After all the drama of the rewiring and poorly executed retexturing of our ceilings, we still had some plumbing problems to be resolved: a leaking sewage pipe beneath the house, the stoppers in both bathrooms didn't work, our kitchen sink had been hideously "resurfaced" with what looked like flat latex paint, and our kitchen faucet's sprayer was faulty: it worked perfectly well, but it wouldn't stop working until the water was turned off, and even then, it came on again once the water was turned back on.
The plumbing company's owner came to the house to give us an estimate, and announced that the drain from our bathtub was lead, and we should probably get that replaced. We agreed, and that was added to the growing list of services to be performed. It's amazing all of the things that your supposedly top-notch inspection company misses when they inspect your house. Lead pipes!
We were told by the plumbers who arrived to perform the work that it would take two days: one day for everything inside the house, and one day for the work performed in the crawl space beneath the house.
For two days, I stayed upstairs in our Master Bedroom, trying to keep the dogs calm, and failing. I hated to have to kennel Ginger, since she was already upset that we had strangers in our home, but had to do so after she jumped over the second-floor banister and onto the stairs so she could chase the intruders out of the house.
By the time I removed the mound of boxes forming a blockade to the top of the stairs, two of the plumbers were outside, and one was standing on the kitchen counter. She's not a giant, but she can be scary, and she's fast.
I apologized profusely and dragged her upstairs to her bedtime kennel, where she stayed with a rawhide "bone" for the remainder of the day.
I should also note that our air conditioner wasn't exactly pulling its weight in our Master Bedroom, that first day.
The second day, I at least had the moral support of my husband to help me deal with Ginger's frustration at not being allowed to chase the plumbers away. We groaned at how hot it was upstairs, but survived.
Until the plumbers left.
And we realized that our AC was no longer working.
We called a 24/7 HVAC repair company, and their technician arrived within 30 minutes. He also informed us of a fact we already knew: our AC was 20 years old, and it was a miracle it had lasted as long as it did. We needed one, and stat.
A previous consult with a different HVAC company had given us two options, one of which involved keeping our old unit where it was, but making a structural change in the attic. The other involved placing the new AC in an area we'd hoped to turn into an office and rerunning all of the ducts.
To our surprise and delight, the 24/7 HVAC company said they could put in a new unit in the same space, without having to replace or relocate any joists, that our ducts could mostly stay where they were, and that they could do the job for less. On a Saturday, of all things!
AND we were able to have our new AC set up to be zoned, so our upstairs Master Suite would be every bit as cool as the downstairs spaces.
Granted, we weren't thrilled about paying for a new AC - we'd hoped ours would last through the summer - but it was something we'd seen coming.
We stayed the night in a pet-friendly hotel nearby, and by the end of the day Saturday, we had a working HVAC system that blasts cool air when we need it.
We've had our fill of contractors, this past month, but fortunately, we'll only have to have one more in our home before we can really move in: the plasterers who will make our ceilings pretty, again.
In the meantime, my dear husband has been repainting some of the downstairs rooms and discovering that the previous owner painted the trim work with latex paint over oil paint, without properly preparing the surface, first. So he's elbow-deep in stripping the latex from the woodwork throughout the house (except for the kitchen cabinets), so it will be properly prepared for the oil-based paint we're using for our trim.
I help out, a bit, by standing in one place and peeling the latex off the woodwork in the biggest strips possible, a bit of meditative renovation work that I highly recommend.
It's cathartic.
And if you're curious about its soothing effects, I'm perfectly happy to brew some iced tea and let you go to town on our staircase. Or the mantle. Or....
