Finishing Up the Outside Work on the Rental…

We are a little over midway through our return stay in College Station to whip our rent house back into prime shape after having been rented to the same two fellows with three dogs for 8 plus years. The good news is that we are about halfway finished with our major repairs as well.

I spent the better part of a week completing our fencing project. The first 3 days were spent removing and rebuilding the side fence after negotiating with the neighbor to purchase materials as long as I performed the labor. I mostly worked from around 7:30 am to about 1:00 pm as it was simply too hot and muggy to work any longer than that.

It took longer to build the back fence because it took more time negotiating with that neighbor to pay for the materials. She finally agreed so I was able to tear down the old fence situated on her property line. Without her approval my alternate plan would have been to build our fence in front of her old fence without tearing it down since it was in her property.

Since there was slightly more fence in the backyard than the side it took another day to finish. Also temperatures had risen into the upper 90’s along with the usual summertime high humidity so there were heat advisories suggesting the “feel like” heat was in the mid 110’s. As a result I rarely made it 1:00 pm on those days. Thankfully the fencing project is all done now so we can check that off the to-do list.

While I was finishing up the fencing I had a concrete contractor come in to tear out our old, cracked driveway and replace it with all new concrete. As they were finishing up I also repaired our backyard deck and the side gate. While I was doing the fencing Sharon was busy with the power washer power cleaning all of the deck and the outside of the house . With all that done there is only a little touch up painting and tree work left on the outside.

The majority of the remainder of our work will be inside where at least it will be air conditioned. Our tenant will be closing on his duplex sometime near the end of June but because of the pre-existing leases in his new duplex, he cannot move in until late July. He has communicated with us that as he packs and empties rooms we can come inside to begin the last of the work.

We will replace all the flooring, repaint the entire inside, do some minor repairs and lots of deep cleaning.  During our down time while waiting to start the inside work we have reconnected with friends in the area, scheduled Sharon a series of physical therapy visits for an overuse injury and explored some of the new happy hours in town.  Such is our life right now in College Station, Texas…

NOTE: We are back in our old home town until  August 7th…Done