The Professional Contractor

My neighbor next door, Chris, is a professional contractor.  We have used him on several of our home projects, such as windows, roofs and miscellaneous repairs.  However, what really made him a professional in my eyes was the revamping of my shed.

For those of you who aren’t gardeners, it’s every gardener’s dream to own a potting shed.  This is a place where you can pot plants, go through seeds and decide what you want to put in your gardens, find all your gardening tools and hide out.  My dream was in the back yard with the doors falling off, the sides with holes in and a squirrel that took up residence for the winter.  To his credit, Chris did not laugh when I showed the shed to him and told him what I was looking for.

He walked around it and gave it a good going over.  He did say that I caught it just in time because another couple of months and there wouldn’t be anything there for him to work with.  The basic structure was sound; it needed a lot of work though. He did say he never saw a shed built quite like this one before. Although he had never made a potting shed, he listened to my explanation of what I wanted.  His first idea was to use the huge picture window he had removed from our living room and put it in the back wall to make it brighter.  The second thing was to put the smaller window in the roof for a sky light.  He went and priced the material that was used on the shed walls before and had another suggestion.  He said what was on previously was $40 a sheet and I would have to paint it to keep it looking nice.  He suggested gray siding with white trim and a gray roof.  I thought it sounded wonderful.  He said the upkeep of siding was maybe hosing it off once in a while but never having to paint it.

So he began. He removed the damaged wall material and replaced it with plywood. He downsized the doors so that I would have less of a barn door look and more wall space to hang my tools. He installed the big picture window.  Now I could have a view of the woods behind our house.  He put on the gray siding and ripped off the old roof.  He put in the second smaller window for the skylight and this really opened it up.   Chris told me that he had found some used counter tops on Craig’s list for $30 and that he could adapt them to how I wanted them.  The counter tops would wipe clean when any dirt was spilled on them. 

He installed the counter tops, put up hooks for hanging pots, a cork board for keeping track of my seeds, shelves and hooks for my gardening tools.  He also installed a half of a wooden tub so I could pour my dirt in it and not have to keep lifting bags every time I needed dirt.  And then it was finished! 

The reason why I say that Chris was a professional on this job is because it wasn’t a big job but he gave it the dedication and workmanship that he did the bigger jobs that we had him do.  To me, that is the mark of a true professional!

Have you dealt with a true professional?  Tell me about it.

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