I can't believe it has been so long since I last posted! My apologies - though it's not as if any of you were calling me and begging me to write! Ha ha! The problem with so long in between postings is that I have no idea where to start.....
My oldest sister, Wren, made a comment that this house would humble me and she is correct. Daily. If I am totally honest, there are days lately where I am rather overwhelmed by it all and I am pretty sure Brad is too. You just feel like you have to ride out the storm and hope for calmer seas on the other side.
It seems like every project I start leads to two more. Some of the thrills of the house can also become the annoyances. Like sprinkler repair - INSIDE THE HOUSE! I have mentioned the atriums before in this blog but now I can say that I have done sprinkler repairs in one! We kept noticing moisture in one spot and it seemed like the mud never dried up, so it was time to dig a little. Nothing major and easily fixable, but it seems the stones that are the walking path through it laid right on the line, so it was time to come up with an alternate plan. So of course the logical thing to do is build a little Trex walkway - INSIDE THE HOUSE! Must admit that doing these things as interior projects were a first for me! But it's done and looks great and I am glad for the improvement - even changed out the sprinkler heads for a drip system which will be much nicer. Trimmed things up and pulled all of the vines off the wall, so it's looking pretty good!
On to the other atrium.... years and years worth of vine growth had to go. Turns out there is a beautiful stone wall behind about a two feet deep wall of vines! Or at least there were vines! No more. So much dust and dead leaves that I had to wear a mask and goggles. It looks so much better! Turns out there is no watering system in there but I can still water manually and can keep live plants to a minimum perhaps. Can you say zen garden?!
Other adventures have included time spent in the attic. Which is of course what any sensible person does when you are having a record setting heat wave of over 100 degrees for days on end, right?! In my defense, I have gone up there only first thing in the mornings. The task that took me up there in the first place was that one of the attic fans was not working so I wanted to look at it and see if I could see anything. Well, turns out that attic fans don't work too well when there is a bird lodged in the blades! Ugh! I won't go into too much detail here or post the picture I took to prove to Brad what I found, but suffice it to say that he had been there a while and as badly as I wanted to leave him there and make Brad get him, I put on my big girl panties and did it myself. Turns out that was not why it wasn't working though. Hmmm So next task was to put on my electrician panties and figure out where it was located on the circuit breaker so I could turn it off and fix a loose wire I noticed. (By the way, a circuit breaker finder is a wonderful tool if anyone is interested!). Did that. Still didn't work. I will be calling someone.
So once I got up in the attic, it seemed as if it was not well lit - only one light bulb that I could see. Time to don the headlamp I used for night hiking in Utah - turns out it works great for home improvement too! Once I could see better to get around, it turns out that there are four light fixtures but the other three all had burned out light bulbs! What was it with these people?!?! Once lit, turns out that they also thought of the attic as a giant wastebasket. Old light bulbs? Just toss them aside! Car top carrier you aren't using? Throw it up there! An old TV mount? Perfect spot! I probably picked up at least 10 old light bulbs laying on top of the insulation, yards and yards of old cables that had been cut and left up there, a pair of crutches, the bag with crusty old dead bird and an assortment of other goodies. AND I could only get to half of the attic! The most scary part is all of the cables and wires that are just laying across the area and aren't protected. That will be a project for the Fall when the weather cools!
When we got the home inspection report it said that this was a "uniquely built house". Man were they right! No place is that more evident than the attic! There are elevation changes and one spot where you have to step down about two and a half feet. Unable to see where the support joists were, guess who stepped down onto a piece of drywall that is the ceiling of the atrium?! Yup, me. Got to do a little ceiling drywall repair after that. Then about the spot where there is only a narrow slit that I may or may not be able to squeeze through, I realized that there is nice cool air on the other side. That is NOT good! Means that there is an opening in the duct somewhere up there and I am cooling the attic! So next week, the plan is to come through the ceiling of the mechanical room or laundry room to get access to that area and see if I can find it! The fun never stops!!! But I have to do it - we got our electrical bill and with temperatures over 100 for days on end and no relief in sight, I can't continue to air condition the attic and get another jaw dropping bill!
So there are days that I think Brad and I sit back and wonder what on earth we have done when we bought this house! I guess it's like falling in love with the bad boys in high school - you know it's not good for you but you just have to have it! I am hoping that eventually this bad boy of a house will reform itself. I know any move takes time, but it just feels like this one has just been the perfect storm of so many things going wrong, needing attention and the oppressive heat outside has not helped at all. Perhaps it's time to refresh myself on that meditation class I took!
The good news is that the move back to Kansas still feels like a good choice. It has been fun to see family and friends more often and the people we have met here have been wonderful. Brad has started to work and the people he works with are all great. We've already been to dinner with the Dean and his wife, went to an event with several people from his office, had dinner with the in-laws and we have tickets to a concert Saturday with another co-worker. On Saturday two friends of mine from JUNIOR HIGH came over! One has a daughter who just graduated from college and will be teaching at a Wichita area high school and the other was about a half hour away at a family gathering, so we coordinated it and they all came here. One friend brought two of her daughters and the other brought her husband, son and daughter so we had a great time catching up and then went out to eat dinner. I love the fact that I can do things like that now!
I have decided that today is picture hanging day. Maybe it will help to feel a little more settled and "homey" and less like I am living in a job site! I am sure there are a million other things that I have done in the last two weeks and if I can think of any other good stories I will let you know. For now, it's time to find the hammer and some nails and get to work!
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