This cOld House 22

This house has some seriously bad water mojo. I'd best be finding me a Feng Shui expert pronto.

Leak of the moment:

The pool equipment has a cracked pipe, which is now draining the filthy, mucky, highly malodorous biology experiment which is the pool water into the area around the pool pump and heater, saturating it. This would be bad enough, if it weren't for the fact that the pump and heater sit precariously perched at the top of this:

This would be the eroding slope that is in the space between the steps from the backyard and the back wall of the old garage. It is actually on our to do list since the equipment is already sliding down the hill down to the level of the driveway, about 10 feet below. As if THAT weren't bad enough, the whole thing is on the other side of this:

This is the foundation crack in the garage. As you can see, it has been 'repaired' using an epoxy that holds the moisture well enough to start mildewing. (Before it lets the stinky water leak all over the garage floor.)

I have a call into my sweethearts, Korrect Plumbing, who are trying to find me someone to get out here today. I'm not sure how the pool pump system works, but the water level is already below the level of the intake, which leads me to believe that the water is coming out of the pool via the main drain... you know, the one at the bottom... meaning if the pool drains all the way, in addition to having a small landslide and a garage that smells like a petri dish full of bacteria, we'll also have a cracked pool. And yes, the pool equipment was winterized... Johngineer did it himself before we moved in. Is there anything he can't do?

Enough of that.

Here's the weatherproofing on the girls' bath window. (Since we are supposed to get that big bad-ass storm blowing through tonight.) We had a leak on the brand new unstained frame last weekend with which we were quite annoyed. Rob was, like, uh - oops.

No sign of the roofers. I do have a call in to their scheduler to get an idea of where we're at. I imagine the bad weather has pushed everything back a bit.

I want you all to know that I am through all the main phases of grief, (you know, mourning the death of Dan's and my savings account.)
Denial - "it's not that bad....
Guilt - "we shouldn't have bought this house...
Anger - "that son-of-a-bitch lied to us...
Acceptance - "I'll call (INSERT CONTRACTOR NAME HERE)...

This cOld House 21

The lid arrived yesterday. It came stacked on a truck and a big crane loaded it off the truck into the yard and then worked placing the slabs in order from the south side to the north. Unfortunately, I had a baby sitter scheduled so I could do some errands and while I was able to see them put the first piece in place, by the time I got home it was done! There are 7 slabs of pre-cast concrete spanning 24 feet and weighing about 3 tons each. Next we need to weld and anchor it in place, (as if the 6000 pound slabs are going anywhere,) and then pour a 2 inch slurry of concrete on top.




Here's something (finally) we did right! We've put that shrink-wrap plastic up over the windows in the girls' room and thank goodness we did. All of a sudden this week we found a yellow jacket in the girls room. We knew that there had been a few last fall, but as the week wore on, all of a sudden there was a flurry of activity from the nest in the wall and we now have over 50 of them in various stages of demise trapped behind the plastic. Stefan, (the exterminator with whom I am now on a first name basis,) said there's nothing we can do until we can pinpoint the entry/exit from the outside. With the ground still covered in icy snow, he couldn't get his ladder out to do that. But we are first on his list once we get a good thaw.

Dan says it annoys him when I do posts with no pictures so I have added some pics to my last post. I'll endeavor to put at least one in from now on.


I've discovered Tommie's new 'office'. (As you may recall, when the walls were open in the girls' bath, he would climb into the eaves and crawl under the floorboards, staying all day long, emerging covered in dust and dirt around supper time.) We closed up the bathroom wall this week. Coincidentally, the cat has been waking me up at night wanting to party and so at night I've been putting him in the back half of the house (kitchen, with access to his litter box down in the laundry room,) where he promptly found another ingress to the bowels of the house. He went down this morning and I haven't seen him for the past 6 hours. There is a large opening in the laundry room wall for what used to be the ducting for the original coal fired furnace. We found it when we tore out the rotten root cellar shelving after the last flood. I was doing laundry this morning when Tommie skulked in and jumped into the hole.

This cOld House 20

Update on the gas bill pool. I've canceled the contest since I had the dates wrong for the billing cycle and didn't want to be accused of any impropriety, (Pop,) and also, I had virtually no takers! The gas bill for January 11 to February 9 (29 days,) was $641.22.

We are still crawling at a snails pace on the other open projects. Dan gave up on doing the walls ourselves, so we had Rob get his drywaller over to tape and mud the cracks. Daylight (yup, that's the name embroidered on his shirt,) did a very nice job taping up and patching where the new window frame went in as well as going over the tape job I did on the cracks and filling in some other bad areas. We will be ready to paint this weekend and will stain the floor next week with an eye on having the bath complete by the week of March 5.


Rob and Co. came by this week to build a temp wall and set a steel beam over top to hold the flexicore panels which are supposed to be installed tomorrow, (I'll believe it when I see it,) and finish off filling in and drilling through the old window openings to hold the angle iron against the kitchen wall to which the ends of the flexicore will be welded/bolted. And they shoveled out the ice and snow so they would have a nice work surface, instead of an ice work surface.

We discussed door options and Rob and Co. will be building a set of walk thru doors for the old garage where we are taking out the lift door and building a solid wall. We'll also remove the original sliding carriage house door (now fixed in place), build a wall and put a high transom window on the other side. That should go a long way in improving the temperature in the garage and kitchen/office/art room on top.

We are not looking forward to having the opening cut between the old and new garage. Concrete cutting produces a dust so fine that it's like smoke and seeps in everywhere. We know that even with measures in place, we won't be able to stop the dust from seeping in all over the house and then settling everywhere. That will happen in about a month once the inside of the garage is trimmed out and the lift door hung.


The cat finally caught a mouse (with proof) this week. The mouse was getting pretty bold considering Tommie's been on board for a couple of months. He must have lulled him into a false sense of security. I was up in the middle of the night on Tuesday and was presented with the rodent. It was fresh! Thanks, Tommie. The cat has also figured out another way into the walls/floor as he turned up filthy again this morning, with all the usual holes still blocked. If only we could train him to administer a shot of that foam sealant wherever he's finding these holes.

We have a meeting with the landscape architect on Saturday. We are going to take a look at the side lot as well, working towards a master plan for re-foresting it. (Dan wants to plant a labyrinth, complete with reflecting pool/gazing ball in the middle - I guess this goes along with his grand plan for the conservatory over top the limestone patio outside the dining room.) We hear that Seibenthalers (the go-to nursery/landscape co. in these parts,) has a kick-butt tree sale in the fall and the more you buy, the more they discount. We'll be waiting for that one.

I'll be ready with the camera tomorrow should the crane and panels show up.

This cOld House 19

This morning as I was making Cocoa for the girls, I saw our mouse. Rather, I saw a streaking blur out of the corner of my eye darting from under the fridge to under the stove - I couldn't really see it as it was going about 240 miles per hour. I called to Tommie-Cat, disturbing his breakfast. He looked at me like "whatever..." and went back to his 'cat beans' (as Naomi calls his food.)

We have contracted for storm windows for the dining room and living room. It'll be six weeks, just in time for spring!

I'm headed to Lexington this weekend with the girls, Dan is staying put to work on the bathroom. (We're responsible for painting it.) If he doesn't get it done, I'll release Rob to get on it next week. I am eager to push it along since the tub in the master bath (which we are NOT re-doing any time soon,) kind of blew out this week. Korrect Plumbing (my heroes) were able to get it back together, even 'though Dan, who harbors a secret desire to be a plumber, got to it first and essentially trashed it. Thank goodness we saved the tub valve out of the girls' bathroom - the plumber stripped the seats and stems off of it to make our tub work. But that valve won't last for long so we need to get the other tub up and running for the girls. Dan and I can survive without a tub since we have the separate shower, but the kids really need one.

I finally got a plan out of one of the landscape contractors. It wasn't at all what I wanted, so it's back to the drawing board. (Not that I can even fathom doing yard work in this cold.) Looking ahead... looking ahead....

Dan and I came across an article about retro fitting insulation in older homes. After the weather this week, we are intrigued by it. I'll point it out to Rob for his opinion when I next see him.

I've only had one taker on the gas bill pool. (See my last post.) Let me know if you are interested!

This reallyfreakin'cOld House 18

The mercury has dipped in this part of the country. It has dipped and stayed close to record lows. We have a few more days of the bone-chilling stuff ahead of us. In spite of our new HVAC system, and the flurry of window and door taping we did this weekend, the furnaces (all three) have been going non-stop for over 72 hours and the house is just above 60 degrees. Dale stopped by and did a couple of adjustments, including speeding up the blower on the basement unit but we are losing the battle. The storm window guy is coming on Thursday to quote the girls' room, and I'm just going to have him do the living room and dining room at the same time. When we put the plastic over the dining room windows, it BILLOWED. So much so that we couldn't even get it taped. We just slid the window seat cushions over it.

Walking past any window in the house, even the ones well taped and covered, the drafts are keenly palpable. The cold air is seeping THROUGH the front door. Not, not around the edges, but actually through the jointed panels. It's so cold, Tommie-Cat just snuggles deeper into the bed, the mice run rampant in the kitchen all night, their little frozen turds left like caraway seeds on the counters and stove, greeting me in the morning.

I'm starting a pool: Guess our gas bill for February!
Rules: Entrance fee is $5.00 The closest guess (over or under) wins one half of the pot, the other half going to pay a portion of the gas bill. In the case of a tie, proceeds will be split 1/4 each winner, half to the house. To help you out, December's bill was $354.41.

Rob and his crew have retreated to an indoor job. They were able to almost get the steel bracket attached to the garage wall where the concrete lid will be welded and bolted, but it's not quite finished, and we have to wait a couple of weeks for the roof to come anyways.

Dan and I will continue to prowl around the house with a roll of duct tape and tube of caulking targeting baseboard cracks and holes. Remember, this house has NO insulation, so the outside walls are icy on the inside, and wherever there is a penetration, a draft spills through.

The girls haven't bathed for four days - but hopefully, with the space heater going full blast all day in the bathroom (to keep the pipes from re-freezing) we'll get them in tonight.