Testing my boundaries

I have a little German in me, and some Russian too. So I think that's where my stubborn streak comes from. I'm not like all the other real estate investors.

Most investors are male, and that's definitely not me. Many investors don't do their own handy work, and that's also not me. And what percentage of female real estate investors do their own work? Probably not many, although I don't have any statistics to back that up.

And yes, I do know the arguments for not doing my own work -- that I could be spending my time doing more "valuable" things. But on certain occasions, I like to test my boundaries and try things I've never done before just to say that "I've done that".

So 3 weekends ago, I rebuilt a ceiling in one room of one of my rentals.

The back story: this rental has a 19x15 sun room with small 12x12 ceiling tiles. These tiles are just the cardboard variety. When the original insulation was added, it was enough for that room. But then in 2008, a company came in and "weatherized" the house for the older occupant who lived there (this was before I bought the property). This weatherization included adding extra insulation into the attic space. Well, long story short is that the existing insulation, plus the new insulation, was too heavy for the small nails holding the cardboard ceiling tiles up. And so they started coming down.

So I worked with a handyman to take the entire old ceiling down, and replace it with a new wood ceiling held in securely with screws into the joints rather than the old small nails.

The wood had a nice pattern on it, so we just painted it white and built up a box to go around the top of the ceiling fan. As long as I was there painting, I also painted the back door a crisp white color. The tenant really liked the changes in the end.