floppycorpse swims wit da fishes
I learned something... and this is important my friends. The houses in this area sit on a bed of limestone. What is one characteristic of limestone? It's a quiz.......
Aquifer. Water.
It rained solid and hard for what seemed like hours last night. The streets swelled with rainfall. My basement also swelled with backwater from the drain due to the overloaded storm drains in the street. It swelled enough to put out the pilot light of my water heater and float the dehumidifier just enough to tip it against the wall (and get the insides all wet). Good thing my washer and dryer and set up on big wood blocks!
My parents came to visit me for a week. Or I should say they came to bring me a bunch of stuff from their house to put in my house and to help me with a few tasks. Mostly two Big ones.
Task One: replace the back door with a working door that is not held shut with a wedged 2x4. Mission Status.....complete. One of the um...joys...of owning an old house is that things are not always as they seem. Case in point: walls stand up and down, side to side. Old walls can stand lots of other ways. My porch walls stand up and down, but not quite side to side. lol It's not a noticeable thing until you take out an old door, cut a bigger hole and put in a new door with a new door frame. We tackled the door, which took all week instead of two days. Put in a higher threshold, so we put in a mini deck with a roof while we were at it. Poured some new concrete to force water away from the house. I learned that I am really good at working with concrete.
Task Two: Tame the jungle. Mission Status....in progress. Three hours with a rented chainsaw and my yard is much more sunny than before. Though I liked the privacy and the shade of a fully green enclosed yard, it was bad bad news. If you let the trees grow like that they will choke each other out of water and half of them will die. The yard is 9 truck loads of brush lighter. I still have a lot of work left to do back there.
My mom and I finished painting the living room and chopped down the bushes in the front yard to discover I have a retaining wall. lol I now have a 50's chrome kitchen table, a dinning room table, a buffet, a writing desk, a victorian bedroom set, a rocking chair, plant stand and more pottery than I know what to do with. The furniture, except for the chrome table, was all owned by my great great grandparents.
I spent a buttload of money at Menards and Home Depot but managed not to spend the money I had set aside for purchasing a huge bookshelf. It's actually two 36" shelves, two 15" shelves and a cd shelf in the corner. Thanks to Ikea, they all fit together nicely. Today, in a fit of OCD, I put my cds (alphabetical) and most of my books (by subject or series) in it. Looks nice!
here are a bunch of obnoxious pictures: YARD BEFORE
YARD AFTER
Aquifer. Water.
It rained solid and hard for what seemed like hours last night. The streets swelled with rainfall. My basement also swelled with backwater from the drain due to the overloaded storm drains in the street. It swelled enough to put out the pilot light of my water heater and float the dehumidifier just enough to tip it against the wall (and get the insides all wet). Good thing my washer and dryer and set up on big wood blocks!
My parents came to visit me for a week. Or I should say they came to bring me a bunch of stuff from their house to put in my house and to help me with a few tasks. Mostly two Big ones.
Task One: replace the back door with a working door that is not held shut with a wedged 2x4. Mission Status.....complete. One of the um...joys...of owning an old house is that things are not always as they seem. Case in point: walls stand up and down, side to side. Old walls can stand lots of other ways. My porch walls stand up and down, but not quite side to side. lol It's not a noticeable thing until you take out an old door, cut a bigger hole and put in a new door with a new door frame. We tackled the door, which took all week instead of two days. Put in a higher threshold, so we put in a mini deck with a roof while we were at it. Poured some new concrete to force water away from the house. I learned that I am really good at working with concrete.
Task Two: Tame the jungle. Mission Status....in progress. Three hours with a rented chainsaw and my yard is much more sunny than before. Though I liked the privacy and the shade of a fully green enclosed yard, it was bad bad news. If you let the trees grow like that they will choke each other out of water and half of them will die. The yard is 9 truck loads of brush lighter. I still have a lot of work left to do back there.
My mom and I finished painting the living room and chopped down the bushes in the front yard to discover I have a retaining wall. lol I now have a 50's chrome kitchen table, a dinning room table, a buffet, a writing desk, a victorian bedroom set, a rocking chair, plant stand and more pottery than I know what to do with. The furniture, except for the chrome table, was all owned by my great great grandparents.
I spent a buttload of money at Menards and Home Depot but managed not to spend the money I had set aside for purchasing a huge bookshelf. It's actually two 36" shelves, two 15" shelves and a cd shelf in the corner. Thanks to Ikea, they all fit together nicely. Today, in a fit of OCD, I put my cds (alphabetical) and most of my books (by subject or series) in it. Looks nice!
here are a bunch of obnoxious pictures: YARD BEFORE
YARD AFTER