Home remodelers Truitt Sims and Steve Wiest are more at peace these days.
Even though he has an hour-plus commute, Sims, 66, is so stress-free, he doesn’t “mind sitting in traffic anymore.”
It’s nice to have breathing room, to have work lined up for a month or two.
A year ago, Sims and Wiest and a couple more in their tight-knit construction crew existed week to week, wondering if another gig was around the corner. Often there was not.
These days, Sims and Wiest can be found in southeast Atlanta renovating small foreclosure homes owned by investors. They fell into the niche about six months ago and have worked steady, 40-hour work weeks since.
“We’re getting bigger jobs, more jobs,” said Wiest, a 48-year-old Philadelphia native who has remodeled in Atlanta for 20 years. “It didn’t just happen. We went out and marketed the hell out of ourselves.”
Work these days doesn’t pay like it did five years ago when homeowners didn’t blink at spending $40,000 for a kitchen or $15,000 for a bathroom. But the work is steady.
Recently, the four-person crew — which includes Sims’ daughter, Jacque, and Bryce McKay, a Chicago-area native who came to the area for work — was finishing up a home rehab and getting ready to paint.
Sims was jovial as he spoke, standing on a ladder in a shower stall, installing tile.
“Physically, I’m 10 times better; I don’t have to Jazzercise,” said the compact, bearded man with a gravelly voice, smiling at the image. “I really enjoy it and love the chance to work with my daughter.”
A little more than two years ago, Sims supervised heavy construction crews that built roads and sewers for new subdivisions. Then it all went “poof,” he said, just like someone flicked a light switch.
For the first time since the 1970s, he needed a job. Wiest, who worked some with Jacque Sims, gave her dad a shot at a tough, dirty, demanding job that has him lugging lumber, climbing ladders and burrowing into crawl spaces.
Their partnership of shared skills, contacts and job leads helped when the economy soured. “We’re watching each other’s backs, trying to stay afloat,” Wiest said last March.
Friends in their business are still out of work or now on Career Plan B. Or even Plan C.
This year, Wiest gave a chance to 24-year-old McKay, who has a degree in construction management, but certainly no construction to manage. The new hire is a bit green; but he’s an able, enthusiastic worker who fits in with the crew.
Oddly, the brutal job market hasn’t necessarily improved everyone’s work ethic, said Wiest, who let go of a couple of carpenters for coming in late.
“Man, you’d be shocked,” he said. “They’re great in the beginning but ... to work with us, you have to work.”
More often than not, Wiest is hammering or sawing alongside his comrades, rather than driving around, running a couple of crews and bidding for new jobs, like he did in the past.
Last year, Wiest was taking on tiny jobs — such as painting or small repairs — that he would have never considered in years past. It was survival mode, pure and simple. Today, he can be a bit more picky.
But not too picky, he adds. Having survived late 2008 and early 2009, Wiest half expects the bottom to fall out again.
“There’s always that little worry I have to keep in mind.”
About the Author
Bill Torpy continues to contribute columns to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution since retiring in 2025. The Chicago native started covering metro Atlanta for the AJC in 1990.
