Handy Daddy

A couple of months ago, we found chipped paint on the floor in the corner of the kids' bathroom. We had no idea where it came from. A little bit later, I saw that our bathroom mirror, a hulking 74" x 42" glass behemoth (yes, I just measured it right now with the tape measure), had come completely unattached from the wall, and was precariously kept from falling to the floor in a billion pieces by the medicine cabinet. So, being the handy woman that I am, I just pushed it back against the wall, and declared it fixed.

Then a short while later, we found the mirror decided to now push the bathroom counter off the wall, and slide down the wall, behind the cabinet. I asked my husband if he could fix it. "Nuh uh" was the response. I threatened to call a handyman and *gasp* spend money to get it fixed. "Knock yourself out" was the response. Okay! I felt like I was just given carte blanche. I went onto Facebook and asked if anybody knew of any handymans in the area, to fix our mirror. A friend quickly responded with a phone number, a website, and glowing reviews of how the guy was so friendly and professional. So I gave them a call on a Friday night, and left them a message. I figured that since it's a Friday night, I won't hear from them until Monday morning. I think I probably let a couple weeks pass before I called them again. They finally got a guy to come out for an estimate, and it took another week to get the estimate.

These guys wanted over $500 to fix the mirror.

Never mind. We'll try Plan B.

Problem is, what's Plan B? I didn't want to hop back onto Facebook and ask for a different reference since I'm sure my friend would ask what happened to the guy she so glowingly reviewed, so I just sat and twiddled my thumbs.

Just over a week ago, I was driving home from preschool when I saw a van on the freeway: Daddy and Daughter Handyman and Maintenance. There was a phone number on it, so I figured why not give them a call. So right there on the freeway, I pulled out my Bluetooth (stinkin' cell phone law!) and called them up. I thought I'd get a receptionist or a daughter or something, but nope, I got the Handy Daddy himself.

Two days later, he was standing in our kitchen (his daughter was playing with Abi and Eliz), giving us an estimate for not only the mirror itself (he quoted less than $200!), but also for

• changing out our medicine cabinets (I've hated them because the shelves were unmovable),
• changing out our wobbly toilet,
• whacking away the vertical columns between my kitchen and bathroom cabinet doors (can't fit anything in my cabinets because of those stupid columns in the middle of the opening!),
• straightening a kitchen drawer,
• re-taping and painting the peeling ceiling, and
• installing new blinds in Elizabeth's bedroom.

All the labor for significantly less than $500. Of course we'll pay for the new toilet, medicine cabinets, and blinds in addition to the labor costs, but what handyman out there would pay for those out of his own pocket?

Well, today, I'm happy to say that our bathroom mirror is now firmly reattached to the wall, we now have medicine cabinets that have movable shelves (and we can now fit taller bottles inside instead of laying stuff across the shelves!), our new, shiny low-flush toilet is now no longer wobbly, and Elizabeth's blinds no longer require my entire body weight to lift 18 inches. We expect to see him again on Tuesday to work on the cabinets, the drawer, and the ceiling.

If you need stuff done around the house, let me know. I'll send the Handy Daddy over. Sorry, I'm keeping my own husband though.