All Forum Posts by: Bob H.

@Chris Potter You are right about the property taxes in Texas. Do you have any update to share on the rental market for buy-and-hold investors in St. George?

If you have an attached garage, it helps to have a keypad on the outside of the garage door. You can give a repair person the code and change it later or have the tenant set a temporary code for the repair person to use. Various kinds of electronic locks on the front door would serve a similar purpose. On the other hand, the tenant probably would not want the repair person there without you.

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask the tenant to find a time to be home for the repair person, although in your case, if the tenant balks, then you have to worry about pipes freezing and not just the tenant's convenience.

I wish granite tile would catch on. I've built one countertop with a drop-in sink, like the ones @Johann Jells did, and it looked great at a much lower cost than slab granite. The only complication, compared to regular tile, is that I paid a guy to put bullnose edges on some of the tile with a grinder.

We just didn't feel comfortable living in a gated community.

I had modest success by wiping on and then wiping off some cherry-colored wood stain on a reddish floor.

One caution on tile, aside from the obvious labor: Depending on the flooring in the adjacent room, new floor tile that resembles wood would look up to date. But whatever you use probably has to work with the existing tub tile. The tub is installed on top of the deck tile, so tile over tile there probably would give you uneven edges along the tub. Pulling off the deck tile might be difficult without lifting the tub.

At a micro level, if those jet fittings in the tub are white plastic that has turned yellow, you can make them look at lot better by removing them and spraying them with white spray paint that is intended to adhere to plastic.

At a macro level, if you want to modernize the bathroom with a lot of work, move the toilet to the shower area and enclose it in a separate room. Then ditch the tub that nobody uses and convert that area to a nicer, big shower. I don't know what to suggest regarding the window.

I've painted registers and the plastic covers for bathroom fans, which turn from white to yellow eventually. It works just fine, although I don't think I've had any brown ones.

For metal, you can use the cheapest white spray paint at Walmart or Home Depot, maybe only $1 a can. For plastic, look for something that adheres to plastic.

The best shower valves let you control the volume by moving the handle up and down and control the temperature by moving the handle side to side.

That plate says AquaSource, which is a Lowe's brand. Also, try ReStore for a used handle.