This Old House

One late night, on a message board not far from here, someone asked this question:

The question: When was your house built?

My answer: Main part - 1820. Looking for available arsonist acquaintance.

Then, for whatever reason (it's me, so take it for what it's worth), I decided to make a list of reasons why I hate my house. In 5 minutes, I was at #20 on the list, and still more things came to mind. The original list is on the blog. This is an addendum to the blog, evidence by pictures of why I hate this house, with some grammatical changes because I'm like that. Please note that, as I write this photo essay, a sump pump runs, with no outlet close enough to throw the water out. What we have is a few shop vac hoses attached to one another, running its course out one of the bathrooms' windows. Yes, bathrooms is plural. We'll get there, promise.

To preface things a bit, in 1996, I gave birth to my third and last child. We lived in a 650-square foot apartment when he came along, and I house hunted almost all of my last trimester, looking for a perfect house to allow the kids (and us) some space. We met Bob, whom we now call Nailz McGraber, who lovingly showed us the house that was now too big and too empty for him to care for properly. If we bought the house, he intended to move next door and, if we had any questions, he'd be there.

1. Lathe and plaster walls. The guys at the store do not understand the concept of "there is no drywall."

It looks better, but we ended up putting wallboard over it and pasting the wallboard, putting the chair rail up high, and painting over textured plaster. Although it looks good, if someone ever buys this place, they're never going to get it down without completely pulling all plaster away from the lathe.

2. Bob's nails. They're everywhere.

This is from removing the crispy yellow shag carpet attached to the stairs. The carpet came off around the nails, there were so many of them. This is also a board that Bob added for additional draft protection. I can't count this high.

3. Bob's screws. They're wherever the nails aren't.

These are my beautiful hand-made (by Bob) cherry wood cabinets...

but see how they're made?

4. Finding five layers of roofing during tornado season and the insurance company only paid for the removal of two, which the workers fussed about because of Bob's nails.

5. Two centuries of do-it-yourselfers, with nails...and cinder blocks.

6. Duct work that does not graduate as it goes upstairs. If we want central air, we'll have to do it ourselves. I don't even want to think about the flippin' nails or screws.

7. Basement that floods.

8. Basement that is half dirt.

9. Basement with better electrical supply than the rest of the house.

10. Faulty wiring in the "new" part of the house.

11. The small house fire.

12. Extension cords of all shapes and sizes to distribute power evenly and prevent small house fires.

Yes, this one gets in the way and must be useful, hence the clothespins. It's in the laundry room. It makes sense...to us.

13. The ceramic pipes leading to the sewers that broke and our toilet exploded. For two days, no toilet use in the house, the little robot cameras couldn't get around the root systems, and...I've repressed the rest of those memories except the stench.

14. Not being able to really reliably put nails into the lathe and plaster walls. Like this house needs any more nails, but, hey. It worked for Bob.

15. No exterior electricity (now fixed).

16. One spigot, big yard.

17. Five layers of flooring in the "new" part of the house.

18. The eight layers of wallpaper in the converted attic in the old part of the house.

19. The three chimneys for which the fireplaces have had wall built around them.

20. Birds randomly getting into our house through said chimneys.

21. No chimney attached to the beautiful Italian marble fireplace that came from a mansion auction.

22. My pink walls. Everything else gets broke so fast I can't get them painted, and it's been 11 years.

23. It's unusual for a German house, but there are closets everywhere. Nice, except the latches to the top parts of the closet don't always work. They might be nailed shut. Who knows?

24. I don't have a bathroom. I have a room with a sink, a room with a tub/shower, and a room with a toilet. Nice, but it used to be the outhouse and they just slapped it together with the rest of the house. The shampoo freezes in the winter. See reason #10 for why it stays cold. We're afraid to use space heaters.

25. Holly. Lots and lots of holly. It's gone, now. I can't get past it, though. I still feel scratches on my arms from its long life at the front of my house. It still haunts me. I fear it will return.

26. The laundry room is bigger than my kitchen, and used to BE the kitchen. See #5.

27. The two layers of fake, plastic tile in the bathroom (now fixed).

28. The space for the refrigerator is less tall than my youngest child since he was 8.

29. The now-dead freezer is too big to remove from the house. It is now the snake incubator, though, with a new extension cord to trip over.

30. The fun "art" the former owner's wife swirled into the textured plaster. There's a devil chef on the way down to the basement. Mermaids and turtles. Willow trees. Huge crescents. The ceiling in the laundry room got damaged by the rain, and we'll never get anything to match what she did up there. It's not even comb art, like normal. She used her finger, and we can't get the paint-to-texture ratio even remotely close without it dripping from the ceiling. It's like meringue up there.

31. The doors that need custom-built replacements because nobody makes their own doors anymore on a whim and a prayer.

32. Not knowing where the copper wiring is and losing power to everything along the wall of two rooms because you just found it by running the vacuum cleaner.

33. Needing to install window AC units only to find that the window was installed backwards, so the screens were, too.

34. The duct work that doesn't graduate, but the wall baseboards (attached to the lathe-and-plaster) do. Some 8" high tapering down to 3" high, cleverly concealed by furniture during our home inspection.

35. Ancient pipes that freeze or burst or rust or a combination of the former.

36. Seeing just the 2400 square feet for your growing family, and not the 2400 square feet of agony.