Saturday, May 22, 2010

Nova Dallas?

New carpet is delayed until the foundation issues are resolved. Thanks to comments from brothers, carpet installers, et al, I decided it would be crazy to install new carpets, then have foundation work which probably would require re-stretching carpets (and which might involve people with muddy boots trekking around the house). So, all of the "stuff" we had packed up and moved away to temporary storage will now remain in storage for awhile. Foundation quotes will be gotten on Monday (and perhaps later in the week) and I expect to be stunned by the cost of getting the foundation of this money-pit back into square.

After that's done, we'll address some other issues...like attic pests and a need to re-insulate the attic and a need to replace or re-hang some badly out-of-square doors and a need to fix some plumbing and tile problems, and on and on. And then we'll either decide the "fixes" will last long enough to enjoy the house or we'll put the place on the market and get out from under it. I'm truly tired of old-house problems. It would be one thing if I could do the work myself, but I don't have the time, the tools, or sufficient skills. And the repeated foundation problems is the real kicker. I'm just tired of screwing with it. I'd like to build new, someplace I'd like to live. Ah, well, that's a dream of immeasurable proportions.

In the interim, I'll take some happy pills and will try not to let house woes invade my psyche any more than they already have.

But, today, I will nose around the outter edges of my house and will repair and repaint and otherwise fix up little entryways for critters and kudzu. My blogger friend Bev, who's in the midst of working on an old weather-beaten house in Nova Scotia, is no doubt laughing at me for weeping at cracks in my (or my house's) foundation. She, at least, has a place with character and with natural beauty, in Nova Scotia. I have a mid-70s Dallas ranch-style house. So there you go. The comparisons tell the story. Perhaps I should go off in search of Nova Dallas?

2 comments:

YourFireAnt said...

I think I'd be tempted to burn it down and start fresh.

T.

bev said...

I wouldn't recommend doing the old-wrecky-Nova-Scotia-house-with-character thing unless you were: a.) a reasonably decent carpenter, and b.) actually liked working on old places. This one is quite a doozy. However, so far, I'm having fun with it. You have to have reasonable expectations for these old places -- that they are like old living creatures that can never truly be made young again. (-: