This Old House

My neighbor stopped me on Monday as I was going to Alex’s baseball game.  He started his conversation with “Hi there.  We were just talking about you guys.” 

This statement always strikes fear in my heart.  I assume the worst.  I just knew he was going to be a little angry that we haven’t mowed the grass around the mailbox all year … or maybe he didn’t particularly care for the beautiful assortment of weeds populating the big planters by said mailbox.  There are only three houses on our road and we most certainly don’t get an award for yard maintenance.  (See this post for proof.)  In our defense, our “driveway” is 1/2 mile long.  It takes enough effort to keep the grass around the house mowed.  Mowing down the 1/2 mile, around the mailbox and planters and then back up the 1/2 mile is more effort than we can put out on a weekly basis.

The look of horror and/or embarrassment on my face must have given away my fear/guilt because he quickly got to the reason for their conversation.  They had been researching the history of their house at the local library and came across a book that listed our house as one of the oldest in this particular township.  It included a picture and a notation that our house was built in 1855!

The house was gutted and completely remodeled around 10 years ago.  The only thing left that is original to the house is the banister and staircase.  I have been in awe at times over the last few days as I walk up and down the stairs.  I wonder how many families have lived in our house.  How many little hands and feet have pattered up and down those stairs?  How many babies have been birthed here?  How many grandparents have sat out on the large porches watching their grandchildren play?

I have wanted to research the history of our house since we bought it almost 5 years ago.  This new discovery has really motivated me to take on this project.  Now that I have a starting point, the task isn’t nearly so overwhelming as I initially thought.

Appliance Mutiny

It seems that once a year, the appliances in my house decide to mutiny.  They have chosen this week.

My router died on Monday.  Not a good thing when I work from home and need my computers to do my job.

On Tuesday, I was making a pan of brownies when I noticed an odd glow from the oven.  The heating element/coil/hot thing on the bottom of the oven was glowing and sparking in one spot.  Even after turning off the oven, the light show continued and eventually burnt completely through a piece of the (whatever that thing is that gets hot).  I’m on a mad internet hunt for a replacement part.  We have a house full of relatives this week and not being able to use the oven ranks high in the near-catastrophe column.

Today, Wednesday, I was doing a load of laundry and the washer decided to act up again.  This is a sporadic problem so not entirely new this week.  The door (front-loading washer) doesn’t latch … or maybe it does latch but the washer just doesn’t think it’s latched … so the washer won’t start.  We have had the repair person here to fix the issue while the washer was still under warranty.  His “fix” was warrantied for 60 days.  On the 64th day, the problem reoccurred.  This time we ordered the supposedly faulty part from Sears Parts Direct and Mike replaced it .  It worked for a while and then began acting up again. 

Finally, we discovered that if the washer doesn’t lock, we just have to lift up the front of the washer slightly and then drop it.  Viola!  The door lock clicks and the laundry begins washing.  This is such a redneck fix but it is the only thing we’ve found that actually works.  Although I don’t think this is necessarily any more redneck than the first time the issue occurred and Mike broke the lock mechanism in his attempt to fix the problem.  His interim fix was to affix a neon orange ratchet strap around the washer to keep the door closed during the wash cycle.  Yes … that was definitely more redneck.