Misadventures of a New Old House

So, we bought a new house. Or should I say old house? It's 47 years old. That's older than me so it qualifies as an old house as far as I am concerned. See, since we've been married we've only bought new houses. We've been lucky, or the price of old house + renovations to make it livable = price of new house. So you may ask..'why did you buy an old house then?' Well, for some stupid, insane reason we thought we wanted to try a fixer-upper. You know, like on DIY network, and HGTV, where a couple, some tools and a knowledgeable person tackle a home improvement project in 30 minutes (20ish if you subtract commercial time). So, if they can do it, we can do it. Riiiiiiiggghhht.

No one told us it takes longer than 30 minutes and 2 people to turn 2 closets into one. or that taking down a wall in a house with hardwood floors would leave a mark. A mark in the floor that is, where there is no hardwood. Who'd of thunk that way back when, they didn't put the nice floor under the wall. Apparently they don't even do that now either. Did you know that when you remove a wall and build a new one you have to put mud up? Sheetrock mudding is an artform apparently. And we didn't major in that in college. Yep, mud, let dry, sand, mud, let dry, sand repeat...

So now I've been living without a closet for 2 months. Well, not exactly without a closet, but when you go from a 8x17 closet to a 2x4 closet, you are living with NO closet. Still waiting for my new 2x9 closet to be finished so I can have some semblance of normalcy in this house. 2 months. Think about it, 2 months of living out of laundry baskets, cardboard boxes, and piles. My piles even have piles. The hard part of laundry basket living is wash day. Yep, that's the day you have to make piles out of your clean clothes to make room for the new clean clothes that will be coming out of the dryer in the basement. Somehow clothes seem to multiply on wash day. Ever notice that? I think it's odd that I never have anything to wear, yet I have far too much laundry to do...Now don't even get me going on socks and their mysterious alien abductions....

The first few weeks we lived here were a nonstop funfest. One house, one unsuspecting family of three and 2 straight weeks of bad luck. Day one, moving day. We think we're smart to pay two guys to move us. Save our backs and all, getting old you know. $75 an hour. 11 hours and 2 huge truck loads later, and we aren't even done. Nope, still have stuff at old house. A family of three shouldn't have so much crap. But we do. Yep, we have enough for 3 families. Why you say? Cause we are savers. Not the good kind of savers that put money in the bank and retire early. Nope, we are the JUNK savers! We save everything. Do you need scrapbook paper? I have enough for your entire neighborhood. Don't want to run out on an icy day you know. That would cramp my creativity. Need yarn? I have half of a store just crying to become your next sweater. Fabric? Don't even go there. Did anyone even look in the garage? See the pretty car? Notice the engine compartment that has no engine? Yep we have one of those too...the infamous 'car project'. We'll get to that when we retire.

But, back to the story. Moving day, family is here trying to help unpack, organize, etc. People keep saying they smell gas. Not the flatulence kind, or the fuel for your car kind, but the blow-up-your-house-if-you-light-a-match kind. Yep, we have a gas leak. Thank you old home owners! Turns out the 47 year old furnace has a leak. Luckily we have a 1 year, 'new' home insurance policy that covers most of it. It only takes 3 weeks, several phone calls and 3 visits from various people to get it fixed, but it's done. Damn thing actually works.

Next thing we know CaveGurl is calling me at work saying the window exploded. Yah, we have 47 year old windows which are the crank out kind and this one's crank thingy was stripped. Enter windy day. Window flies open as far as it will go and bang...no more glass. Good thing it is summer. Or bad thing since now we have a hole in the wall and it's 90+ degrees out.

Another day, another call from favorite daughter. 'Uh, mom, uh the uh garbage disposal thing was shooting the stuff out the other side of the sink so I uh covered it and uh, well, uh when I went down stairs it stunk so I uh looked and uh there was gross stuff all over the floor next to the drain pipe for the kitchen' Yah, we have plumbing problems. I keep thinking that when you buy a house, you hire an inspector and he finds all the bad things that you need to know about and then you decide if you still want the house. Well our inspector never said anything about nasty pipe emissions while operating the garbage disposal. Lesson of the day: Do not cover adjacent sink hole while utilizing garbage disposal feature.

New homes are an adventure, the kind where you're always on the lookout for the next disaster. You move in and you open up all the windows to get the stink of a shut up for too long house out and wham...you have a broken screen. Not just any broken screen, but a broken sliding hideaway kind of screen with no manufacturers name on it for easy identification that everyone uses to go out to the deck. Screen still broken. Someday it will be replaced.

The refrigerator freezer section didn't work which we found out the hard way. New fridge here we come...

We have decided we aren't moving again. Ever.