remarkably similar

These old shelves from the vault at work:

no doubt going home with someone for free

look an awful lot like these brand spankin' new Expedit shelves:


complete with unassembled drawer unit due to missing pieces

 recently purchased ($$$!!) from IKEA.

Bummer.

New Faucet

Isn't it pretty?

Just look at the old, ugly, leaky, cheap faucet that used to be there:

Yuck!

Two of my brothers came over Saturday and removed the old one, installed and endlessly tweaked the new one, and also replaced a leaking outdoor spigot.
Something like this always looks like it'd be a pretty simple job, but in an older home, you never know. I'd been told my "centers" were just barely off, so I knew it was going to require some work to get it to fit right. What I didn't know, is that my centers are actually right on, they just aren't level. You get the faucet on there, and you're thinking, "gosh, that was easy", and then you step back, and your head tilts to one side, and you realize that the faucet tilts to one side, and that's when the fun begins. Once you finally get it level, and turn on the water, that's when you find out that not everything was tightened quite right. Tightening the various places puts it out of level, so you start in with all of that again, and it seems like it could do on forever. I honestly don't know what I'd do without my family sometimes!
All in all, I wouldn't give up my wall-mount faucet for anything. It might be a pain to replace, but hopefully, since I bought a Chicago brand (commercial grade) faucet, we won't need to replace it again, ever.

Once I get used to the fact that it now turns off the correct way, maybe I won't get totally soaked every time I do the dishes. I was always forgetting, even 20+ years later, that I turned the old faucet handles inwards to turn it off, and thus soaked myself by turning it full-blast instead of off, countless times. Now that it turns off the correct way, or, at least, the same way as 99% of all other faucets I've encountered, for some reason I can't get the wrong way out of my head now, and I spent the weekend splashing water everywhere and soaking my shirt.

But look! Pretty faucet! Thanks again, my brothers. You guys are the best!

leaky-leaky, I no likey

I've had a leak developing on my crappy kitchen faucet for a week or so, and I arranged to have it seen to, like I should. My old plumbing tends not to be of the simple "replace the washer" variety, so I didn't want to open it up myself. Not this time, anyway.

I'd scheduled it for Saturday.

Apparently, that's not soon enough for the faucet. Last night, it decided to turn into a full-on stream of water. You can hear it all over the (very small) house, serious water running through the pipes and down the drain. Cold water, thank heavens, but still, a lot of water.

I couldn't stand listening to it and thinking of all that wasted water, so I shut it off. There is no shut-off under this sink - like I said, it's old - I had to shut off the whole house. Turned it back on this morning to shower, though I'd considered going to the rec center to save myself the trouble. Turned off again before I left for work. The Twins are not thrilled with this solution.

Good thing I'm hosting my party at my parents instead of my house tonight. A lack of modern plumbing could be a mood killer.

After last night's drama (I was in the middle of making bread, hands all sticky with dough), I've decided it's time to retire what I'm sure was not the greatest faucet even when it was new. (I was in college, I was poor, I got what I could afford at the time.) So I'll be spending my Saturday before Christmas  browsing the faucets at BJ's, hoping to find something both durable and pretty, to be installed by my very much unselfish, loving, capable brothers. If I'm lucky, I won't ever have to fix it again. (Why do all the guys at the DIY stores laugh when I say that? It seems reasonable to me.)

Happy Leaky-days!

DIY Bliss?

First trip to the plumbing supply store for a water supply tube,

15 minutes, and $2

Time wasted installing supply tube, only to find the leak is not fixed, 45 minutes.

Second trip to the plumbing supply store, a week later, for a Fluid-Master replacement kit (which I was this close to buying during the first visit),

15 minutes, and $9

Finally finding the time to install Fluid-Master, just in time for the sink to start it's annual mystery clog?

 Typical.

the saga of the cooler continues

I finally figure out, after trying various other things, that I can take apart the pump (duh). I clean out all kinds of hard-water deposits, and suddenly, it works. Only half of the little tubes are pumping out water, but that's better than it was before. After fiddling with it again, oiling the pump, and tweaking things, I decide that the "economy" pump, which someone installed without asking me first, I'm sure, just isn't going to cut it. I never would have bought something labeled "economy" for something I rely on for my sanity. I need that cooler to work, or I'm not a nice person. Heat makes me cranky.


I'm up there for nearly 3 hours. I have a headache, because I had too much caffeine during the work-week and none on the weekend (and I'm not having any just to cure the headache, because I shouldn't have any anyway), so I'm not happy. I want to run a cleaner through the cooler, but if the pump isn't working, there's no point, because it won't get to everything. I finally decide that half is better than nothing, as long as each pad is getting wet, I'll run the cleaner through. That means draining, cleaning, filling, running just the pump for 20 min, then draining, rinsing, and filling again. All before we can have the fan blowing cooler air. This takes forever, and I get totally soaked in the process, because the good hose, in the back, where the cooler water comes from, I can't use. Because my son can't get it unscrewed (who knows), and also can't get the tiny spigot that goes to the cooler to shut off, so he has to turn off the water in the back. Which means I have to use the front spigot for my cleaning water. The hose on the front has numerous holes in it. It's just a crappy hose, so it split, because it couldn't take the pressure of having a sprayer attachment on it. But it's all I've got, unless I want to climb down and switch the hoses myself. My head is throbbing, so I don't. I just have him hand me the other hose, holes and all, and turn it on.

Which is when I got drenched. Quite thoroughly.

I spray out the cooler base, and refill, adding the cleaner, then fuss with the pump and lines again - half are working, so all the pads with at least get a little wet. Finally, I head back down the ladder to wait it out.

I give it 1/2 hour, then go back up, empty, rinse, and refill again.

It works. But, not like it could if it didn't have that ECONOMY pump in it. Time to order a new one....

Container Garden

I went to Cook's Greenhouse after work yesterday. I love doing the containers for the porch, but some years, I just don't seem to get the time. When I found out they had cancelled the Hidden Garden Tour (apparently, forever), I felt compelled to brighten up my front stoop (because, really, it's not a porch) so I could enjoy some kind of garden. (The hanging basket of flowers is a gift from Cam, his thank-you to me for the play.)

I didn't think I'd put it all together last night, but, as I had the soil, and the containers were right there, and I'd just spent $50 at the nursery, with no other free evening in sight until Saturday, I went for it.

In the dark.

Because when I got home, just after 7pm, I had to still get up on the roof to see why the swamp cooler wasn't doing so well, and I was up there until about 9pm, replacing the filter basket for the pump, and cleaning the "spider" so it could send the water over all the panels. Yeah, that was fun. I played with the float to adjust the water level, and now, if it's not actually turned on, like at night, we have a little drip. Not much, but I'll have to get back up there and adjust the float again. It's cooling much better, though, so, time well spent.

Anyway - the planters:

I love my little teacup.

I worry about the plants - small planters need more frequent watering. But if it seems to suffer, I'll move it more into the shade, or I'll re-pot them in something larger. For now, I like this arrangement of flowering cabbage, curry, and, um, I forget what that other silver-green trailing stuff is.

My urn! (and gargoyle!)

This is a lightweight plastic planter, not the heavy stone it looks. So I can move it even when it's full. More flowering cabbage, sweet potato vine in a couple of colors, some velvet black coleus, and a trailing something with pale lavender flowers. (I'm really good with the plant names...)

And, the stacked planter.

I had to pull some weeds and yank out some fever few to give this space. The crumbled bits underneath are from a shallow bowl planter I put it on a couple years back, which suffered in the snow and cold. I'll get a new one, but the "look" of it doesn't bug me, for some reason. I'm into that "natural" look in a yard. (translation: I don't love yard-work, and a few leaves and pine cones are normal, natural elements, right?) I used a lot of coleus here, and lots of sweet potato vine, more of that silvery trailing stuff, then finally added some color with those cute red, um, teensy flowery things.

(I tossed all the little plant tags. Oops.)

I kinda wondered if I'd come out in the morning and wonder what the heck I thought I was doing out there in the dark, with only the porch light to guide me. But I think they turned out well.

I'll take pictures again in a few weeks, when they've had a chance to grow and fill in a bit more. I usually crowd my planters pretty good, and I thought I had enough plants, but then, I added the smallest one on the stack, and I don't know, I didn't seem to have as much as I thought.

Missing...

One steel and wooden glider.

(Not the kids, or the dog. Though the dog, Valentine, has long since left this world, and the kids are now in their teens. So, I guess I miss that they're not kids anymore. That's my niece Stesha with the long blond hair, and the two curly-tops are my Twins. For real. Seriously cute, right? Twin2 seated on the glider, Twin1 in the foreground showing you the top of his cute curly head.)

This photo shows the glider/swing in it's former home, my mom's back yard. It has resided in my front yard for about 5 years or so. Until last week.

Taken from my front yard, sometime during the day Tuesday. (You'd need at least two people to carry it away, maybe even a truck, and yet, nobody saw it happen.) The owner of the currently-for-sale house next door had mowed that day - I called him in the hope that he'd moved it, maybe left it in his garage for some bizarre reason, or maybe he'd seen it "walk away" - but, no. He noticed it was gone when he mowed, but figured I'd moved it.
I'm fairly certain I would have noticed it was missing when we left the house Tuesday morning. I know for sure it was there Sunday afternoon, because we were admiring the first rose buds on the bush right next to it, while I contemplated how best to prune said roses. (My yard can get out of control.)
I was on the verge of replacing the rose bushes that used to be where the glider has been. But, I don't know, I guess I figured I'd put the glider on the (soon-to-be-built) porch after that. Or even just move it to the side, make myself a nice place to sit, surrounded by roses.

I felt really silly reporting the theft to the police. But the officer was really nice about it, said that if it were him, he'd have reported it, too.

Mom gave me that glider.
I don't understand what makes a person steal something.
And why a glider?

I've considered other possibilities: Someone thought it was theirs. Someone saw one listed on Freebay, and got the address wrong. Or, the highly unlikely, "someone thought they'd refinish it for me as a surprise, and it will come back later". All those options occurred to me at first. And not just to me. My brother E came over Sunday, and asked if it was at all possible that some guy I was dating had taken it to refinish. It was weird to hear someone else had considered the same possibility, even if mine was more along the lines of "my VT or HT" instead of "some guy". Since I'd have to be dating someone for that to be true, and I'm pretty much not. I still wish that were the case. But I'm sure it's not.

*I hesitated on blogging this. Some paranoid part of my brain suggested that maybe someone out there was trying to see if I was who they thought I was, as in, "if she blogs that she's had this stolen, then I'll know who she is and where she lives." Because, you know, I'm just that important. There was another Utah blogger who recently had her lawnmower stolen from the driveway, so that fueled the paranoia.*

Darn Cat!

I am not a pet person. I haven't had a pet, of any living variety, since just after the Twins were born. I am pretty sure I put off an aura that should repel domesticated animals. I'm trying to. Nothing against pets, or people who have pets. I'm just not into them for myself. (for more on this, go here)

But, lately, we've been having this weird phenomenon at our house. For about a month, maybe a little longer.

We seem to be attracting cats.

I have no idea why.

It started, I suppose, a little further back, with a large grey cat, which I assume is a stray. It hangs out in the back yard, watching the various birds that gather in some wild rose bushes in the back corner. It generally runs when it sees me. I DO NOT feed it, pet it, or in any other way encourage this animal. I also don't chase it off. I figure, it's not doing any harm, and may be keeping down a mouse population, for all I know. (Despite the age and condition of my home, I've only had mice once, many years ago. Something I attribute to the stray cat population of my neighborhood.) I have noticed that this grey cat seems more at ease with me lately, not streaking off the moment I step into the back yard. But that's as far as it goes with this one.

A couple of weeks ago, another cat, this one just past the kitten stage, striped in grey and white, starts to hang around the front steps. Like it thinks it lives there. Again, we have not fed or otherwise encouraged this animal, nor have we chased it off. We just don't let it in the door. But it keeps hanging around. I find it in the front yard all the time.

Last night, or, rather, very early this morning around 1 AM, a third cat, similar in age to the second, but in grey and white patches, manages to find its' way IN THE HOUSE. (I have this window in the basement, used to be where the dryer vented, used to be this wood panel with a hole in it, in place of a window panel. I taped plastic over it after we moved the dryer. It's in the basement, it's a small window, I just haven't gotten around to having glass put in. I'm lazy like that.)
Do you have any idea how weird it is to be woken by a cat, in your own bedroom, when you don't own a cat? It may have wandered all over the house before it came to me, I don't know. It seemed to want me to follow it. I did. It goes to the window where it came in, like it wants to go back out, but can't figure out how. I escort it out the door (no reason to teach it a bad habit like using a window for a door), which it seems reluctant to allow. I shut the door on it, put some more tape on the plastic window substitute, and go back to bed.
About an hour later, we do this all over again. This time, I put some heavy cans in front of the window as well. I'm having trouble getting back to sleep, so I wander the house for a minute. I hear a noise downstairs, and when I go back down, Twin2 is standing by the window. He says some cat was trying to get in. I tell him I just finished putting it out for the second time. I check the tape, add a little more, and we go back to bed. Neither of us can figure out what this cat thinks it wants from us. There isn't any food about to attract it. It's not even cold outside (I should know, I've just come back in), and yet, this cat thinks it needs to be in our house.
This time, it's almost 5:30 AM before it's back. It seems a bit offended when I almost toss it out the back door. I had to get up soon, and I felt like I hadn't slept at all. I should have stayed up, but I went back to bed for just a little more sleep, if I could get it.

I forgot, my clock radio turns on at 5:35. It startles me, so my heart is pounding. Somebody is saying "the woman's heart started beating, hard, so she was alive. (I'm thinking, "what? what is this? is there a camera somewhere? why is the radio narrating my life?") Then the voice says, "she reaches for the tube in her throat, so her brain is alive, too," then something like "where is the family" and "she has a DNR", and I realize this is a story about resuscitating someone in hospital. For a minute there, it was really weird.

I get up, go about the usual morning stuff, pausing to check that window every now and then. Just in case.
The cat is waiting by the front door when we go out. Looking like it expects something.

Before we drive off, I block the window from the outside, hoping that will keep it out until I can get the window fixed properly. (Nothing else so far has seemed a good enough reason to properly fix this window, but this might just do it. I know, you're thinking, aren't you losing heat through that in the winter (unheated room, basement, not so much), or aren't you worried about a break-in (small window, and, seriously, what are you going to steal? my hand-me-down TV? the broken DVD player? my WalMart shoe collection? whatever). So, no, I've not stressed over it much.)

I have no idea why I'm suddenly attracting cats to my home. It's fine with me if you like cats, if you have cats, if you allow all the neighborhood strays to call your house home. You are welcome to them. I just don't want any myself.

porch update

Hoping, really hoping, to get this project started soon.
Finally have an estimate. It's slightly scary. That fake wood decking stuff is expensive, but so very worth it.
Will have drawings soon, I think.
And then we will probably shrink it some. Not for cost so much as for scale. What I really want is probably too big for the house. I'm willing to adjust for the sake of aesthetics. Totally. Who wants to look at their house every day and think, "what did I do that for?" No, if it looks out of proportion, we'll re-design.
I want at least 10 feet deep on the South end. I'll settle for anything deeper than 6 feet. Because if you go any skinnier, there's not much point in having a porch.

and I will leave a trail of pine needles in my wake

Finally, now that the wedding fuss is over, I had the time to take the Christmas tree out of the house. I made the boys undecorate it Saturday, thinking we might need the strings of lights for decorating for the reception. But it stood bare, shed needles surrounding it and crunching underfoot (aaah, what a heavenly smell!), until last night. I should have gone back to work after picking the boys up from school, because it's tax season, but I stayed home and removed Christmas instead.
(As it turned out, we didn't need the lights. Mom brought hers, too, and dad seemed to think one strand was enough anyway. I talked him into two strands, but he wouldn't budge past that. I personally would have used more, but maybe I'm just like that. Got the tree undecorated, though, didn't it?)
I swear, it took me over an hour to clean up the needles, and make sure all other traces of Christmas were removed from the living room. You know, like the stocking holders on the mantel, the cards, my cute Christmas tree pen, the wreath on the front door, stuff like that.
Alas, I did not feel I had the energy to visit the attic, so all the Christmas stuff is piled up around the closet in which the attic access resides.
Correction: I didn't feel I had the energy to get my teenage twins to help me lug things up there. Because talking teens into doing something they don't want to do takes a whole lot of energy sometimes. More than it might have for me to go back and forth, up and down, all by myself.
But it's ready to go back up there, boxes packed, etc.

Anyone need some pine needles? Anyone?

further porch musings

Over the weekend, I was talking with a friend about the dimensions of the porch, describing the roofing, etc. (he was very involved in building his house this year, and the house before this, so he's into that kind of thing), and he asks me why I'm not following the line of the house instead of doing the porch straight across. Hmmm. Interesting notion.
I'm sure the original idea is easier/cheaper. But now he's got me thinking. He has a good point, because it's possible it would help to make it look more like it came that way. Which is important to me. But if you follow the line of the house, build out x number of feet from the outer walls instead of letting the front of the porch be straight across, what do you do about the roof?
That's when I wished he hadn't said anything. Because of course what makes sense there, is to match and extend the gable over the north end, and change the pitch on the south end so you can extend the roof the full depth of the porch. I can hear that ching-ching noise in my head. Like a cash register, you know? Not the best sound right now.

True Confessions

So, I think it's time to face facts. The root of the current stress and anxiety over the roof, furnace, and porch, and the debt involved in doing those things, is, well, not just the things themselves. It goes a little deeper.
My boys attend a charter school, which means no bus. So every day, I have to take them to school and pick them up after. The school is about 20 min away from home, about 15 from work. My work day should be 8 hours, and their school day is only a little shy of that. Theoretically, it should work out okay, if I don't take a lunch, and if I can have just one day a week when I can either come back to work, or not leave to pick them up. However, my boys are punctually challenged, so most days, I'm not at work until 9 or so, and I have to leave to pick them up around 3. Do the math, and you can see how this does not translate into me having 8 hours of work in between dropping them off and picking them up. Even though I work through lunch, I'm still short a couple hours, every day. By the end of the week, I've lost a day or so, meaning I should come back after picking them up Friday (they're out at noon), and/or come in Saturday. Sure, that time is theoretically available to me to work, but what about all that other stuff I'm supposed to be doing at home? Things like housework, and errands.
For a while, I had some comp time and vacation time I could use to fill in the gaps. But that's gone now. As a result, my paycheck which included the Thanksgiving holiday (I host, so I took off 1/2 day before, and the day after) was a tad short of my usual. Even before that, I wasn't quite getting enough hours to make a complete paycheck for myself. Then, I had to take time off during the day to get estimates for the roof, and it got worse from there. I had an old filling come apart, and had to schedule dental appointments. My car needed new tires (normal), and then needed a new blower motor. (picked up yesterday from that only to find out some of the instrument panels don't light up, and the radio can't tune any station - not paying for that, as it worked before they did the other, but still have to take it back down and leave it for the day. again.)
All these things are cutting into my work day. And it's almost Christmas. And my paycheck is shrinking. I'm trying to work more hours, make up for all the time I'm out for other stuff, but it's hard. And I feel guilty when I'm not at home after what would be normal work hours. (Thankfully, my office is sympathetic to my situation, so I'm pretty sure I won't loose my job over this.)
I accept that I have to take the kids back and forth. And this is their senior year, so after May, this won't be a problem. But there's the clue to the next problem. My boys are seniors. This means, once they graduate, my child support is gone. And the health insurance coverage under their dad. Come June, I have to provide their health insurance, and do without the child support. Essentially, this means that my net take-home pay will drop by a little less than 1/3. Add to that the fact that my office didn't give raises this year (the economy and all), and I'm looking at a tighter budget than I'd prefer. At least, I'm pretty sure I'll manage, but I'm also pretty sure we won't have much left over for anything fun.
So taking on debt for putting on the new roof and getting the new furnace isn't the best idea right now. But those items won't wait. Yes, the porch is optional, mostly. Except that the extra roofing for the porch should be done in conjunction with the new roofing, or I may have trouble getting them back to finish that part. Which would be mega stupid, having a front porch without a proper roof.
Probably you know more than you wanted to about my economic standing of the moment. I know I don't want to think about it. I want it all to go away. Except the porch. I want the porch. And for the boys to graduate high school, so they can go on to college, jobs, and lives of their own. That's all a good idea.
I'm just a tad worried about how we'll manage fiscally.
I pay my tithing, and I'm determined to pay for as much of both their missions as I can, though I know I probably can't handle all of it on my own. We're going to be okay, we're likely not headed for total financial ruin. But it's still freaking me out.
So...now you know.

what is it with me and blower motors?

That's what's wrong with the furnace, the motor for the fan has a "dead spot", which basically is like having gears that have a tooth missing. If it stops at that point, it can't start up again, because something is missing in that spot. Basically.
I just found out that the same thing is wrong with the car. The fan on my air/heat stopped working a while ago, and we've just ignored it until I could take the car over. Took it over today, and after most of the day, they finally figure out that while everything should work, the blower motor just isn't. It's like an identical problem, just on a smaller scale. Roughly the same price to fix, though. Which is weird.
My brothers were saying that it used to be that you had one or two little motors, and you just hooked them up to whatever you needed to run at the time. Looks like not much has changed since then. A motor is a motor, apparently.
(note: while I will be replacing just the motor on the car, the age of the furnace dictates that I replace the entire furnace, as not all the parts are likely to still be available should something else go. But if I were to just replace the furnace fan motor, it would cost roughly the same as the replacement for my car's blower motor. which makes no sense, considering the size difference.)

not festive yet

I got a pre-lit fake tree at the school for only $20, part of a silent auction they had going. I actually have another fake tree, which I rarely used before. This one has multi-color lights, and my old one has clear/white. I just thought it might be cool to have one with multi-color, since I only have one string of colored lights, inherited from my grandmother, and I didn’t want to buy lights right now. I didn’t put it up yet, because Twin1 had suggested we do red and black for our ornaments this year, and I’d been headed in that direction. So, I don’t know yet, if we’ll get a real tree, and do the red and black, or if we’ll put up this new one and do whatever colors and ornaments strike our fancy. We’re not festive yet. I did get up in the attic, get out a few things, because I needed some Christmas cards, but I didn’t get out all the stuff yet. If I have to stay home with the furnace guy for a day, I’ll do it then. I’ve got most my gifts taken care of, though. Not all wrapped, but most are either ordered or already here, or finished, or whatever. Wrapping to do. always something.

more porch musings

Okay, so maybe I'm looking for reasons to make it bigger rather than smaller, but here's something else to consider:
I remember hearing once, about someone who put her quilt frame out on her porch, and had a pulley system so she could raise it up to the ceiling (that'd be just the frame part, the legs would be put to the side until they lowered it again) and out of the way when they were done for the day. This appealed to me, at the time, because I had put up a quilt out in the back yard (no room in my house big enough, as I lived in the basement then), in June/July, and had to one day run it in the garage to get it out of the rain. That was quite the adventure! Shortly after that, the quilt, still not finished, had to be removed from the frame and taken inside, where it was folded and stuffed away in a closet. It has moved to a couple different locations since then, but has never again been put on the frames to finish quilting. This is a sad thing for the quilt. I would like to remedy that. I do now live in the whole house, and the upstairs living room is plenty big enough (I think, but I haven't tried it) for the quilt frame. However, I think it would dominate the room, which one can't do indefinitely. Sadly, my 8 foot ceilings do not allow me to prop it up on end to get it out of the way, either. No, it needs somewhere else to be set up, somewhere out of the way, but also out of the weather. I think a big front porch is just the thing, don't you?

I think 10 is good

After measuring, contemplating, and holding up the hammock in it's future position, I think I'll have to go with the larger porch. The 10 foot end of it seems so very huge, but if I cut it back, the narrower end is too narrow. Plus, 2 feet less of grass to water and mow, that makes me happy. The price difference, without the extra roofing (because that's not Ed's department) is only about $250. That seems a small price to pay for having the room I've planned, as opposed to having maybe enough, but maybe not. See, my grandparents, when they built their home together, let the builder/contractor talk them into taking a foot (or there-abouts) off each of two sides of their dining room, and basically, they never got over it. They had to get a smaller table than originally planned, and even then, if you were back in the corner, everyone else had to get out so you could get out. Seriously. I don't want to save a little money just to curse myself for it every time I trip over a chair leg on my way to the car. I know, you're thinking 8 feet sounds like plenty of room to not trip over furniture on the porch. And it probably would be. It's the other end of it that would be too skinny. I have ideas/plans for how I want to use this space, and if it's too small, I'll just hate myself. Of course, if it looks like I've tacked on a huge garish thing on my cute small house, that'll be sad. I'm hoping it won't look like that. I'm pretty sure it won't. And I kinda don't care if it does, if I have the space I'm looking for. But only kinda.

overwhelmed

Thinking about the house, the roof, the porch, the furnace, the funds involved in all that...
I'd like to just crawl under my desk and curl up in a ball until it's all over.
That additional roofing on the porch is scaring me. But I know I want a real roof over it, not an awning, because I want lights out there, and maybe a swing hanging from the porch ceiling.
And Ed has to go and say that he's sure the guy quoted me too much on the furnace. So obviously I should get other estimates on that. Except I don't want to, because I'm already loosing work hours trying to choose a roofer. Sure, I don't want to get taken, and I want it done right. I just hate all the research.

8 feet, or 10? I think 10.

The porch. Which will need, because I want it deep, not just an extension of the roof line, but an entire gable. Apparently, sort of a large one, a bit higher than the existing roof even. (Does that mean I'll have more space in the attic? or a separate space just over the porch?) So, okay. But now that we have an idea of the porch dimensions, and the necessary roofing for that, I guess I have to get back to the roofers and see how much more for that. I hadn't imagined anything that extensive, as far as building goes, and maybe the roofers didn't either, though I mentioned the porch to all of them. I bet they imagined just a skinny one, and only on one side. But, no, I want it across the entire front, and at least 8 feet deep. Probably 10. Because on the north end, the house bumps out a couple feet, and I don't want that end to be too skinny, either. I want to hang the hammock there, and it will need a minimum space of whatever it needs. I'm going to get it out and lay that on the snowy ground below where I imagine it will hang, and see just how much room. I suspect I'll need the 10-foot depth on the south end in order to have enough room on the north end.

When it rains, it pours

Okay, so the idea of putting on a new roof was already making my head spin. Then, over the weekend, it became apparent that we need a new furnace. Like, now. Which is kind of okay, sort of expected. I mean, it was original to the house, which was built in the 40's, so I really can't complain, right? Yes, seriously, that's how old the furnace is. And in the 22+ years I've been in my house, I've only had one repair on it (plus regular maintenance and such, because you have to do that), and that was at least 18 years ago. But really? Now? Do I have to? Pretty much, yes, I do. It's truly dying. Plus it's not very efficient. Not compared to what you can get today. I looked at the repair guy, who had been kind enough to come out on a Monday night without an extra after-hours charge, and said "I don't think the teenagers are going to like 'look, boys, we got a new furnace for Christmas!'". He laughed, so did I. But, seriously, who wants to hear that?
Then, I called my dad, just to commiserate. After a few minutes, he asks me how much equity I've got in the house. I'm thinking, you don't want to know because it'll make you jealous. I remind him how long ago I bought the place, and how much values have gone up. Basically, even if I'd never made any headway on the mortgage (and believe me, I have), I'd still have at least double the value in equity, just because I bought it so cheap. So, yeah, duh, since I have to do the roof AND the furnace, a Home Equity LOC might just be the ticket. I avoid debt as much as the next guy, but sometimes, you just have to go there. And if I'm going there, I'm doing something I WANT done. (yes, I'm a selfish spoiled brat...so what?) So, you'll be noticing some changes at my place. First up, a front porch. Oh yeah! Wanted one ever since I bought the house, actually got an estimate from my trusty contractor years ago, been sitting on the idea, hoping to make it happen "someday". Well, "someday "has finally arrived.
Applied for the loan, totally got it, (banks love me - I have enviable credit) and Ed is coming tomorrow afternoon to tell me just how soon we can make it happen. And, oh, I guess I'll arrange for the furnace, and choose a roofer, too. Until I decided to do the porch, the most exciting thing about this was going to be choosing the color for the shingles.
I promise, for this project, I'll take and post plenty of before, during, and after pics. The furnace replacement I expect might be boring, and the roof, too. But the porch project...well, I may have to ask someone to pinch me. I can't believe I'm finally doing it!

new roof? please, no, not that!

I should have put a new roof on the house about 5 years ago, and I've been putting it off. Because it's expensive. But, lately, I've noticed "evidence of moisture" inside. No actual drips, just some peeling paint here and there upstairs. And truly, no moisture in the attic, so I've no clue where it's coming from. Plus, I know it wasn't a new roof when I moved in, over 20 years ago, so really, just how long did I think it would last?
If I just pray really hard, and think positive thoughts, do you think the roof will heal itself? No? Okay, then, I'll start getting estimates. If I must.