August 7, 2024 (forgot to post this): I don’t remember where this is stored but I’m shutting down my server space after almost 20 years. One less headache!
But I also might lose this space so if I do, thank you for hanging out and I hope you can find me in all those other places that suck the life out of us 🙂
December 29, 2024: still here! w00t!
But it could have happened apparently. One of the new-to-me things in this house is a gas fireplace. I’ve never had one of those.
When I was a kid, we had one of those ginormous wall unit cabinets that had big double doors covering a bar and a stereo/record player and, at the bottom of all of it, electric logs pretending to be a fireplace. Seriously – the thing was HUGE and I occasionally see similar pieces for sale in various marketplaces.
We had a wood stove in my first marital life so I can do that. But this gas thing – oof.
I brought in fireplace experts to inspect it and show me how to use it. The opening around the fireplace was quite sooty and, above the mantle about 2 feet was a soot line on the wall. I didn’t see any of that until the day I closed on the house.
Based on the size and shape of the firebox, it was likely an old coal fireplace. I showed the inspector the soot line on the wall and he said it wasn’t likely from the fireplace. Then he went to work and got it fired up and we had an oh-shit experience.
The wood mantle above the fireplace got HOT and it didn’t take long. He looked up the fire log set and we discovered that it was installed improperly.
The inspector showed me a diagram with something that looked like a range hood as the approved deflector thingie. Since I have more or less drained my bank account fixing other things, I opted for a cheap adventure in creativity. Did you know that you can buy mortar in a bucket and cheap bricks and slap them up around a fireplace? Maybe you knew that.
So I did. I sketched and measured and sketched and measured and then I bought a bunch of stuff and made it up as I went along. I now have a relatively safe fireplace as long as you don’t mind the noxious fumes that will probably kill me. But at least I’ll be warm and nothing will be on fire!
Probably.
I closed on this house in August but I didn’t kind of move until October and didn’t sort of settle in until November. The first time I saw the place in person was on closing day. I can’t say I recommend that, especially with the inspection situation where the timeline was so screwed up that I had to make my “fix this stuff or take off money” negotiation without having the full report in hand.
So I bought a house where none of the windows open. Except for the ones that don’t close. A house with antique plumbing, leaking faucets, a hole in the underside of the furnace plenum, a crawl space full of dried cat shit and old paint, and a mysterious hatch that opens to the space under the front porch and has – at minimum – an ice chest and a foot locker in it. I am both curious and terrified to find out what’s in them. I think I’ll pay someone to take care of all of this.
My new-to-me house had a pile of garbage in the middle of the dining room floor and, when the A/C kicked on, it looked like a snow globe with all the dust and dog hair blowing around.
Oh yeah. And there was a very plump mouse that was quite at home in the kitchen.
My house is 100+ years old and, except for the heinous kitchen and bathroom, is in pretty good shape for an old girl. I have been getting YouTube certified on repairing my beautiful old windows so some day some of them will open and/or close.
The best part of moving in was finding a letter from my homeowner’s insurance company that said I had to put railings on my front porch by December or they were going to drop me. Welcome to the effin’ neighborhood!
I’ll tell you that story whenever it gets finished. Hopefully next week? In the meantime, welcome to my living room.
snoringKatZ 