Monday, April 28, 2014

The Money Pit

Will told me this weekend that the support beams need to be replaced. He looked under our house and discovered several are rotten. As in about ten beams with four to six ft. sections of rotten wood.

In order to fix this, we will need to jack up the house, remove the old beam, slide in another, then sit the house down. Jacking up walls could lead to cracks in the plaster, windows falling out, floors breaking, wiring being pulled loose, and Goddess knows what else.

Not replacing the beams means the house will fall down.

And of course, there is the question of WHY the beams rotted in the first place. The one under the bathroom rotted from years of water leaks. The one under our bedroom had termite damage.

The beams are not cheap. I'm not even sure we can buy beams like the one under the house. They are huge, six by eight inches. Imagine squaring up a tree trunk. That's what my house is made of.

My father has a building that MAY have similar beams. He has told me I could use the wood before, but the deal was I couldn't tear anything down until I was ready to use the wood. It's not being used and we're pretty sure someone will burn the building down one day, not out of malice but just being stupid with a cigarette.

But there's some problems, the first being my father doesn't like Will. Dad might not let me have the wood now. And we don't know for sure that the beams are the same. I am assuming they are because both houses were built in roughly the same time. I don't know if there are enough beams. I don't know if the building code will allow using reclaimed materials. I don't know that building supply stores sell beams that big. I would imagine if they did, the beams would be really, really expensive. And while we did fix all the leaking pipes, we haven't treated for termites. Some of the beams might be under too much pressure and that's whole different repair job that probably involves rebuilding the house or at least tearing some of it down.

So that's where we are, a huge house falling down around us while we struggle to live.

Friday, April 25, 2014

My Bedroom

It's the post you've been waiting for- the bedroom pictures!
 
I'm laying on the bed looking out into the hallway. That black blob to my left is Will's dog Dixie. The door used to have trim around it. My brother-in-law (married to middle sister) took it down to paint. And then never put it back. I look around this house at least once a day and think Scott's a fucking idiot. Scott did most of the 'remodeling.' Sometimes he did a great job, but mostly he just got lazy. Sometimes we have to make difficult decisions. Did he do the job properly, or should we rip it out and start over? My house leaks because of him. The back porch is falling off because of him. He ripped out wiring and gas pipes so he could sell the copper for scrap. He is the reason why the house has no heat.

At first I wasn't sure about the green walls, but it is rather restful. I hung my dragon over the door because dragons always reside where I do.

Door to porch. When I moved in, this door was covered with plastic. I wasn't going to use it and I put the bed here at first, then Will decided we needed a private porch for romantic evenings. The white stuff on the door is paint. You'll see what was mostly painted white in a minute. I'm guessing paint rollers got propped against the door. This door doesn't have trim either.

Door to my closet and my altar. The closet door is missing its doorknob. The altar is my mother-in-law's vanity. I begged her to let me keep it for a while. The mirror has a funky mark that I think is a bullet hole, but I'm not sure. Under the altar is a hearth stone. There used to be fireplaces in each room. Scott took all the fireplaces down. If he had left them, I might not have an energy efficient house, but I could heat it far more cheaply rather than having space heaters.

Inside closet, remains of fireplace. Scott the idiot decided this would be a great place for a stereo system. The other room has holes in the walls for speakers.

Leading up to the attic. This is why we sleep in the green room- so kids can't climb up here and break their fool necks. The attic is the most preserved part of the house with the least amount of problems because no one ever goes up here.

My beautiful door knob. This is the most lovely doorknob in the house. The rest may have skeleton key holes, but the plates are plain. The knobs are plain. I don't know why this one is different.

This is my bed. The window to the left is broken. Instead of repairing the window or blocking it off, someone cut out the broken glass. I didn't know the window was broken at first. I woke up freezing cold. I kept hearing birds and it sounded like they were chirping in the room. Finally, after a week of living here, I opened the curtain. I thought, Ah. That explains a lot. Fucking idiot Scott.

Our last bedroom picture. This is my ceiling. Middle sister ran out of paint. I would have finished up with a another can because with white one coat isn't going to cover anyway. She was too cheap to buy another can and refused to use paint she already had because it wasn't the same brand. At some point, I'm going to have to repaint the ceiling. I would have left the brown. It goes with the green and doesn't show the dust as bad as the white.

You know you want to see it.

I'll show you the corner we cleared out first.

I couldn't get all the mess in one shot, but I think this gives you a fair idea of what I'm dealing with. The first time Will showed me the big house, every room was like this. Now you know why I didn't want to live here.
 


Thursday, April 24, 2014

A Corner of the Family Storage Unit

Will was off yesterday so I decided we should work on our home together and tackle the front room.

The front room is meant to be a formal living room. It was windows on three walls. It has a lovely old fireplace, double doors, and a nice ceiling fan. It should be breezy with natural light. But for years it has been the dump-junk-here/forget-it room.

It contains a queen sized bed, Queen Anne furniture, old computers, books, lots of boxes, pieces of antiques, stolen tools, broken tools, and a random collection of trash. Every holiday decoration the dollar store has sold for five years is in the front room. My mother-in-law's stuff is in there. Both my sisters-in-law have stuff in there. I have asked repeatedly for everyone to get their belongings out of my house. I have sternly said, often and very loudly, that I am not running a damn storage unit. Everyone agrees they will come get their shit. Nobody does.

So yesterday I told Will we were going to clear one corner.

We hauled out lots of trash. We threw out broken things. We found boxes that had gotten wet when stored elsewhere. Those wet boxes were hauled over to the front room and piled up. The boxes were covered in black mold. All the papers inside were ruined. We don't even know what the original contents were.

We threw away pieces of computers. Old computers, like the late '80's to early '90's stuff with drives removed. Evidently these stopped working long ago and someone called themselves trying to repair it, and then maybe they got lazy, or maybe they decided to upgrade. Why they saved the mess, I don't know.

Just about every thing in the corner belonged to the middle sister. The one who said, "All that can be thrown out."

And then we found the silver.

Real silver. Solid silver. Actual silverware. The silver my mother-in-law has been searching for, the silver she thought was stolen. The silver plate. The silver serving bowls.

We didn't say anything. We hid it. And when my mother-in-law comes home from vacation, we'll give it to her. She can decide what to do with it.

My sisters-in-law can't stand for anyone to have what they do not. Often, they don't want the item they're fighting over, they just don't want anyone else to have it. To give you an example, the middle sister told me the sewing machines didn't work. They work just fine. She knows I sew and she didn't want me using a nice machine. She had no intention of taking the sewing machines with her. She doesn't want them. But by damn, she's not going to give them to me.

We also hid the pictures and letters from World War II, and Will's grandfather's box of clock parts. He used to make clocks as a hobby. We said nothing of the certificates from the Daughter's of the American Revolution.

Will's grandmother was a Chippewa Indian. I opened her jewelry box and found a hand carved beaver, beaded medicine bags, and an eagle necklace on a long leather cord. We hid them. These aren't valuable things, but this was a woman who was teased and ridiculed her entire life for being Indian. She rejected her culture. She had almost no Chippewa things. We know if she kept these few pieces, they mattered. We don't think anyone should fight over that.

We now have a clean, empty corner in the front room. Slowly, we will move out more and more. I foresee many truckloads of trash going to the county dump. Soon, it will be my step-son's bedroom. When he graduates and moves away, it will be my sewing room. The days of junk room are over.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

The Start of the Pantry


First, I took down the door that had seen better days.

Then I started throwing out the junk inside- tools, art supplies, left-over bits of building supplies, and lots of cobwebs.

OMG! Empty space! Now all I need are shelves.




Sunday, April 20, 2014

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Another Section of the Mural


I almost used this section of the mural for my blog picture because it features Dr. McLain's office. I live in his house which he built around 1836. (Started anyway, he ran out of money and the house stood unfinished for a time.) The house was used as a hospital during the Civil War. Treating enemy soldiers got Dr. McLain in trouble. The house was burned twice, remodeled a few times, and in the 1930's another house was added on to make a modern kitchen. I'm sure he was an intelligent man, but the doctor wasn't as architect thus my house is crooked. The office building was wiped out by a tornado in 2009. A church intends to build on the site, but so far the lot is empty. The office sat on the corner, the house is further down the road. At one point, Dr. McLain practiced medicine in his home. I'm assuming he realized that was a bad idea because it meant he never had any privacy. I still intend to post pictures of my bedroom so you can see why I love the house. Then I can post pictures of the rest so you can see why I hate the house. Yes, things are complicated.


Monday, April 14, 2014

Making Changes

I am trying to update the blog to reflect life in Salem. Yes, Salem is a real place. Yes, this mural is what we are most famous for. The mural has been around for several years and it no longer looks as nice as when it was freshly painted. I debated for a long time about which section to use. I finally settled on the covered bridge because I grew up on that road and I actually remember when you could drive through the bridge. A tree fell on the covered bridge. The pieces were reassembled in a park in the next town over. It is not the same at all. The bridge is shorter, the graffiti has been removed, and it barely resembles the structure of my early childhood. It makes me sad to see it now. I prefer the bridge in the mural. At least the mural is honest.

I'm not in a between place anymore, but I am between lots of things. I have to balance my love for my beautiful, sad, old house with practical living. We can't keep sinking money into it. I'm trying to sew nice things for my house, make things because I need to do it, I need to create to bring peace to my soul, but sometimes it's better to buy the cheap plastic version so I have more free time to do cook or do laundry. I try to balance reading and sleep. I try to balance healthy food with provide enough food to feed the whole family. I try to plan ahead, solve problems before they arise, but mostly I remind myself to be still and not get overwhelmed.

The biggest challenge is being a Witch in a Christian family. My practice has become silent. Lots of visualizing, lots of careful placement, lots of thinking about meanings. I have thus far resisted Sunday service and bible study. But obviously at some point I'll have to draw lines and be firm about which side I stand on and why. I imagine the pendulum has only just begun its wide arc across my life.

Monday, April 7, 2014

Now I Need A Routine

I am officially moved! I will update my blog soon. Right now it is very rainy, windy, and nasty out which sort of puts a crimp in my outdoor photography plans. This morning we were under warnings for flash flood, serve thunderstorms, and tornado.


I can't find anything. I have a love-hate relationship with my house. It is old, big, and beautiful. It is filled with lovely details- my doorknobs are elegant. But the house is in very sad shape. This morning I discovered water spraying from the drywall. When I turned the shower off, the spray stopped. Evidently someone left out a washer when they installed the shower head. That doesn't work well either. No matter which setting I put it on, the same pitiful stream comes out. I can pour water out of a bottle with more force than I can get out of my shower.


I tried to hang up my clothes last night. That is when I discovered that while I have a closet, there is no shelves, no rod, nor hooks. It is just a tiny unfinished room.


My kitchen is NASTY. I can't describe it. We bombed the kitchen and the roaches didn't die, they just got high. We bombed it again but there still wasn't enough little brown bodies to suit me. I don't want to go in the room, let alone prepare food, but somehow I've got to start cooking.


I am having success with plants. I am relieved at least one thing is going right. Whatever routine I finally settle into, visiting the plants on the porch daily will be part of it.


Stay tuned, next time I'll have to show you my bedroom.