I am a general contractor by trade. I was fortunate to get my start in the business when there were still building/remodeling companies that had hands-on employees, older men who knew every aspect, or many aspects of residential construction. I learned from men who took pride in learning as many aspects of residential building/remodeling as possible, doing excellent work and who were good teachers.
It is mostly specialists now in the business, framers, tilers, flooring guys, drywallers, roofers etc. A remodeling outfit is often just the owner, an office person and a salesman, all the work is hired out, contracted. Back when I got started, we did it all in-house, pardon the pun.
I’ve been on my own in the business since 2005, though I was forced to find other work during the Great Recession, after the global credit collapse in 2008, and during the Covid psyop lockdown. These days I have found a niche in my rural county, between the handymen and the big builder/remodelers. I have only been back in this town where I grew up, two and a half years, only back in remodeling a year now. I am booked about two months in advance, and the spring-call rush has only begun. Last summer I built some decks, did a little house surgery here and there, installed a bunch of doors, did some house and church painting and assorted odd jobs. I did not have much remodeling/handyman work to do over the winter, but I kept myself quite busy regardless, on other projects. I expect, the more work I do, the more work I will have year-round.

Last Friday, I drove to a local trailer park to fix the floor of a cubby where a water heater goes. The homeowner was a local farm-wife, who lost her husband, who spends her summers here, near her four daughters. There are about 100 units, on a small local lake. It seemed I was the only person in the park on this day, or recently, as this seems a seasonal park.
Someone else sprayed that spray foam.
The water heater had been leaking for awhile. Someone had set this vinyl down, it was not properly sealed in any fashion and the slow leak warped the pressed, particle-board sub-floor.
This is a 24x24” ceramic tile. I only had to cut one side of it, and notch for the water and electrical lines.
There is no electrical or water in the unit right now, but there was this useful pile of remnant snow and ice, that worked perfectly to keep the diamond blade wet.
A good fit, I glued it with construction adhesive, then caulked it liberally with Vulkem, the best caulk I know of, if a bit noxious to work with. It does not need to be pretty, and the homeowner is pleased. If I am out here to repair her kitchen floor, which has a soft spot in front of the sink (from a failed, probably improperly installed, dishwasher hose that flooded the area), I will put a rubber mat down to lessen the stress on the tile, and maybe keep it from cracking if the installers are careless and drop the water heater on it.
As you might imagine, I do not have a lot of competitors for this kind of work.
When I was done with the job, which took me about three hours including the near hour on the road, I had a text message waiting, from an existing client, reminding me they want their decks refinished. They happened to be only a few miles away. This house is on a lake as well; I should have taken a picture of the lake, it was beautiful, late-season black with white cracking, seen through a wall of ragged oaks without their leaves.
We talked about this work last year but you need a week of no rain, and we had what seemed like five days of rain for every seven, most of the summer into fall.
As to this visit, I can roll the hour into the estimate.
One of my current jobs is working on one of the units of a three-unit rental, owned by one of my grade-school baseball coaches: framing, hanging several doors and hanging drywall for the drywall finish guys. There is a bank of windows looking out on a lake. It is one of the perks of remodeling where I live, working next to a lake or wetlands. The lake-ice was opening up in the sun and the wind, and we watched the progress of it as it tracked from one end of the row of windows to the other, throughout the day.
On the way home from taking a look at those decks, I called a woman who had contacted me about refurbishing an outdoor bench. It is a very elaborate, antique wood bench, originally stained and sealed, that was foolishly painted twice. No one bothered to sand the original finish, so a lot of the paint is pealing, exposing the original finish. After we discussed it, she pointed out that she recently had some patio furniture delivered, but she would not know where to begin putting it together. She seemed to assume the company she bought it from would put it together, but I assured her they don’t do that. “Do you do that kind of thing?” I could do it right now, I said. She was rather glad to hear that. Her big German shepherd likes me too. I made a good impression. She is from Texas, she lost her husband, she moved up here to be close to her daughter and grandkids. I told her, not a lot of people are moving from Texas to Minnesota, more the other way around. She laughed.
After about a half-hour into it, I considered telling her to call the company and have them retrieve their crap. It appears like a rather nice set of patio furniture, except it was constructed in China, a lot of it is not machined properly so the screws don’t line up very well, some of the screws do not set easily even if they start well, and most of the screws you have to tighten with an Allen wrench, which is idiotic, probably tripling the time involved, making the work exceedingly more difficult. A lot of the screws I ended up having to turn with a large pliers. Clearly no one at the manufacturer in China bothered to put one together - or they did, laughed and said, stupid Americans.
She came out and saw that I was struggling (though I remained friendly and cheerful), as the first chair I put together turned out to be the worst-machined of the bunch, which took me most of an hour. She said she had to leave in about forty minutes. “What do I owe you?” I told her my price, based on how long I expected to take. She says, “Well, I am going to pay you more than that.” She went inside and came out with a $600 check.
Like I said, I don’t have a lot of competitors for this work.
It wasn’t right on a lake, but across the road from the houses on the lake, with a nice wetland behind the house. It was about 55F and rather pleasant really, but for the poorly made Chinese crap.
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So, all told, I made about $1000 this day. Of course, mostly useless government agencies will take a significant cut of that, plus insurance etc.
But a good day, doing mundane, meaningful work for people who have a very hard time finding anyone willing and able to do such work. 99.99% of Americans would not have been able to assemble that patio furniture.
Which brings me back to the topics and status of this Substack. I have not been posting near as much, since I made the recent change, to take the focus off of politics. The politics bit wasn’t really working anyway, I only recently passed the 1300 subscriber mark, which after nearly three years of steady posts, notes and comments on other Substacks, is not much of a sign of excellence.
Nor has the recent change lead to increasing interest, quite the contrary - which is not complaining. I have nothing to complain about. I have a good life with meaningful work, I’m not writing here on Substack to make money or stack subscribers (though more of both is a blessing.) I am here to problem solve. I am here to say things the vast majority are not willing or able to say. I may not have a lot of clients, but my clients love me, my skills and my willingness to do work others in my field won’t do. I am that kind of writer too I think, not many readers, but those who do read my work appreciate me.
Anyway, this substack is what it is. I am going to continue to write about the esoteric, other strange topics, and about how that translates in my world. I am going to continue to write. Thank you for subscribing, thank you for reading.
Beautiful work WHD. Wish you were close at hand as the appointment time for even for crap tradespeople around here is months out. for an estimate!... lol, it has been my experience that assemblage of the first piece of imported furniture is always an ultimate challenge!🤣
I have followed you from that first 4th of July and must say have always enjoyed the political posts less than all your other (eclectic) ones. So keep it up when you have the chance! 🤗💚🙏
I recently worked on enlightening a die-hard Lutheran that "all the sephirot are equally holy" (including Malkuth) and that when Creation was finished the Lord saw it and proclaimed it very good. Meaning, the material world (often contrasted wrongly with the spiritual especially by Xian modern gnostics like her) is a place where we can enjoy doing and being with things that are holy. She was objecting to the many passages in the Jewish Pentateuch which describe in excruciating (for her) detail how the Tent precursor of the temple was to be made. I might have opened a crack in her "material world is lesser" mindset. Maybe. Bezalel, I appreciate you, at least. May you continue to be blessed!