will readily admit. When we married, he had me convinced he didn't have a handy bone in his body. But, then we bought the townhouse. Dern it if he didn't turn out to be pretty handy after all. But, in fairness, the man is a partner at a big law firm and has two kids he enjoys spending time with (not to mention a fun wife to make time for), so his time for handiness is very limited. We have had a couple of lingering issues that have been driving me nuts. For example, the giant gaping hole in the sheetrock in Evan's bathroom where he pulled the towel bar (and sheetrock screw) right out of the wall - apparently thinking that the towel bar would make an excellent jungle gym. He was quite surprised when he ended up on his bottom in a heap on the floor. And I was quite unhappy when I saw the hole in the wall the size of my fist.

Another example: the gate latches in our teeny, tiny yard worked for about 12 days after we moved into our house. We've been here 5-1/2 years. Every once in a while (more often than I'd like), when we are leaving the house - usually in a huge hurry - our back gate would be standing wide open. This would always prompt Corin to pull over and park the car, get out and tinker with it until it remained closed long enough for him to get back into the car. Often, on a windy day, by the time he was back in and had the car in drive, the gate would blow open again. Very frustrating.

So, we've been in the market for a handyman. I thought we had found one. I got a recommendation from a neighbor, but the guy made two appointments with me and never came. Then, I saw a van at another neighbor's house with a handyman company name and number on it. It occurred to me that I had seen this van a number of times before. If the neighbor continued using him repeatedly, I figured that was as good as an actual recommendation, so I wrote down the number off the van. Then I didn't call. Lucky for me, though, one of the many times a day when I was backing out of the garage, the guy was at his van. He came over, gave me a very reasonable estimate, and came back the next three days in a row to fix stuff. (The sheetrock involved a multi-step process that required return visits.) In addition, he fixed a door jamb that was out of alignment, which prevented the door from closing all the way and he put new shelf brackets on a bookshelf out in my garage that we use for storage. Note to self: If there are two paint cans holding up a shelf and that shelf is holding a 24-pack of bottled water... best not to try to yank one of the paint cans out from under the shelf before removing the items on top. But, doing this in front of the handyman is what resulted in having new brackets for said shelf, so I guess sometimes stupidity pays off.

Anyway, now I find myself going from room to room in the house admiring the new sheetrock (and newly re-hung towel bar), the no-longer-rusting-faucet in the half bath, etc. The fact that all three projects, plus the two extras cost much less than I would have expected is a bonus that just makes me, well... very happy. I feel like I have my house back. I am already making a mental list of the things he will do the next time he comes. Happy, happy, happy...It doesn't take much.