A few things I won’t (or wouldn’t) do

Have you ever been stuck because you have no idea how to proceed?

I have.

Have you ever spent a year studying a new hobby without starting? I have.

The difference for me this past summer, happily, was when someone I respect, trust, and adore; my favorite human, Sheila, looked me in the eye and said "Funkhouser, you're doing this!"

Miraculously, the task I'd previously and conveniently catalogued as "one of those things that Preston does not do" seemed suddenly achievable.

?If you know anything about me, you know a few things:

1. I have too many hobbies, and the tools to go with it. More about this later. ?I think you’ll enjoy that story.?More to follow.?

2. I have a list. This list contains things that I don't do, including complicated tradeskills such as carpet laying, drywall finishing, and drop ceilings. ?I've looked into it; studied it; and, yeah, no!

3. I love the Sheila! :) For those who don't know me, Sheila is my muse, my best friend, the mother of my children, and my wife. ?I love that human more than any other.

4. Sheila is my favorite CEO.

This recent journey was precipitated by the Sheila deciding to expand her retail business into a sixth revenue stream with the addition of a brick-and-mortar shop in the town we live in. It was an office building with, well, offices. So the adventure began by removing the offices to make room for retail space. Long story, short, there were two obsolete drop ceiling systems in this building, neither of which were compatible with each other or the new components readily available today. And... one side of the building's drop ceilings were nearly a half inch higher than the other side. And, Preston doesn't do drop ceilings, or so I thought. When we removed the offices, we had to get all this to match up. Fun, right?

Being a long term engineer, facilities and construction guy, my first reaction was to get a contractor out to survey the project and give me his feedback. A friend of mine referred me to a guy we both trust and he came over within about a week. Another good friend of mine apologetically and respectfully declined. He already had more work than he could keep up with. This is a great problem to have for a small business owner and I congratulated him for it.

So our contractor looked it over and gave us an estimate that was way more than Sheila had budgeted. We had her brother come down from Clarksville and we had Sheila's Dad and Uncle, both structural engineers, come look it over with us. We all thoughtfully studied the problem and discussed the options. I’m still laughing inside at some of the ideas.?The debates began and ultimately Sheila just looked at me and said, "look, I can't afford your guy's price and we've got to get moving. I already called around and found a supply house who can sell us what we need." Needless to say, I was impressed.

So I took a week off of work to launch into this project. We brought samples of both ceiling systems with us and spent 30-minutes talking about our options with the general manager at L&W Supply in South Nashville. He showed me a few tricks on how to connect the old to the new, etc. Within 90-minutes, my old truck was loaded with everything we needed for the ceiling and drywall work.

Before we get into the construction discussion, I'd like to share what we learned about the costs to install a drop ceiling in a renovation, to include swapping out old fluorescent drop-in fixtures with new LED drop-in fixtures.

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With my two-man team, it cost us about $3,248 plus two trips to the dump to install the new ceiling and LED fixtures. ?My contractor friend was going to charge $9,000 for this and some other aspects related to the remodel. Now, I have nothing against the contractor. He had a five-man crew and could have knocked out in three days what took me the better part of a month of late nights after work and weekends.

At the end of the entire project, we determined that it took us 31 days from receipt of keys to our Certificate of Occupancy and we were about $3k under budget. And we added to the scope of work to include the LED lighting upgrades and replaced 1,200sf of flooring that wasn’t in our original budget.

At the end of the project, I learned a new skill, acquired several new tools, Sheila got her project on time and under budget, and we had a more complete remodel than she and I originally planned. I enjoyed the project and the experience of going through all the problem solving so much that I contemplated for a brief moment, making drop ceilings my new side-gig. When I originally wrote this article I thought I was joking to myself.?Now it’s much more closer to the truth.?That’s another story that I’ll share later.?

Friends, the next time you tell yourself you don't do "that," whatever it might be, consider how fun it might be to change your point of view. It helps to have a Sheila on your side.

Thanks for reading.

If we don’t connect before, Merry Christmas and God bless you and your families.?

Go out and do good stuff.

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Preston

Owner, ASW Solutions, LLC