Handyman

This post is basically my Notes app, cleaned up just enough to be shareable.

Because my actual file looks like:

“fan install: $180 (cash)”

“fan install: $475 (includes brace?)”

“fan install: $980 (two-story foyer, permit, ‘existing wiring not usable’)”

…and then I write “HOW IS THIS THE SAME THING.”

Ceiling fan installation is one of those jobs that should be simple.

And sometimes it is.

But a ceiling fan is also a spinning weight over your head, tied into electrical, and usually hanging from whatever weird ceiling situation your house has (old pancake box, no brace, too-short downrod, 14-foot ceiling, mystery switch wiring from 1993).

Toilet replacement is one of those jobs where your brain goes:

“It’s a toilet. How hard can it be?”

And reality goes:

“Cool. Does your shutoff valve work?”

I have seen exactly two kinds of toilet swaps:

1. the boring 45-minute “remove + set + test + done”
2. the one where someone says “flange” and then nobody is having fun anymore

So I’m going to do the numbers first, then translate the little line items that make the price swing.