Special Garage Makeover Edition: From Total Neglect to Near-Total Neglect There’s a good reason your humble correspondent has never spotted “Live, Love, Laugh” stenciled on the walls of a garage. If homes were a family, garages would be Cinderella, the poor neglected stepchild. Like Cinderella, garages do a lot of dirty, essential work. But, they … Read more
Fix St Louis
A long time ago, when your humble correspondent was just a handy-boy, I watched a scene from the Wizard of Oz that both shaped and distorted my thinking. Remember when the tornado was coming, and Auntie Em and the farmhands ducked into the cellar from an outside hatch, and two mostly flat-lying doors closed behind … Read more
Not that I’m looking for sympathy, but COVID mask-wearing has really taken a toll on this old handyman. They fog up my glasses and block my peripheral vision, as homeowners point to all the strange places I need to poke my head into. A crash helmet would have been a better fashion accessory than a … Read more
I look forward to Super Bowl Weekend each year, but not for the same reasons you do. My annual tradition is visiting a Home Depot during the game. There’s no one there but me, plus store clerks whose only job is to serve me personally. It’s the one day a year this old handyman can … Read more
You’re a busy person, and you keep a tight schedule. You make firm appointments with just about everyone — your doctor, hair dresser, pilates instructor, even your friends. But when it comes to handymen and contractors, for some reason that’s a different story — you just hand over all control of your schedule to them. … Read more
Congratulations, homeowners! After last year you are now the world’s leading expert on the limitations of your house. There were more meals in the kitchen as restaurants and school cafeterias shut-down. There was more business and school work done from home, as you scrambled to find any space quiet enough, bright enough, and with enough … Read more
If you needed another reason to believe this year was different, here it is. In days of yore, Fix St Louis was able to provide an extended “FIXmas Season,” offering you a couple of pre-holiday months to catch up on your home repairs before Christmas guests arrived. But we just looked at our schedule and realized – … Read more
They said we just needed 2 weeks to flatten the curve, and you believed them. So to continue your job virtually, you moved your computer to the basement, where you wouldn’t be disturbed by your newly at-home kids. You found and dusted off an old desk and desk lamp from your storage room, and ran … Read more
Just about every day I listen to stories from homeowners puzzled by the behavior of a past or would-be handyman. Why did they never hear back from him? Why did he suddenly quit before the job was finished? When will he ever return to fix the thing that immediately broke again? You know, I hate … Read more
The image of Missouri either got a big boost OR took a big hit last week, depending how you look at it. On one hand, photos from a pool party at the Lake of the Ozarks went viral, showing us to be a fun-loving bunch, and it might have offset those uncool Branson-area billboards featuring … Read more