Doors, windows and a century of settling
The single most common call I get in The Annex is a door that binds, drops or refuses to latch. Sometimes the hinge screws have chewed out the old softwood and want longer screws driven into solid framing. Sometimes the strike plate needs moving a few millimetres. Sometimes the door itself has swollen and needs planing along one edge, then priming so it stops drinking moisture every July.
Original wood windows tell the same story. Sashes painted shut, cords gone, weather stripping perished, a storm window rattling all winter. I free them off, replace the hardware and reseal where the draught is actually coming from, which is far more often the frame than the glass.
Big houses cut into apartments
Plenty of the larger homes here were divided into flats decades ago, and a good share of my work follows the turnover between tenants. That means patching plaster, filling picture holes, repainting a hallway, swapping a tired light fitting for something current, adjusting a unit door so it closes properly and dealing with the slow leak under a bathroom sink.
Landlords usually want the whole list handled in one booking at a price agreed first. Tenants usually want shelves, a television bracket and a wardrobe built without marking anything they will be charged for on the way out. Both suit me. I just need to know which walls I am allowed to put a hole in.
Regular requests around Bathurst and Bloor
Some of it is finishing work and some of it is putting right what a previous owner improvised on a Sunday. A rough sample of recent work in The Annex:
- Interior doors planed, re-hinged and re-latched
- Painted-shut sash windows freed and weather stripped
- Plaster patching and repainting between tenants
- Bookshelves anchored to solid framing in high-ceilinged rooms
- Ceiling light fixtures and dimmers swapped like for like
- Bathroom vanity, faucet and toilet replacements
- Stair spindles, handrails and squeaking treads tightened
Quoting, materials and where I stop
Quotes are free and asking for one commits you to nothing. Before any tool comes out you have a fixed price or an hourly rate in plain terms. I can bring the materials and pass you the receipts, or simply fit what you have already picked out yourself.
Old houses hide things, so I raise the awkward part early rather than late. Knob-and-tube behind a ceiling rose, a drain that has been reworked three times by three different people, a wall that turns out to be carrying load: those go to a licensed electrician, a licensed plumber or the right specialist. Replacing an existing fixture, switch, dimmer, faucet or toilet sits squarely inside my work.
Dust sheets go down before I start, offcuts leave with me and the floor gets swept properly. Anything not right afterwards, tell me and I will be back to sort it. That has been the arrangement across ten years and more than five hundred projects.
