okay
so what is your latest home repair
well uh we have done some minor repairs we're getting the house ready to sell
uh-huh
and but i mean i really minor kinds of things you know like painting the painting the the smudge marks and uh uh
right
gosh we haven't done anything uh real major
um did some gardening did some landscaping i don't know that that counts as home repair
oh yeah
um
any kind of upgrade
i would guess so i think the last thing we really did was was uh we had some gutters put up um
and uh that made a big difference in terms of i mean the water was coming off the roof and just destroying the lawn
i we moved here from uh from New England about uh three years ago
uh-huh
and uh we weren't quite prepared for the kinds of rains that uh you can get down here and uh
oh yeah
but the gutter the the uh gutters made a big difference
how about you
and your house didn't have it on there before
no it well we bought the house new and uh it was kind of the you know you get what you pay for
uh-huh
and uh we didn't invest in the gutters at the time
huh
i figures that was something they put on all houses i don't know
no no
definitely not in fact we still don't have them in the back yard yeah
oh really
you kind of have to dig a trench right
right
yeah i remember i've i've
i just got married so i've only lived in an apartment and a duplex so i've you know
oh yeah
have not owned a home yet
yeah
but i remember my parents built their home and
they had to they had a lot of lot of work in fact it was fifteen years ago and they're still uh
trying to finish the basement and up you know it's a never ending process
yeah
i don't think you
yeah that's it i don't think you ever you're ever completely done
um i know we had there's a lot of things we would have done if we'd stayed here uh we could use a shed out in the back
uh-huh
and uh need to build could use the kids could use some shelves in their rooms um
but i don't think you know being a new home we wouldn't do any kind of major remodeling like redoing the kitchen or anything like that
yeah
uh maybe in the new maybe in the new house
right
the next house uh
where are you moving to
well we're we're going to stay in the area uh and uh
uh we just it it turns out that this house was much bigger and more expensive than than we wanted to to invest in
uh-huh
and uh so we decided that uh instead of throwing all our money money into the house we'd uh we'd try to invest it a little better and uh that way uh uh
uh you know it's it's it's just doesn't make sense to be house poor in these economic times you know what i mean
yeah
and it's a buyer's market now right
it seems to be yeah it seems to be um
the interest rates just went down i don't know i would imagine that's going to encourage more people to uh to look to buy a house
uh-huh
um
so uh
well see
have you ever bought an old house or rented an old house and then fixed it up
i never had uh my wife uh parents did that they uh my wife's from New Hampshire
uh-huh
and they bought this big old farm house
which you know didn't even have indoor plumbing kind of thing
and uh they converted the barn into a garage and built a couple of rooms above the barn
um
and uh they did a lot of remodeling in that house and of course had plumbing put in
uh-huh
and in fact our our first apartment well our second apartment was what they did was they took a corner of the house and converted it into an apartment
and my wife's grandfather is just really handy with uh tools and and and as a handyman kind of thing In fact he built his own house from scratch
oh cool
and and the funny thing about it is you you know you ask him well where did you learn to do that and he says well i read it in a book
oh wow
and so course course
at the time that he lived that's when all the neighbors used to pitch in and help with that kind of thing and so
yeah
wish it was that way now don't you
i do too boy
everybody could build each other's house for dirt
right yeah that would be uh and and he had it was a really nice house he did a really nice job but he he built an apartment for us
huh
built the whole kitchen and the whole thing i mean we had a a whole whole uh uh
self-contained apartment so uh and it was nice nice
i'm going to sneeze in a second i'm going wonder how they're going to uh record that um
okay
they uh
i've been sneezing all day so
have you it's uh pollen season i guess
yeah
but uh what he did was this house is so big that now that he's retired and everything what they do is they have a home in Florida
and he completed and they in the Summer when it's just too hot to stay in Florida they go up to New Hampshire and he built himself an apartment in another corner of the house
um
and he and his uh wife stay up there and then in the winter they go back to Florida and they live in a little trailer home in Florida
uh-huh that's always nice to have
yeah
to know somebody like that
oh yeah
that can that's handy
yeah of course he's he built the shelves in the in the garage for me
you ought to have him come down for a visit when you get your new house
yeah yeah i'm sure he'd i'm sure he'd love to uh he he's getting a little impatient now because
i guess he's uh in his early eighties now and uh he's still you know very active and uh but you know the hand's just not as steady as it used to be
uh-huh
and drawing those lines they just don't seem to come out as straight as they used to and it frustrates him
um
i mean this guy i mean i used to think it was amazing when he was in his sixties and seventies he used to climb out on the roof and do stuff and and uh i think if you didn't stop him he'd still do it today
um-hum
oh i'm looking forward to owning a house or
getting a a small house that meets our needs and then fixing it up
yeah
yeah it's a lot of fun um our first house uh a real small house
and uh i i did you know a lot of little things there i put put up my own gutters there and uh
the uh being that it was in New England uh it was one of these little houses that was all electric
huh
and uh and New Hampshire at the time had the highest utility costs in the country
um
so I was I mean we were just paying incredible bills during the long cold Winters
so i had a uh wood stove put in big old wood stove put in in the basement and i built and i uh put in uh registers in the floors and stuff
yeah
and it was a small house so that wood stove heated up the whole house and
yeah my parents have one of those they do and they get really hot
oh yeah and uh the nice thing about up there is you know you could buy the wood pretty cheap
in fact what you did was during the spring you'd order the wood when it was green and then by wintertime it had dried out and you could use it
uh-huh
and you could get it really cheap when it was green
huh
so that was the trick where where where do you live
i live in Sherman now i'm from Indiana
oh okay
so i've lived in Sherman three years
yeah
work for TI
yeah
and uh
like i said i'm looking forward to maybe buying a house while the interest rate's still cheap and fixing it up
right
yeah that i think that that's always fun and and you know you can save a lot of money if you buy buy one of these homes that need some fixing up so long as it doesn't have foundation problems
yeah
and uh you can do a lot of nice stuff
seems to be a lot of that
you can uh i mean it can really be your home because you've put your touch on it you know
uh-huh
if that's that's that was the nice thing about having a house built
was that you got to pick you know the the floor plan and you got to pick the color of the carpet and and all this kind of stuff
yeah
but uh yeah that's fun
how long did you say you've been married
uh not even a year yet
oh
oh those were the days i've got three kids now
oh really
and they're getting to the point that's that's that's fun too you know talk about fixing up they're getting to the point where they're old enough to start pitching in
yeah
and uh and helping with that kind of stuff
my parents just got done fixing the house up again because for
our wedding you know and then my brother's graduation they finally finished the basement after like living there fifteen years they had an occasion to finish it so
oh
yeah
it was kind of neat to see it finally all come together
yeah that's nice i'd started to redo the basement in uh in our house in New Hampshire i was going to make it into like a family room
and i'd started putting the flooring in and stuff but i never finished it the uh
we got transferred out here
uh-huh
or actually got i i took the job out here and they moved me out here so uh
excuse the buzzer
i i couldn't get used to the fact that houses down in Texas don't have basements
oh that was the that's the hardest thing for us too
because i love like big rec rooms you know and
yeah yeah
oh yeah my my wife's house in New Hampshire had a pool table that
uh-huh
