Hello World! Welcome Friends! Meet my friend Bill Evans. There are a few famous people around who share the name, but my friend Bill is neither a deceased jazz pianist nor an NPR reporter. Instead, he is a contractor by day and a church deacon by evening and weekend. Recently, we shared a glass of iced tea on the wrap-around porch of his stately plantation-style home and discussed his most recent remodeling project: a home update for the Billner family.
Q: Bill, it’s always a pleasure to sit down for a chat with you. I was over at the Billners’ house the other day, and what a blessing! The house looks so much more homey.
A: It’s a pleasure for me, too. And thank you for the kind words about the house. I had some help from various members of the congregation.
Q: Why don’t you tell us a little about that style of home.
A: Sure. The Billners live in an older bungalow-style home in an older neighborhood. It was probably built around the 1950s, and sold cheaply when it was first built. But even though it was a pre-fab, those homes hang on to a little bit of their original character because they’re different from the post-1970s cookie cutter homes we’re used to seeing everywhere. And it definitely maintains some charm when compared with a lot of the housing that has popped up since the beginning of the 2000s. So, the Billners’ home has hardwood floors with floor heating grates, a few built-ins, antique light fixtures, and a pretty solid construction – those were all standard back then.
Q: What were some of your biggest challenges?
A: Honestly, it was too much help! People were so happy to minister to the Billners during this time [there were some health issues in the family] that we had more hands than we knew what to do with. And also food, lots of food. But the remodel went smoothly. We weren’t looking to go with granite countertops and stainless appliances like a standard flip. We were just trying to improve the basic structure. Well, maybe we did go a little crazy. There were some nice donations, and a friend of mine was able to do some restoration work on an O’Keefe and Merritt stove. We also made what Mrs. Billner calls her “dream pantry.”
Q: What advice do you have to some of our readers who are interested in a remodel?
A: I think that prayer is an important part of the process. When a man decides he wants to do something on his own, he can be faced with any number of obstacles. Cranky city inspectors, financial difficulties, quality issues. That kind of thing. But with prayer, those obstacles all melt away. One day we were working on one of the bathrooms at the Billner house. Somehow we ruptured an important part of the plumbing, and water started shooting everywhere. (Laughing.) It’s funny now to look back on it, but at the time it was really serious. But less than a minute after water started going everywhere, a plumber from the church pulled up into the driveway on his way home to see if we needed any advice or anything. He later said that he hadn’t even planned to stop by. He had been exhausted from work and didn’t want to do anything work-related that day. But somehow the Lord led him to drive past the house, and he found himself pulling over and stopping his truck. And boy, did we ever need him right at that moment. It was such a blessing.
So he got out of his truck and came in and there’s all this yelling and water going everywhere, and this plumber was able to fix everything within a few hours. I kept telling him what a blessing it was for us that he was there to help, and he said, “No, Bill. It’s a blessing for me that I’m able to do something for someone who needs it instead of sitting around my house being grumpy and grilling some hot dogs or something.”
Q: What a blessing, indeed.
A: What a blessing.
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