Greetings From the Hinterlands

The reason I've been so quiet on this blog is that I'm deep in the throes of remodeling.  As in up to my armpits.  This has been going on since November of 2010, with a simple transformation of a spare room from a library to a craft room. The job just kept expanding and expanding, partly because of the usual old house woes needing to be fixed, but also because of opportune treasure finds, such windows. 
I have old, wavy-glass, single pane windows in this 100-year-old house, and I'm slowly replacing them with new, energy-efficient windows, one window at at time.  I have discovered that if you are very patient and check your sources diligently, you can find brand new windows for up to 50% off.  I made this discovery by accident when I was pricing windows at Home Depot.  They have a small, out of the way spot in the store where they place unclaimed or rejected new windows that were custom-ordered.  These windows are deeply discounted and they're sort of an insider secret, so unless you happen upon them (as I did) you won't know about them. Kind of like the table of discounted "oops" paint in the paint department.

I needed a long, skinny window for my bedroom, and found one at Home Depot that was only one inch shorter than what I'd wanted, but was way cheaper than ordering a custom window to fit into the non-standard opening.  I ended up paying $100 for my "custom" window!  So I haunt Home Depot and Lowe's, checking out their oops windows for my next replacements.

In the meantime, I am currently having wainscoting and paneling installed in the hallway, and I'm painting and varnishing molding and wood trim, while trying to come up withdecent reconfiguations for my kitchen and laundry room expansions.  If I survice, I'll eventually post pictures.

Life on the Fly

Stopping in at a dead run to say hi.  It's been crazy busy around here.  I had major furnace work done last week, and it wasn't cheap.  The plumbers were also out last week and fixed myriad plumbing problems.  That's my old-fashioned toilet on the left.  They had to rebuild it.  And below that is the other part of my bathroom.  Now the faucets no longer leak, nor the sinks, either.  Gone with the buckets under the sinks!

This week I've been crawling over electricians every time I turn around.  I guess it was worth it.  One of them said, "It's a miracle your house didn't burn down."  Now I can get rid of all the extension cords that my microwave, fridge, washing machine, lamps, etc. were plugged into because half the outlets in the house had quit working. 

I'm still washing dishes in the bathroom sink, which is a major pain, but it'll be a few more weeks before I can afford to have the septic people out to fix one of the septic systems so that my kitchen sink will be useable once again. 

No, that wasn't a typo.  Septic systems, as in two.  The people who built my house eons ago must have had plans to convert it into a two-family dwelling at one time.  Upstairs I have one septic system.  Downstairs, I have another.  It's a daylight basement that I converted to an apartment years ago, but quit renting it out when the septic system for the apartment began acting up.  Little did I know that the upstairs kitchen sink drained into the downstairs septic.  And when that failed, all that dirty dishwater began flooding the apartment downstairs.  I didn't know this, as I seldom go downstairs.  When I discovered the flooding, I was sick.  Brand new carpeting ruined.  Everything musty.  It's heartbreaking.

So Thursday I have a neighbor kid coming over to help me tear out the carpet and begin the process of drying out.  In the meantime, I'm up to my ears in work, and really can't spare the time for such nonsense. 

So to all 2 of my loyal followers, I may not be dropping in as much as I'd like to.  At least for the next month or so, while I deal with a gazillion old house issues.  Ahhhh, the joys of sinking my life's savings into a 100-year-old house!