Latest Setback

I decided to go with another gas company to save money. Mistake. Didn't save money because of turnover costs. More importantly we discovered a large leak in the pipe under the house. We could smell and hear it, but not see it. I'm really glad I asked the gas dude to turn it all on and light the stove pilot light because if I did it I wouldn't have noticed the leak and it probably would have accumulated under the house until it blew.  It probably would have been an explosion large enough to blow me to Mt. Lassen.


Now the tank is padlocked because it's unsafe to use and I have to replace all the pipe under house.

Lovely.

But am I angry?  No.

I'm used to this.  This house fights me every step of the way, and always has.  But I can't - won't - let it win.

Feel Like Hanging It Up

Sometimes, things move along so slowly and the end seems impossibly distant. I want to just hang it all up.  I mean, I literally got the idea to stop all this silliness and just hang up hammocks everywhere.  Just use the house as a shell to hang around in. 

But ... somebody else beat me to it.  And they have a better view.

I Moved Out

I moved out of my house right away. Not because of the Sav-More situation and the lack of facilities, but because the place depressed me. Why? It's a filthy hovel. 

Yes, it's coming along and it has potential, but it's also overwhelmingly ... messed up.  It's painful for me to be there, because it reflects my inability to make things happen there without help.  And, because it's just buttugly.

I don't know what else to do but just keep slogging it out as best I can.

I've Gone Insane.

I moved into the hovel. 

Something needed to change. I just had to do it. Things haven't progressed in months. I figured if I live there I'll have to deal with it. Even though there is no water and minimal electrical. I have to go to Save-Mor to poop and the coffe shop to wake up. Like I said, insane.

A Can Of Worms

Nothing is simple in this place.  I just wanted to texture and paint a tiny 4' X 6' room - a laundry room.

New tools, new entry, new garden, and a new plan.

Things have been busy at the hovel the last few weeks.  Leslie and I built 2 new planters for growing veggies. Just for fun, and just in case civilization takes a serious dive soon and we start experiencing food shortages.

Barney Help

Barney lends a hand!

New framing and some sheathing

My entry was in rough shape. Barney has been telling me he would stop by to give me a hand. He did last week and we decided that working on the entry would be a good project.  We quickly decided to peel off a layer to see what was going on underneath.  Before you know it, the whole thing was demolished.

Then came the shock.  There was a huge load of trash underneath the house.  The previous owner decided it would be cheaper and easier just to dump his trash under the house!  Within a few hours I had taken a pickup load of trash to the dump. Cost: $25.00.

Barney working on the bench

So, Barney started from the dirt and built up the structural frame. Then we sheathed it with a pile of 1x6 DF planks that I thankfully got for free through Greg. Over 3 days Barney rebuilt my entry with a little bench for shoe shedding.

My job was then to sand and stain.  Done as of yesterday. I'm happy!

Barney's work is done

Ready for sanding and stain

Done, with a newly framed picture

Color

Some people are afraid of color in their homes.  Or maybe they just don't care about color.  I was one of those people. I thought that walls in a home should just disappear, that it's what you hang on them that matters. Maybe color on walls can take away from whatever it is you want to hang on them.  But life is too short to live in a beige world, I think. 

I know that there are many great colors that make me feel good. They make my eyes hum and make my brain send out yummy messages to my body.  I'm particularly fond of yellow-orange hues. So, I'm going to go for some color. I don't really know what I'm doing - not sure about how complemetary they'll be, but I'm going to throw some color out there and see how it feels.

Photos coming ...

Getting Along?

While working on the house, I've been working on these two as well.  It's getting better.  Spanky (the cat) want to snuggle, while Rou wants to herd. This is the compromise. A somewhat tenuous truce but the beginnings of a real truce nonetheless.

Meanwhile, I keep painting ...

Year End Goals

Although I've had to scale back my expectations for the hovel as a livable space in the near term, I do have some goals.  I want to be finished with the entry, media and living rooms as well as have one working toilet before 2011.

I've been taping and texturing Sheetrock and preparing for final paint in fits and starts for months. I decided to concentrate on 2 rooms: the entry and the media room.  So far, the media room has final paint and I mounted the wall fixtures. The entry is primed and I hope to put on the first layer of final paint today.