This cOld House 4

Dan and I were awakened by a presence this morning shortly before 5:00 am. "That's a squirrel in the gutter," he said confidently. "Or the fireplace" I replied, hoping I were wrong. We both got up to use the bathroom and then I crawled back into bed with Naomi and he got up to read the news.

(Miriam was, THANK GOD, sleeping over at Aunt Sue's.)

I was laying awake, deciding if I should get up to do something, and my decision was made for me when something climbed up my armpit. I called for Dan, scooped up Naomi and retreated to my bedroom. Dan met me at the head of the stairs and I told him to go do his husbandly duties.

Instead he followed us to the master bedroom and I had to shoo him out. Donning protective gear, (jeans and gloves,) he ventured back into the girls' bedroom and started turning on lights. He found the culprit leaving his mark on the girls' toy shelf, and when the culprit saw Dan he scrambled back whence he came, through the fireplace and up the chimney. Dan said it was a baby squirrel, no longer than 6 or 7 inches nose to tail. The good news is that the hole sucking the heat out of the house is much smaller than we anticipated.

While in his heightened state of awareness, Dan approached the dresser in front of the fireplace and encountered the gargantuan rubber cockroach Mim received from the visiting entomologist at her school. Needless to say, he came unglued. The keenness of his fight or flight response kept his heebie-jeebies active for quite some time.

I joined him shortly after he moved the dresser and fetched a mirror and flashlight to assess the situation. (And a couple of Clorox wipes, to clean up the aforesaid mark left behind on the girls' toy shelf.)

On the list for Lowes: chicken wire.

An update on the roof. As some of you know, we had a couple of roof inspections when we were deciding to buy the place and (foolishly?) bought it anyway. The roof is original, slate, and 85 years old. It has been patched in a less-than-elegant manner throughout its life. We were quoted for a complete tear down and new slate put on, $500,000 to $800,000. Yes, that's the right amount of zeros, and no, there's no decimal missing. I was TOTALLY bummed out about this for weeks, and shortly after moving in I called a larger, regional company whose specialty is slate for a second opinion. The second estimate came in on Friday at a fraction of the cost of the first. The only explanation I can think of is the first guy just didn't want to do the work and was unable to speak the truth.

That kind of game-playing is so far off my radar screen that I am at a loss as to how to deal with it.

I spoke with a leaded glass guy on Friday and he's coming on Monday to assess the window situation. We have several leaky windows that need to be rebuilt. I'm hoping I can learn how to do it myself. Rather than lead, the muntins are zinc, which is inherently more difficult to work than lead. Additionally, the steel casement frames have deteriorated, and I'm not sure what can be done about those. We are just starting to explore our options at this point. It will be difficult to find a hybrid solution that meets our competing aesthetic and economical goals.

The coal bin tear down went very well, as did the repair in the living room crawl space. We've got the book cases in place and loaded up. The built-in case will need some major work down the line but it's not a priority. We'll be putting only light objets d'art on it for a while.

Dale the HVAC guy shows up Monday to start working on changing out the furnace in the garage. Nothing else (except for Turkey,) is scheduled for this week.