One down

It took 2 weeks and 2 gallons of paint but we’re done.  The baby’s room is painted.  It really is the most astoundingly horrible room to paint.  The walls are stuccoed (sort of).  By sort of, I mean I imagine the 65 year old walls were looking kind of rough and rather than gut the room or try and patch all the problem areas, the former owners applied various random swirls of plaster to the wall.  I like to think a professional would have smoothed out the edges around the ceiling, doors, and baseboards because I can’t fathom why someone would leave various and assorted ridges that make taping impossible and cutting in with a brush a nightmare knowing what it would be like to try and paint the chaos they just created.  Even after 2 coats, there were still dimples and ridges that avoided the roller swipe, requiring tedious brush dabs.  BUT, we got it done.  There is still several big to-dos left on the room, but that was first on the list.  Now, we can get moving on the rest.

C'est finis.

We are done—for now—on our small bout of home maintenance. We have a non rotten window with unbroken glass. We have vinyl that is not marred by puppy boredom. We have trim on the shed (if only we get to painting the whole thing). We have a screened-in porch. And that last part has the cats over the moon with kitty joy. In the sum total of three days, all of them had mastered the cat door. Turns out they are highly motivated to get outside, which I had suspected was the case. There was a time a few years ago when I performed my first, and hopefully only, full body flying tackle* of Twinkie during one of his door dash escapades. I think the fact that I caught him surprised us both. He didn’t think I could move like that, and quite frankly, neither did I.

*See also how to make yourself sore for days, and how to nearly break your kneecaps.

Better

Ok, this is an improvement.  No holes in the floor.  No torn up vinyl from puppy days.  No nicks, dimples, and no white!  Whoever thought a white kitchen floor was a good idea, I'll never know.  But this-it's better.

Work on the catio (cat patio) continues.  The screens are up on the porch.  Once we get a door, the cats will have an outdoor room. 

Oh, goody.

Our contractor found this yesterday when pulling up the flooring in the laundry room.  Surprise!  You could lose a cat through that hole.  The best part of owning an old house is you never get to fix just one thing. 

Actually it wasn’t a huge surprise since that window had a serious leaking problem for a while.  The whole laundry room used to be a porch and the floor support beams are too far apart giving the entire room a slightly spongy feel. Our contractor (who is the Tennessee version of Holmes on Homes) takes it to heart when you tell him to fix it so it’s right.  So now instead of just putting down new vinyl, he is adding 3 additional beams to the floor (one length wise down the room and two additional in the corner where the rot is) and replacing the portion of rotted floor board. 

Our little house of horrors

This is our dining room.  Several things to note--the washer, dryer, stove and refrigerator--do not normally reside in the dining room.  

This is part of our living room.  The freezer, dolly, and laundry baskets don't normally reside here either.

It's not that I don't like change; it's just that I don't like change.  We're in the midst of handling some flooring issues, (and some window issues and some porch issues) and even though we planned this change, it still kind of sucks.  Even though I know the end result will be a (huge) improvement, it still really sucks.  

The cats agree with me--mostly because every morning from now until completion, they have to be corralled in various rooms to ensure they don't take advantage of the less than lightening fast reflexes of the uninitiated workmen who are unused to slamming doors in the faces of wily felines.  

Going Greener

This week we’re having insulation installed beneath our floors and in our attic/roof area (we have no inside access to this area.  It’s really just the space between the ceiling and rafters.)  I chose a recycled cotton batting for the area under our floor.  It’s low VOC and recycled which according to the manufacturer’s claims (which I take with a heaping dose of salt) reduces the energy needed to produce it.  Unfortunately, I could not find an effective cost efficient (for us)green solution for the attic space so I’m going with traditional fiberglass.  From the research I’ve done I found recycled paper loose fill which could have been used.  However, it settles faster and that means that it loses its insulating quality faster than fiberglass.  Sadly, it also costs about 30% more.  Since I require more attic than floor insulation, this made green too expensive for the attic.  However, the overall effect should be to lower our heating and cooling costs which are BY FAR the biggest component of our carbon footprint.  I’d like to point out here that this brings up two pertinent issues in ‘’going green.” 

Balance and Consumption

I think we get a lot consumer pressure to try and buy going green.  But remember, the recycle triangle is REDUCE, REUSE, and RECYCLE.   Ask yourself if you’re really reducing your consumption by buying more stuff.  “But, it’s energy efficient!”  cry the advertisers.  I did the math on this one.  Our refrigerator originally belonged to my great-grandparents.  It is as old or older than me (that’s over 31 years).  It’s a classic example of what the marketers tell us is an energy-guzzling monster appliance.  We’ve been using it for 6 years and it has given us no problems.  I bought a Kill a Watt two years ago and plugged in the fridge.  I don’t remember the exact numbers but in electrical savings, it would have taken 15 years to recoup the cost of a new fridge that was the same size.  I don’t call that a huge improvement in energy efficiency.   

Then there is the whole “how green is green enough aka as the Hummer vs the Prius debate”  In a nutshell, the story is that over the lifetime of the vehicle (from creation to disposal) a Hummer requires less energy than a Prius.  But of course, a Prius also burns less fuel creating fewer emissions so does that balance it out?  I got sucked into this is trying to find green insulation.  It was ridiculous.  I felt guilty for a while for not going with the green product even though the real objective was to lower our energy consumption and the fiberglass does that.  It’s not the ideal solution but it’s a greener solution than no insulation.   All in all, I’d have to say that much like dieting, the key to going green is to make changes that you can stick to, that work with your lifestyle.  

Mother of purl

I was minding my business, opening the mail, when HOLY SCHNIKES!  Our electric bill was $400.  Our house is 1286 square feet and even uninsulated, in the dead cold of winter, our normal winter electric bill hangs out around $180.  My first thought was we had a leak, like plumbing.  But a sweep of the house showed, our auxiliary heat has been on all the time.  Where the thermostat is, a shadow is cast on the bottom part of the display where the words aux is shown in size 1/2 font.  I checked the meter against the bill and in the last 5 days we've burned through the same amount of electricity that we usually use in a month.  We've shoved the temperature down and have hauled the kerosene heater out of storage.  I hope the heater fix it guy doesn't have to bleed us dry to correct whatever the issue is.

For the love of old houses

I love old houses.  It's true they don't build 'em like they used too.  And while, my house is super sturdy (80 years old and no structural issues), was custom built (read-my neighbors house is not just my floor plan reversed), and wastes not one square foot of space, there are a few things that new houses do better--

like bathrooms (our one bathroom gives new meaning to the phrase "water closet"),

closets (we have 2 tiny, tiny closets)

electrical outlets (originally, 1 per room.  Who needs more?)

and insulation (what's that?)

We've been making upgrading as things break or the bank account allows, and we've come to a point where we're looking into the cost of insulation.  The challenge will be finding something that can be installed without gutting the house to the studs (I just don't think I'm up for that kind of demolition) that is reasonably eco-friendly.  We've had our trusty builder, Phillip Graham, out to work up an estimate.  Then we'll see which pieces of it we can afford!