This cOld House 31

It has been almost a whole month since my last blog and we are moving right along on a number of projects.

Since last month, Bob has been working diligently on several wood projects, the biggest being the posts out back. We removed and refurbished the windows in the girls' room and they look/work great! We have been really pleased with the restoration work Dick at Dayton Art Glass did. Aside from his very competitive price, we get the sense that he enjoys this type of work and puts a lot of care and skill into it. One of the windows needed a complete re-build, but they were able to salvage the glass and match the lead almost perfectly. The good news is, yes, we found the yellow jacket nest. It was located inside the post Bob removed. The post was so rotten that it was almost hollow. Here's an example of what shape the wood was in that Bob removed.That's some fine looking hardwood there! We were unable to find a piece of oak big enough replace the posts, so Bob improvised with two 4 x 8 cedar posts, and then he trimmed on the inside, where needed, with oak to match the original design.

We also had the main gas line replaced, and the new meter mounted on the front of the new garage. It's better than in the basement, but ugly as sin and we're planting some boxwoods around it as soon as possible. All the interior gas lines were replaced at the same time, so now we can actually pass the HVAC inspection. The bad news, (of course) is that none of the fireplace lines held test so they had to completely disconnect them to pass the gas inspection and we now have no gas to the fireplaces. We'll address that at a later date, once we get an assessment of the chimneys.

The other big project this month has been the 'Great Wall' which has taken about all month. The other day the mailman asked the wall guys if they wanted him to forward their mail to here. I told them another week and I'd start charging rent. They are doing beautiful work and we are very pleased with how it looks. Initially we wanted a rock wall, to replace the one that the backhoe split apart, but it was infeasible, (read that - way too expensive in this day and age!) so we settled for a landscape block and were relieved to discover our misgivings about the institutional look of the block were pretty well dashed. They had to haul off about half a dozen trucks of fill and we ended up with two full tiers. It's been slow going, and we've had some set backs, not the least of which was Mike digging up the brand new gas line, not once, but TWICE! I noticed when I did the pictures for this post that Mike was wearing the same shirt both times he hit the line (a week apart) so I told him to get rid of the unlucky t-shirt and bury it when they backfilled the second repair. Thank goodness he doesn't have far to go to be finished - I'd be worried if he were going to have to be digging around the line again!

Before









After

And last but not least... the pool is in the process of filling as I type. The garden hose has been on full-bore for the past 35 hours and we are about two-thirds full. I'm estimating the water bill at around $500 to fill that sucker. It's not a large pool but it is a good 8 feet deep. As we had suspected, the lines were bad - both the skimmer and return lines need to be replaced so we are going to hold that thought until next year... The pool guys will lay lines overground for this season and next fall or next spring we will put permanent lines in when we move the pool equipment off of the platform that's sliding down the hill and over towards the pool house that's falling down. (Another story.)

This cOld House 30

It's slow-going, but we are making progress.
The patio really looks like a patio. The parapet walls are essentially done. When we had them laid out, they looked too tall, so instead of scalloping them, we elected to make them about 6 inches shorter than code and we'll finish them off with a 2 1/2 inch diameter pipe railing. We can continue this railing down the new steps and along the front walk, (replacing the decrepit one currently there,) and it will all tie in nicely.

We have made some decisions on the work that needs to be done on the back of the house. Bob Sr. says he can save the frame around the dining room windows, (pending no ugly discoveries during removal of the adjacent posts,) but the news on the windows above wasn't as good. The bank of five windows in the Girls' room has to come out as the sill beneath is rotted through. He'll get to that in the next couple of days and the windows will go to Dayton Art Glass for restoration. Again, the good news here is that we will definitely find the yellow jacket nest in the process, and block the ingress to the house for all sorts of creepy crawlies when the window frame gets tightened up.

When Bob took out the living room doors last week, he found (no surprise here,) termite damage under the threshold and had to replace the joist, subfloor and floor. Thankfully, he was able to make the new threshold just wide enough to cover the parts he had to cut out so we don't have any floor patching to do. Picture is of another shredded board. Those termites were very well fed. Bob has also taken out the dining room doors, and Dayton Art Glass picked them up today to start restoration and size adjustment to fit the new oak frames Bob made.

We have the roof estimate. Sort of. I need to go through it with a fine-toothed comb, but I should be able to do that in the next day or so. Our new strategy is to 'fix' the stuff that needs to be fixed sooner or later, even if it's not leaking right now. This means pulling off and replacing all broken, damaged or poorly installed slates, (with salvaged material that matches,) replacing all the worn out copper, (essentially all valleys, window pans and dormers,) and replacing the johngeneered metal ridges with clay tile as they originally were. Did I mention that Sean, (the slate installer,) found squirrel nests up under the incorrectly installed ridge? (That would explain the squirrel poop in the attic.) It will cost a small fortune, but aside from routine yearly maintenance, (inspection and replacement of worn/broken slates,) we shouldn't have to do anything else for 30 years or so. We needn't replace the whole roof, nor use new slate. The pitch is sufficient enough that we should get another lifetime out of the current roof as long as it is PROPERLY maintained.

This cOld House 24

Why?

This is a question I often get from worried friends and family when I post our trials with this house. Why on earth are we doing this? How can a house be worth all this time, energy and (especially) money? Is there nothing right with the place?

You have to realize, (and I did mention this early on in the blog,) my blogging about this is really a therapeutic exercise, as well as a record for posterity. And for the record today, I will describe some of the positive things about our home.

Let's start with the woodwork. This is one of the beams Dan cleaned last weekend. We have many of these in the house. The major structural beams are these huge 8 by 8 inch or 10 by 12 inch solid oak beams. Sadly, the ones on the outside of the house are very damaged. It will take more than a cleaning to restore them, but on the inside, Dan has managed to do a bang-up job of bringing them back to their original glory thanks to Milsek (Thanks to Rob for putting us on to it.) Dan is giddy over how beautiful the wood is, and he is obsessed with cleaning every inch of it.

Moving along the same lines, here's a sample of the random width tongue and groove oak flooring. It's in excellent shape for its 85 years, (no matter what Dan says.) This flooring is old growth, wide plank and about an inch thick. It has been nailed and plugged. It's gorgeous. The gaps between the planks simply cannot be avoided, it has shrunk some over the past 85 years, and it will swell come summer's heat and humidity. It has some squeaks, however our floor in our house in Lexington squeaked more than this one. These floors cover the majority of the lower house. In the upstairs, the planking is narrow and uniform. And still in pretty good shape, save the bathroom which we are restoring.


These are the amazing stairs. Yes those are two inch thick oak planks... on the run AND the rise. And again, they are in excellent shape. Some of the planks have warped, (can't be helped with the age,) but they show virtually no wear. Also in this picture you can see the original hand-wrought-iron railing, which is very cool. All the stairs in the house are made of these oak planks, save the attic. (And the turret.)


And finally, every door in the place is like this. Random width, tongue and groove, solid oak plank, with original wrought iron hardware. Even the cupboard doors to the storage spaces under the eaves are made like these. They are really unique. Again, they need some work, and we will have to be choosy on which ones we want to restore to total working order. The original hardware is in rough shape, so some will close, but not latch, and on others, the jambs are no longer plumb and square and so they don't even close. But they are pretty solid suckers.

Let's move on to the pro/con items. For instance, the windows, which are giving me such pain. It's only painful because they are so worth restoring. We have 76 leaded glass sashes inthis house. Yes, that is right SEVENTY-SIX! They all need restoration work. They are also in pretty good shape for their age, with the majority still operable and probably only 10 or so that will need to be completely rebuilt, (as opposed to refurbished/restored.) The windows add a boatload of character to the house.


As does this sucker... the bane of my existence... the slate roof.
For those of you who know nothing about slate, (like me, six months ago,) let me illuminate you. Rather than being the archaic, outmoded material that modern roof manufacturers would like you to believe, slate remains one of the most durable, beautiful, ecologically friendly roofing materials available. Unfortunately, unlike some new-fangled materials out there, it takes some skill to install and repair correctly. If you can keep the neanderthal monkeys off of it, it will last a hundred years or more. Especially with the pitch that we have. It is a crying shame our roof has been neglected and poorly patched for so long, but we are working on a little at a time to restore it. Our biggest issue isn't even the slate... it's the copper used on the window wells and valleys that has just plain worn out. The serviceable life of copper is about 75 years.

Here are a few fun things about the house. (Sorry no picture of the turret staircase... it's still under winter wraps to keep the draughts down.) This is the original incinerator. Most of the old houses here have had these ripped out of them. We are still playing around with ideas of what to do with it. Laundry chute? Recyclable chute? Using the flue over top of the big fantasy Wolf stove when we re-do the kitchen? Brick fired oven? It's so cool we still have this.

This is the hearth in front of the main fireplace in the living room. The other fire places are in the master bedroom, the room where we have the girls, and the attic bedroom. It needs a scrub, and I'm hoping Dan will take an interest in doing it.



This is the limestone patio outside the dining room and living room. It's where Dan had delusional fantasies about putting a lovely copper and glass conservatory over top. Those limestone blocks weigh a few tons a piece, prompting my contractor to scratch his head to try to figure out how they were originally laid. Dan and I just figure they did it like they built the Pyramids, with ramps and ropes and logs.

This is the original zinc sink from the butler's pantry - that's where the dishes were kept, so I guess that's where they were washed. The sink is joined out of pieces. It doesn't drain like it used to, because it has been bent somewhat out-of-shape and the pitch is funky, but it does not leak, the original fixtures still work and it fits beautifully into the surrounding original copper counter top. I am using it to start some trees we will be planting to take up some of the @#$%! water in the yard - big thirsty curly willows.

And finally, probably one of our favorite things about the house...
a lousy picture but it will have to do to illustrate the size of the dining room. That's the 72 inch round table that seats 8 comfortably, dwarfed in the distance. The dining room is huge, as are most of the rooms. We have less rooms and more space so we actually use most of the house on a daily basis. I could have counted on my fingers and toes the number of times we actually ate in the dining room of our old house. We eat in this dining room every day, enjoying our sizable investment in the furniture. The living room is the same - no frilly can't-sit-on-it in this house. There is no family room, rec room, media room, or rumpus room. We live in the living room. It's a lovely change from our old house where the formal rooms went to waste.

Now that I've shared some of the good, perhaps our mindset will be easier to understand. When it warms up, (outside, not inside,) I'll get some pictures of the yard and you'll be able to understand a even little bit more.

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.

This cOld House 14

True to its name, the portion of the house heated by 'furnace 2' got down to a chilly 49 overnight as Dale was unable to get the part he needed to fix the brand new furnace in the basement which quit yesterday. He returned this morning and was able to correct the problem and we had gained about 10 degrees in the first hour after it began working. We are back to normal now, and cautiously watching the others for additional citrus signs. (Lemons?)


The concrete guys stopped by long enough yesterday morning to drop off blankets and tuck in the walls. With temps dipping into the twenties over night they needed to keep it hot enough to cook (cure.)

Glen is moving along on the tile. Tommy happily crawls into the floor every morning when Glen arrives and I don't see him until the house is quiet at 6:00 pm.

The electricians, (bless their hearts,) are hard at work completely re-wiring the kitchen. They've been here three days straight and have still some more work to do. It's taking much more time than I anticipated but as an added bonus, they managed to fix the call button box when they were fixing the doorbell. They work a bunch in Oakwood, and while they had seen call buttons before, they were quite excited to see that they were still operable and hooked up to the original mechanical box. They'd never seen that before.

Payne and Co., (the drainage people,) have their liliputian equipment stationed out by the living room and are making good progress on the excavation there. Their back-hoe is so cute! Rob's guy will be patching the holes in the foundation with some hydrostatic cement, then the whole thing will be water-proofed, gravel and drain tiles installed, all the drains and down spouts tied in and then back-filled to grade. Again a bonus, the arbor vitae I dislike had to be torn up to facilitate the excavation.

When Rob took out the windows in the girls' bathroom, he fitted the hole with a 1/4 piece of bead-board plywood. It was over 85 degrees in the bathroom this morning, testament to the amount of heat we are losing through the darn windows. Dan says we have a solution... just cover them all up with plywood!

I did meet with a storm window guy yesterday and that option looks better and better. More on that later.

This cOld House 13

Well, happy birthday to me!

Right now at my house I have a tile guy, a plumber, four electricians, a whole crew of concrete guys, my G.C., his carpenter and the drainage guys are on their way. To paraphrase Steve Martin in The Jerk, "Things are gonna start happening here now!"

I was not expecting the electricians today, and had I known they were coming, I probably wouldn't have worked so hard to remove debris on the floor this weekend. They have a couple of days work so I really shouldn't clean up until later in the week. The wood floors are taking a beating from the rubble, (plaster dust, sand and chunks,) and we are trying to mitigate damage by wiping up every night. It is, however a Sysyphian task.

The good news is that we can now plug in them modrun new-fangled thangs (like a DVD player) in the girls' room. Also, I should have plugs that work without kicking off breakers in the kitchen, light switches that control only the lights, not every outlet in the room, power to the pool house, more than one phone outlet, and the ability to use the lap-top in the living room by the end of the week.

With lath and plaster houses, the metal mesh they lay over the lath strips to hold the plaster wreaks havoc with wireless signals. The cordless phone only works in half the house, the computer's wireless router only reaches to the dining room, and when the guys are working in the basement they have to turn their phones off or they go dead in an hour from frantically trying to find a network.

Tommy Cat has broadened his domain to include crawling in behind the walls in the bathroom we have all tore up and getting up under the eaves, where he has discovered a loose floor board leading to the 10 inch space between the girls' bedroom floor and the ceiling below in the dining room. He disappears for hours at a time and emerges a completely different color than when he went in. We have a black smudge on our bed cover from his nocturnal forays and returns. When we pet him, our hands turn black. We did attempt to block him out of the bathroom but he meows like a fiend when he can't get in and has actually found another way to get there. Rather than fight it, we are letting him go. He also found his way into the pipe chase in our bedroom to the master bath, but we've managed to dissuade him from there by leaving the other bathroom open. The mouse poop in the kitchen has been diminishing all week and I did not find any this morning.

The concrete guys passed their inspection this morning and they are pouring walls right now.

Rob managed to pull the girls' bathroom windows out, so we now have a clear look at how bad the water damage on the sill is. It's BAD! We will be pulling the whole window frame out and rebuilding it to the dimensions of the not-yet-discovered solution to the window problem. I have another window guy looking next week - a restoration specialist from Cinci.

I will post now because I'm so excited, and add pictures later when the electricians stop cutting power indiscriminately.

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Today was a pretty significant day. The concrete foreman, Doug, showed up to check progress and we got a big gravel drop. That makes the mud pit look a little more like the beginning of a garage. The hole has dried out a bit after the buckets of rain we got over the weekend and Doug said his crew would be by tomorrow by noon with forms to start the walls. Yippee.



They started tearing up the girls' bathroom today. Rob said they'd break up the tub to get it out and I mistakenly figured they'd be cutting it into pieces. The process was somewhat more violent and involved Larry, a ten-pound sledgehammer, and porcelain shards raining down through minute cracks in the kitchen ceiling.




The rodent abatement system is installed but is not working exactly as planned. The first couple of days Tommy hid upstairs in the attic room where we deposited him upon entering the house. The night of the second day he meowed to get out of the room and we let him start exploring. He seemed to be getting comfortable but when we turned in for the night he had some trouble settling down. We figured he'd just start investigating the myriad of pests currently residing with us but instead of eradicating them, he's an audible alarm that sounds all night whenever he hears something, which is constantly. We aren't quite sure what the problem is, as we were assured the cat was well behaved and a good hunter. It's entirely possible the cat is suffering from target saturation. We are torn - we dislike the mice, but we are rather fond of sleeping, and while we would like to keep the cat and lose the mice, if we can't correct the situation we'll be keeping the mice and losing the insomnia.

I met with the first of the replacement window guys. (As opposed to the repair/refurbish window guys I met with several weeks ago.) The refurbish bids came in higher than I had hoped. Every window in the house needs work. Some are worse than others, but all need re-glazing, and when I say that I'm not just talking about re-glazing the sash in the frame, rather, the material between the individual glass pieces, (diamonds) and the lead came has deteriorated to the point where the panels are no longer air or water tight. This involves first getting the window out of the oak jamb, removing the panel from the frame, pulling the entire panel apart, cleaning the glass pieces, cutting new came, fitting it back together (with the new glazing between glass and came,) and re-soldering the whole she-bang. Then stripping the frame of 85 years of paint and rust, cutting out the metal that has rusted through and welding new pieces in, painting or sealing the frame, fitting the leaded glass panel back in, re-glazing it and putting it back in the (hopefully) re-milled oak jamb. It's about a $900 process and at the end of it, we'd still have a single glazed window that needs some kind of a storm window custom fitted. Oh, and did I mention that we have 76 leaded sashes? (And 10 additional steel casement windows.)

I've submitted a request to the This Old House television program website. Gosh, I hope they find my witty inquiry worthy of investigation.

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Today I had the pleasure of meeting Dewayne, Electrical Inspector for the Neighboring City to Pleasantville, (who does the Pleasantville construction inspections.) Unfortunately, he had nothing good to say about the power in my kitchen. He had deja vu when he pulled up to the house to inspect the new panel we put in last week, and when I got to talking to him about some apparently open issues that the City of Oakwood cited us on our property transfer inspection, he started to recall the disastrous inspection he carried out here when the kitchen was redone. (And that he was never recalled to final the stuff, presumably because it was never corrected.) I am currently awaiting a copy of his laundry list.

Tim and Troy and Matt are wreaking havoc in the basement, pulling out galvanized pipe to beat the band. Tim said there was a LOT of pipe, like three times what we actually needed. This is good news since we opted to NOT install the recirculating pump on the hot water heater. So while it currently takes about 2 minutes for hot water to make it up to our bathroom, it should be cut in less than half when we replace the pipes with a more direct route.

The bid came in for the new gas service/pipes and it's a go. We'll do that as soon as we have a front wall on the new garage so we can attach the new meter.

The concrete guy happened to show up at the same time Mark came by to grind out the stumps from the trees we took down Tuesday and they had a meeting of the minds, so we are all set to start digging TOMORROW or Monday. I'm so excited! By the way, watching the 'lumberjacks' take down the trees was a thing of beauty. It was like a ballet the way the guys all knew their moves and jumped in and out to get it done smoothly and safely. And today the stump grinder kicked butt! I want to grind stumps when I grow up. Mark has one of only 2 in Ohio and 340 in the entire country, a stump grinder that just freakin' ATE the tree. It was like a 20 inch circular saw on the front that swept back and forth decimating anything in its way. The teeth on the blade were about 3 inches long! Very cool to watch.

I got the bid on restoring the windows and was NOT happy. I called Rob to get the Pella or Andersen or Marvin guy to come over and discuss replacement options. I also got an e-mail from the garage door guy and am awaiting a bid for that.

By the way, I fixed our garage door that was broken. It was a four dollar and eighty one cent personal victory after thousands and thousands of dollars of defeat this week.

This weekend I believe we get to test drive our squirrel abatement system. I hope Kitty is mean when it comes to wildlife because she has quite a lot of established residents to show who is boss. There is a rotund woodchuck that lives under the pool house, dozens of gray squirrels, (some as big as small cats,) a raccoon, and a hedgehog looking thing that wanders in the dark. Go Kitty Go!

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We are really starting to move along now that my general contractor has freed up on his last job. He cut loose his uncle (a finish carpenter) to work on our place, and as we speak he is making the doors open and close with a fluidity not seen in decades in this place.

Dale the HVAC guy replaced two furnaces last week, and is heading up to the attic tomorrow to start work on installing our bad boy up there. We took out a 60% efficient 113K BTU unit and a 92% efficient 115K BTU unit and replaced them with two 96% efficient units, a 60K and a 40K. It has evened out the hot and cold rooms, and although we haven't installed the new upstairs unit, the house is essentially comfortable. Our gas bill should go down substantially. I am eager to get the attic unit up and running as once that is done, we can start storing stuff up there with no fear of having to haul stuff out of the way again.

Dale also ripped down the ducting in the garage that we need out of the way to replace our termite-shredded beam. When he got it down, even more damage was visible (if at all possible) and it looks like we'll be replacing some joists as well. (Yippee.) They guys will be building walls to hold up the main floor so they can replace the beam sometime this week with a nice solid laminated one.

I've met with a couple of window guys. The first guy confirmed our fears, while the second one allayed them. I have yet to see numbers out of the second guy but he says he can RESTORE the existing windows, (leaded sash, steel casement, new glazing, etc. plus custom storm windows that fit the existing notched frames that hold the summer screens,) for less than retrofitting new Pellas or Andersons. If so, it's a no brainer - it would fit our budget and our aesthetic sense.

I also met with a tree guy. The gigantic, enormous, humongous, ancient, stately catalpa tree that dwarfs the house has a bit of a root rot problem and may have to come out. He's also given me an estimate for removing the two trees that we will lose when we build the garage. We have a guy who has a portable sawmill that can handle the smaller trees, so we may have the oak stock that Dan needs to re-work the living room floor currently growing in the front yard. Wouldn't that be cool?

Met with a painter this afternoon to get an evaluation of the problems. He reassured me they were minor and normal and probably mostly due to cheap paint and poor prep/application, as Dan and I had suspected. He said most of the stuff I showed him his guys could handle and so it's just a matter of me talking Dan into letting someone else to the painting and us working on other items.

Most of the outside wood is still in pretty bad shape, thanks to years of neglect and a band-aid approach to the decay. Our carpenter says he can get Dan started on what needs to be done and then Dan can work on it at his leisure next summer. It will be time consuming and tedious and will ultimately fix the problem in a much more permanent way instead of just addressing the symptoms of decay. I sense that buying scaffolding is in our future.

My family's visit was great. There was enough space and beds and bathrooms for all. The universal observation, however, was that it isn't a quiet house. The floors creak and groan in the night with midnight trips to the potty and with no carpeting to speak of, it echoes something fierce. It did not disturb me, so perhaps I've adjusted to the volume. Or perhaps I was just too tired to wake up.

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.