Bathroom renovation

The bathroom renovation is not going so well. We knew it would be the toughest room in the house since it was the only one that had to be gutted to the studs but wow- I never expected it to take 6 weeks. We're at the four week mark now and there's at least 2 weeks to go, maybe more. We've gutted it, put insulation and vapor barrier on the floor and installed a new subfloor. It took three tries and 10 man hours (times 3 people) to get that floor level. One of the many joys of dealing w/ an old house and its odd angles. We finished the weekend by building a wall to provide the third wall of the bathtub alcove.

It was only once we got 40 minutes away, that my helpers (a.k.a. the parents) and I realized that we'd forgotten to insulate the alcove & top w/ vapor barrier. Which had to be done by today, in preparation for the plumber to install the fixtures, which are currently taking up residence in my living room. So, we get together this morning and drive through heavy fog, to install insulation at 6:00am. Naturally, by the time we finish we're late for work. Imagine then, how irritating it would be to get a call from the plumber at 4pm that he just didn't have time to get to my house today because he had another, more important job to do first.

What I wouldn't give for the money to just hire out all the renovation and someone to oversee it so all I had to do was come back in three months to a finished house!

Neighbors, the flip side

Sometimes, it's the ones you'd never dream of who cause you the most trouble. My house has a business behind, a house on one side and on the other, a church. I figured that would mean I only had one chance for ending up with neighbor trouble. Imagine my surprise to find myself in a property dispute...with the church! No one from the church has even come over to welcome me to the neighborhood but they made sure to wait until I was at work to come chop down a walnut tree in my yard. Luckily my sister happened to see it happening and ran over to stop them. Unfortunately, she could only convince them to "trim" the tree since they're claiming it belongs to them. If by trim you mean whacking off the entire left half of the tree, leaving a bizarre looking, mutilated corpse, then yes, they sure did trim the tree.

I don't have the money to pay for an official survey and haven't had the time to go to the court house to view the lot maps so I haven't bothered to confront them about it. While I don't attend church, I have strong morals and values that center around generally being a good person and being kind to others, so it's mind-boggling to me that the members of this church would ignore a new neighbor and then try to cut down my tree without even talking to me about it. Their reason for cutting it down is so silly- they don't like the messy walnuts. It's a healthy, living thing and you want to cut it down because it's getting your shoes dirty one day a week? Really? Is that what we're calling a Christian attitude these days? I've only owned the place for a few days and before they started this, I'd been sweeping their parking lot figuring that it was the nice thing to do. I wanted to get off on the right foot in my new town, guess that's not meant to be!

We get ice storms almost every single year. Wonder if they'll still claim ownership when that out of balance tree falls and hits my house.

Neighbors

The point of this blog is to be a journal for me so I can remember this time in my life later, so an entry once every few weeks isn't going to cut it. I need to start documenting the little things when they happen. I always say that life is 99% little moments and only 1% big events.

Last night I finally met my neighbor. I only have one since there's a church on one side and a business behind. I was in the back yard cutting down an ancient rose bush when the husband (it's an older couple) came out in his back yard. I introduced myself and he did the same. I asked about their dogs' names (they have two hounds) and told him about my own black lab, I'll call Lulu in this blog (her middle name is Louise). They were so excited to find a fellow dog lover had moved in, particularly since they moved to this town to get away from a neighbor who had been mean to their dogs. We chatted for several minutes and discovered a lot in common. In fact, all three of us work in the same professional field.

One of the reasons I moved here was to find a safe place to raise a family and after talking to him, I feel like I've made a good choice. Though it's a town with little crime, we agreed to watch out for each other. I was looking for that small town neighborly atmosphere and it seems like I found it!

So little time

I've owned my home for 23 days and it's been a challenge trying to spend every moment that I can working on the house. I get irritated at work for interfering with my personal life. I mean, how can they have the audacity to expect me to concentrate on the job they're paying me for- don't they know I have a ancient house to rehab? Try as I might, however, I've yet to find an employer who will pay me to do nothing so I'm afraid spending every waking second working on the house is not an option.

It's funny how much time it takes to get even small tasks completed. And considering how many projects the house involves, it's going to be years before I can even move in at this rate! My parents are helping me and in the past three weeks we've managed to:

• Fix a hole in a roof shingle
• Seal a hole in the soffit
• Fix the cracks in the chimney flashing
• Cut down four bushes that had grown about 10 feet tall
• Attack the weeds on 1/4 of the back yard
• Tear down the paneling in the kitchen
• Tear out two cabinets from the kitchen
  
• Get the furnaces working
• Clear out the junk from the previous owners
  
• Gut the bathroom down to the studs
• Tear out a rotten bathroom window, board up and cover w/ vinyl siding
• Clean the cobwebs & dust out of the entire house
• Clean out the storage building/garage
  
• Find a plumber and an electrician

There are hundreds of items on my 'to do' list and without the money to pay for professionals to do them, this house is going to be a lifetime project for me. I'll just be happy to have a working bathroom!