Hazards and Houses

A photo of the front of the house last month as the windows were being replaced

One of the hazards of owning a 90-year-old house is that at some point it will need some work done to it...again and again and again.

We bought our home, seeing its potential...what it could be, not what it was. The latter was just depressing.

The people who owned our house before us were multi-millionaires, though we didn't know that at first. They came to the settlement in old clothes and appeared to be "in need" of selling their house. We felt good about the whole transaction since we were "in need" of buying a house.

Fast-forward to the conversations during settlement, and you'll hear the man talking on his cellphone to his son who is fly-fishing in the Colorado River...and chatting about his horses and their latest races against a sheik's horses...

*sigh*

Not very needy.

Still, we bought the house and realized afterwards that though this couple had money, they put none of it into the house. They were, in fact, "slum lords," or people who buy property for the rent money but have no intention of keeping the property in good repair. Sad, really.

So we began to fix up the house...

That very night we tore down the suspended ceiling...to reveal the enormous cracks in the plaster ceiling...and a bathtub-sized hole.

I need to point out as we later found out that the house had been rented by three different "families" over the course of the former couple's ownership. One family had a reptile business... Another was just a "normal" family...we think. (Though a 3-foot patch of our backyard won't grow anything on it...and there's some surmising that they buried something there...)

And the last group was a commune of his, hers, yours, theirs, and ours. About 10 people, none of them married, with a kid who set a few local fires, absolutely no common sense, and not a single clue about "This Old House." The main man -- for lack of a better term -- tried to pass himself off as a home repair guy. (Insert a smirk here.)

Using pressure-treated wood to create a "half-timbered" (or Tudor) look in the dining room doesn't do it for us. Neither does hanging a suspended ceiling to cover the cracks and holes in the plaster ceiling...and then building a closet only the same height as the suspended ceiling over top of a dead mouse and...and...and...

You get the picture.

Recently, we got it into our heads to replace the kitchen floor.

Like all projects in this house, it was like opening the proverbial "can of worms."

After nine layers of flooring (including carpeting), several weekends, and lots of sweating, Stuart finally got to the original hardwood floor.

Step one complete!

Step two was putting down an underlay. Since we don't have a lot of room in the kitchen (it's only 10 X 12) that took place in several stages. But eventually it was finished, too.

Step two complete!

Step three was laying the vinyl floor.

(We have just one car in our household. We decided to do that as a moneysaver. I don't need one all the time, and when/if I do, I drive Stuart the 4 miles to work and pick him up afterwards. That said, this poor little car also doubles as our Home Depot "truck." The amount of stuff it's had to tote from the DIY store has been amazing. Enter a roll of vinyl flooring...)

So we had the 12 X 12 sheet of vinyl. Stuart wanted to get it down in one piece so there aren't any seams to worry about...

And he did it! A beautiful job if I say so myself.

I gave it a good washing and vacuuming...and then we began to move stuff back into the kitchen...

Refrigerators are heavy items. There's a reason that when you have them delivered they take a team of men and a dolly to move them around.

...

We began to move the 'fridge back into the kitchen. All was going swimmingly until we realized we had it facing the wrong direction. We began to turn it and saw that...

...we...ripped...the...floor...

...our brandnew floor...

We felt sick. Not only was there a 4-inch tear, but there were three spots where we'd rubbed back the vinyl. I smoothed down the rubbed marks and used a Sharpie (gotta love those!) pen to blend into the black.

Oh, well. What's done is done, and overall the floor looks so much better than the dingy tan linoleum tiles that were there on top of carpet on top of wood on top of...

Just one more hazard of owning -- and loving -- an old house...