Today is our second anniversary of living here. I have a list of 54 items to be done to the house, and 14 have been crossed off so far (including the ones I crossed off after deciding not to do them). Per year, that's an average of ...oh never mind, that's too depressing to think about. Depressing like my conversation yesterday with the renter previewing the property next door. My old, recently broken fence stood between us as I watered my peppers and she said to no one in particular "of course, this fence needs to be fixed," and I said ashamedly, "That's my fence." Why mention the confluence of events: strong wind storms last week and careless renters bashing into the boards, and it being my first day off since November-I wanted to relax, not do fence repair! Despite words, the fence looks like it's been broken for years! Bad Kathryn! No wonder you get crap neighbors!
At that moment, since she was the first renter I've seen on that property in a month, who looked like a responsible person, I wanted to apologize for my peeling paint and the in-progress deck. I told her how long we'd lived here and it seemed her face got tight. Perhaps she isn't rehab-neighborhood material. Or maybe, now on my second day of vacation, I need to go outside right now and fix that fence if I want anyone good moving next door.
Sometimes it's easy to feel down about living in a rehab neighborhood, and I'm kind of a Debbie Downer to begin with. However, my sister is interested in the available house on the other side of us so last week we went tiptoeing around it. Literally tiptoeing, because the weeds and grass are so tall they obscure the "for sale by owner" sign that's been up a year and a half. We stood on their rotting back deck next to a weedy 2-foot hole in the ground, piles of rotting trash and falling-down roof overhang and my house looked darn good, like hot stuff! It could be much worse!
Updates!
Since I don't post often enough, here are some updates. I've been doing little stuff but not much worth writing about. Little stuff like finally tightening a screw on a door hinge.
The heat pump was finally fixed in December. It was all of $85 for a replacement, warrantied fan. The fizzing sound I heard in the attic when I accidentally cut through the thermostat wire? Just the air handler fuse blowing. It cost $60 to replace. It just wasn't the $$ circuit board I lay awake worrying how to pay for. And they added 2 lbs of freon to the condenser. It's a "Coleman" brand pump, just like our camping tent. I had no idea they had a branch of home heating and cooling units until our cheapo flipper installed it here.
Speaking of our flipper-installed unit, we went to the local home and patio show a few weeks ago where we were willingly solicited by several AC companies. A guy came over last Saturday to give us a replacement quote. He was from the company whose booth representatives laughed at us. I told them 1. Our house is 80 years old. 2. Our house is not insulated because 3. the crawlspace floods 3-4 times a year (old creek bed) and is a happy place for mildew. When I said the heat pump was a Coleman, he said, eyebrows raised, "Do you live in a trailer?" (what, an 80 year old trailer??) When we walked away, fully aware of how dysfunctional we must be for having an old house, I heard "whooooeeee!" and lots of laughing. Their field guy was much nicer though, and commented on how clean and accessible the attic was, and told me he's seen far worse in old houses. He left me with a roll of aluminum tape and a $4800 system quote.
Outside of the ongoing deck construction, I've been working on the plant situation. I think flowers are great, but in this small yard there really needs to be lots of practicality. I made a border of sweet banana peppers between rows of dusty miller and hibiscus, and planted sage, dill and rosemary around some small plumbago. In the side yard is lots of parsley, some cilantro, dianthus and that herb which is supposed to be a good substitute for sugar and whose name I can't remember. I seeded basil around the plumbago but the rain has been pretty heavy the last 3 weeks so I need to redo it. I think we've had our last frost, though.
We've tried our third go at exterior paint colors. The colors are either too light, too dark, or seem too much like colors in the neighborhood to our north, where only the brave can live. The trick seems to be finding historical colors that won't cause a run-down drab look. Also, the stores which carry small sizes of trial colors are only open til noon on Saturdays. How can we get the swatches, take them home and view them in all lights, then go back for trial bottles then go back to buy the paint? Everytime I think "It will take 3 Saturdays just to choose the house colors!", I decide to do something else like pruning, instead. This weekend I hope to build and replace a fragile fence portion the renters keep knocking through, and then finish the deck framing.
Dusty miller and baby hibiscus. So unglamorous.
We don't know what to do about mulch because it
keeps floating away!
The heat pump was finally fixed in December. It was all of $85 for a replacement, warrantied fan. The fizzing sound I heard in the attic when I accidentally cut through the thermostat wire? Just the air handler fuse blowing. It cost $60 to replace. It just wasn't the $$ circuit board I lay awake worrying how to pay for. And they added 2 lbs of freon to the condenser. It's a "Coleman" brand pump, just like our camping tent. I had no idea they had a branch of home heating and cooling units until our cheapo flipper installed it here.
Speaking of our flipper-installed unit, we went to the local home and patio show a few weeks ago where we were willingly solicited by several AC companies. A guy came over last Saturday to give us a replacement quote. He was from the company whose booth representatives laughed at us. I told them 1. Our house is 80 years old. 2. Our house is not insulated because 3. the crawlspace floods 3-4 times a year (old creek bed) and is a happy place for mildew. When I said the heat pump was a Coleman, he said, eyebrows raised, "Do you live in a trailer?" (what, an 80 year old trailer??) When we walked away, fully aware of how dysfunctional we must be for having an old house, I heard "whooooeeee!" and lots of laughing. Their field guy was much nicer though, and commented on how clean and accessible the attic was, and told me he's seen far worse in old houses. He left me with a roll of aluminum tape and a $4800 system quote.
Outside of the ongoing deck construction, I've been working on the plant situation. I think flowers are great, but in this small yard there really needs to be lots of practicality. I made a border of sweet banana peppers between rows of dusty miller and hibiscus, and planted sage, dill and rosemary around some small plumbago. In the side yard is lots of parsley, some cilantro, dianthus and that herb which is supposed to be a good substitute for sugar and whose name I can't remember. I seeded basil around the plumbago but the rain has been pretty heavy the last 3 weeks so I need to redo it. I think we've had our last frost, though.
We've tried our third go at exterior paint colors. The colors are either too light, too dark, or seem too much like colors in the neighborhood to our north, where only the brave can live. The trick seems to be finding historical colors that won't cause a run-down drab look. Also, the stores which carry small sizes of trial colors are only open til noon on Saturdays. How can we get the swatches, take them home and view them in all lights, then go back for trial bottles then go back to buy the paint? Everytime I think "It will take 3 Saturdays just to choose the house colors!", I decide to do something else like pruning, instead. This weekend I hope to build and replace a fragile fence portion the renters keep knocking through, and then finish the deck framing.
Dusty miller and baby hibiscus. So unglamorous.
We don't know what to do about mulch because it
keeps floating away!
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