Number Seven
I had been hired by another family on the Cul-de-sac to do a few chores around their house. This time it was two doors down at number seven. Jean and Mike had a ranch very similar to mine. They had one daughter, Fran, who was a sophomore in High School. The house was very nice but seemed a little small for them.
Jean had converted the back bedroom into an office. She used that office to run a small business. She did medical and legal transcription. All it took was a few tape players, and a good computer. The Doctors, Lawyers and other professionals would messenger over the tapes that they had dictated. Jean would type them up and then e-mail the product back to the offices. She would eventually mail the tapes back to the offices too.
Apparently she made a decent buck doing this. Mike worked at a Stock Brokers office a few towns away. He left each morning, wearing a suit and tie, and returned every night after seven o'clock looking like he had lost a footrace to a camel. I'm glad I never went into that sort of thing. I don't think Mike gets paid anywhere like he should by the looks of him when he comes home. Anyway, between the two of them they have a nice house, two cars and a pretty daughter who is dressed well.
Jean is a pretty woman and is probably pushing forty, from one side or the other. She has shoulder length red hair, and a fair complexion. She must be Irish by the looks of her. She stands about five foot six and has a nice slender build. She is amply endowed in the boob department but doesn't really show them off too much. She looks good in slacks, I've seen her in her bikini, but most days she wears a mini-skirt. It is very pleasant to see her, and her nice long legs, walking around the neighborhood. She usually has a loose blouse or something that doesn't really accentuate her tits. I think she doesn't want to take any attention away from her legs. She looks good.
I had been hired to fix the kitchen door and to make the sliding glass door slide easier. After that I was to put another entry into the attic and put a floor down up there. They wanted to use the attic for storage and needed to have access and a way to walk around without ruining the ceiling. There wasn't room for a stairway. There wasn't really enough room for one of those pull down attic stairs. We settled on a new opening in the hallway with a push up cover. A stepladder would be needed to get up and down. This was the easiest and least expensive option.
I arrived for work at about nine one Tuesday morning. Jean was just finishing up the breakfast dishes and greeted me at the front door. I asker her, "Where should I start?"
"Well, the kitchen door is right there," she said.
"OK, I'll bring my tools into the garage and work there first," I replied.
I couldn't help but notice the nice short skirt that she was wearing this morning. It was one of those pleated red plaid patterns that remind you of schoolgirl uniforms. But it was really short. She had a white button down the front shirt on top. It was a regular shirt and I couldn't see though it, damn.
I went out through the kitchen door and pushed the button to open the garage door. I had put my toolbox on the ground just in front of the door. It only took a couple of minutes for me to get my tools and bring them back to the kitchen door. I opened the door and started to examine the lock. Jean was still working at the sink and stood there with her back to me. Damn. She really looked good from the back. She was working in the sink and her skirt was swaying back and forth as she moved around. Her pouty little butt pushed the back of that mini-skirt out just enough so that I could tell where the crack in her ass was. Concentrate, concentrate!
I found what was wrong with the door. It took a little adjusting and a little additional cutting on the doorframe. I reset the strike and the door worked like new. Actually it now worked better than new since the strike had never been set right. Jean had gone somewhere else in the house by this time. I called out to her, "Jean, can you come here for a minute?"
"Be right there," I heard. Jean walked into the kitchen presently and looked at me.
I said, "try the door, see if it's OK."
She walked over to the door, opened it and closed it. It closed and latched properly. "That's the way I wanted it," she said.
Jean smiled and asked, "What's next, the family room door?"
"That's the next thing on my list," I answered as I picked up my toolbox.
I followed her into the family room and up to the sliding glass door. She began to tug on it to open it. It was really sliding hard. The exertion made her skirt swing and I got a few good peeks at her upper thighs while she struggled with the door. "OK," I said. "Let me try to find out what's wrong."
I kneeled down and looked at the bottom track. Jean stood nearby and watched me. She was standing very close and I was very much aware of her nice long legs. It was very difficult to stay a gentleman in this situation but I tried. Eventually jean turned and went towards the back of the house leaving me kneeling there with half a woody.
I sprayed a little WD-40 on the track and under the door as far as I could reach. I closed and opened the door a few times and looked at the track again. I could see something fuzzy and green just under the door. I managed to pull it out with my pliers. It was a long piece of what appeared to be some carpet yarn. The color matched the carpet in the family room. Apparently this had come off the carpet and gone under the door getting snarled in the wheel. After I pulled it out, the door worked like a charm. Lucky!
"OK, this is fixed," I yelled. "I'm going to get the material to start on the attic now."
Jean came back into the family room and tried the door. "Wonderful," she said. "What did you do to fix it so fast?"
"Trade secret," I replied. "It should work OK now."
I went out through he kitchen door and garage and walked back to my house. I had purchased some molding and 1 X 8 lumber for this job, four sheets of half-inch plywood along with a small square of quarter inch plywood. I carried these back to number seven and made another trip for my stepladder. I staged all the material in the garage and took the stepladder into the house. I took it down the hall to where the hallway formed a tee. To the left was the office, straight ahead was the girl's room and to the right was the master bedroom. Yeah, this model put the master bedroom at the front of the house. Seemed ass backwards to me.
Jean came out of the office as I was setting up the ladder. "This is where you wanted the opening, right?" I asked.
"Yes, somewhere in this area. I think Mike wanted it centered here, if that's OK." She replied.
"I'll have to measure and it will all depend on where the rafters are located."
Jean went back into the office and I went up the ladder. The hallway was not very wide and I hoped that the rafters were on both sides. I used my awl to probe through the sheetrock and found that the wood was right where I had hoped it would be. I marked out a square on the ceiling between the rafters. I cut it out using my keyhole saw. I now had a new opening into the attic.
Jean came out of the office just as I was coming down from the ladder. "Wow, that's going to make a difference," she said.
"You wont notice it after I'm though with it," I assured her.
She stayed in her office while I framed it out and put up the molding. I fitted the plywood cover and it came out pretty well. I took all the wood and the cover back down and carried them out into the garage. I painted them with white spray paint and left them on the floor to dry. I went back to my house and started carrying the half-inch plywood sections back to number seven. I had ripped the four sheets of plywood lengthwise into two-foot wide sections. I was going to pass these up through the new hole and make them into the new floor in the attic. This would give a little over a hundred twenty square feet of storage space up there. Pretty smart, huh?
