I was starting to feel like I was lost. A few weeks back it was the push to finish up the semester, finish up the work outside on the house, and get ready for the holidays. With that now past I needed to find my mojo to keep my self busy and my production up. As far as the holidays I'll have to say the below pic was one of my favorites.
That's me, 57, and my siblings sisters Meg, 48, and Jess, 39, and brother Ryan, 54. After we took the above image my sister was playing with some AI paint a picture or something and the above is what came out. It's been a bit since we've all been together and I wish we did this once or twice a month, not once a year if we're lucky. Sooner then later we'll be dead and it will be too late. In the end the thing we all wish for is more time together, or at least we should.
Yesterday I was planning on taking the drive to have breakfast with Juliet but she is under the weather. That would have put me away from home for most of the day. After we decided to take a rain check I went back home and put my work clothes on figuring I would continue or start or finish a project, or at least move some stuff around that would make me feel like I accomplished something. But of course the house had no problem in letting me know it had other plans for me.
As I entered the family room something looked off and the sound of water dripping caught me off guard. Here we go again, another episode of The Old House Classic. Oh how I would love to pawn this house off to a crew from TOH or some other fixer-upper cable TV show. It's the perfect house for an influx of money and skilled craftsman, not some broke-ass more handicapped then handyman homeowner past his prime.
To say Theresa and I could star in a remake of the 1986 movie The Money Pit would be an understatement. Nothing in big old houses is simple and easy. When something goes awry it just leads to a plethora of other problems. Open up a wall for the plumbing and there's the old electric, or vice versa. It just never ends and it's starting to feel like this house, as beautiful as it is, might be a hard sell and not worth the $958,400 Zillow currently lists the market value at.
I did a quick search through a folder I had of images taken the day we did a walk through of the house before we made an offer in December 2017. Boy it looked good, that's before we came in and ghettoed it all out. Below is the shot of the room now with a small creek running through the joists.
So after throwing down a tarp it was time to start removing the rain soaked moldings, ceiling, and walls. It's funny but for years I thought she was built in 1923 but during that search on Zillow it comes as being constructed in 1928. This year will be it's 98th birthday.
With a house that old things like moldings and fixtures can't be replaced, so they have to be carefully removed and restored. You could just toss them out but then it would mean replacing them with some cheap ass stuff from Home Depot or Lowe's. They don't make things like they used to, and that's probably why this house has stood the test of time. If you're in the know then you know how much things like wood are these days. Simple things like 3/4" round base moldings run .84 a foot, and that's for composite or finger joint moldings. Wood today isn't like the wood of yesterday.
As I pulled and exposed what layed underneath is was evident someone had been through this before. When we were in the running with other potential buyers back in 2017 we made our offer with the contingency of not having a home inspection, which Theresa reminds me was a mistake every time something goes sideways. My thinking was we could do one ourselves and no matter what was going on we weren't going to get the house less then the $400,000 we would wind up paying for it.
So why this event is alarming is this. It's a roof problem, and it's the middle of winter. More snow and rain will come so it doesn't pay to hang new sheetrock if the potential of more water intrusion exists. Boy how I wish it was September again.
Years ago, when I was in my early home-ownership prime, this house, and this problem, would be a challenge, and actually some fun. It seemed like skill, time, and money were more available back in my 20's and 30's. Trips to Home Depot were testosterone enhancers, now it's just a drag. And just picking up the phone to order a dumpster was like calling up for a pizza delivery. These days a 20-yard dumpster runs about $800 which is now a planned and scheduled expense a few moths out from when we need one. So there's a pile of "stuff" under a tarp in the driveway waiting for that metal box delivery.
Theresa makes the point that maybe we should just clean our shit out and sell the house "as is now". Cut the loses and move on. Surely it's just a matter of time before the next home improvement disaster hits or one of the 100 foot redwoods come crashing down somewhere on the property. It never ends with a This Old House. And I won't remind you that the house is heated to a balmy 60 degrees around the clock, no matter how many logs I put in that stupid
wood stove we had installed a month ago. They'll be more on that later when I'm searching for something to blog about during the dead of winter.
Now I have a push to get this buttoned up before we head to Hilton Head in less than two weeks. Some, like a person with normal intelligence, would say, "Hey, why not cancel the Hilton Head trip and put that money towards the house?". Smart, yes. But Theresa got the week in HH for $400, and the round trip tickets for both of us were $273. At 57, with less time left then I have lived already, what will I reflect on when I'm taking my last breaths? That week away with my bestie in Hilton Head or that half-filled dumpster in the driveway? You gotta live today like it's your last, even ion there's water running through the ceiling. That will be there when we get back.