It is an understatement to say I have been overwhelmed by the house. Going there makes me tired. All I see is work, projects and more work. We are currently on the 3 - 5 year plan. In that amount of time it will be a really great house. We need that much time for stress levels and pocketbooks to recover, but also, there are just that many projects!
Part of the overwhelmed feeling was relieved today. We had a cleaning day at the house. I honestly can't even count how many people came over - partly because I wasn't even there the whole day! I went in the morning and two ladies cleaned with me for a little over an hour. Then several people came in the afternoon while I was home with the kids, and tonight, 5 more people came. The best part is - you can touch our kitchen cupboards and your hand doesn't get slimy. You can open the cupboards without any effort - they aren't stuck shut! Its a glorious thing, let me tell you - and I didn't do any of it!
I was explaining to many of them that this house is its own sort of money pit. We start what seems like a simple project and it turns into several projects. So, our 'to do' list grows instead of shrinks. But through it all there have been some pretty cool God moments. Today someone said I should write a few down, so here goes:
-The handyman from our church has been working in our bathroom since we bought the house. He took out the old, disgusting surround shower and is replacing it with tile. After he took out the surround, he noticed the pipes needed to be moved, so he did that. Then he noticed the studs behind the shower were warped, so he replaced them, then the drain didn't match up so he had to put in a tile base instead of a pan. BUT, he has all this stuff at his house because a few years ago, a tile place that he frequented closed down and gave him what was left of his inventory. We had to purchase our tile, but the base work and some of the other things, he still had!
-He also convinced us to buy high efficiency toilets. From what we understand, water is expensive here. (whoever said the cost of living here would be much less out right LIED - I haven't found anything to be cheaper here- except Boston Cream Pie - gas costs more, insurance costs more, water costs more) Anyway, Matt took out the old toilet and was putting in the new one when he heard something crack. He lifted the toilet back up and realized he had crack the plastic base under the ring, so he went to buy a new one. While he was looking to put that in, he realized the drain pipe had a crack in it also. When we moved in, there was a major water stain on the ceiling, but the inspector couldn't figure out where it came from. Now we know, and if Bobby hadn't told us to replace the toilets and if Matt hadn't cracked it, we would have had a huge mess in a few months with a very wet ceiling soaking into our living room!
-Today cleaning the cupboards, someone was scrubbing the lazy susan. It was disgusting. She described it as a combination of molasses and oil. After she got through the first level, she noticed it had a huge crack in it - to the point that whatever that substance was, had leaked through to the base and so badly cracked that the bottom shelf would maybe hold marshmallows, and not much else. One of the ladies cleaning said she had a brand new one at home. They had never installed theirs, and weren't going to now, so we can have it!
-The upstairs shower still doesn't have hot water. This is troublesome to me, but there is a plumber coming to look at it tomorrow. So maybe there will be a good story there yet, too.
Hope your MLK Jr day was a good one!
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