Saturday, March 15, 2008

The Work Begins

We bought this cottage on Feb. 1, 2008. Since then, we have had snow, rain, ice, rain, rain and more rain. You get the picture. Well, there was finally a decent day to get under the house and see about jacking the floors up. Our "Fix-It-Man" Derrell went down in the dank, dark underbelly of the house and was able to raise the floor 2" where it was badly needed. There are still a couple of low spots but we need dryer weather to try again. Apparently, the ground is quite soft now due to the weeks of rain draining through the hole in the center of the porch and running right between the crack where the inside of the porch meets the house!

Backing up a few weeks, there were a couple of dry days that we were able to do a little clean-up work. My 15 yr old son had not been in the house yet, so he went over with me to pull a few weeds and clean up some trash. He is a cheerful and diligent (if not distracted) worker and was happy to help. After giving the house an initial "walk-through", I asked him what he thought. "Well, Mom, I hate to say it, but," he hesitated, leaving me hanging, "I LIKE IT!" Then he gave me a big grin.

This is in sharp contrast to the reaction of my 16 yr old daughter. Last week we went again to bag up trash and remove it. She had never been in the house until then. She walked around, not saying anything, then got to work cleaning up. I got up the nerve to ask. What did she think? She answered, head down, continuing to stuff into lawn bags, clothing left by the previous owners, two words...."It's depressing." I'm still not sure if she meant the cottage or the work! In a nutshell, this gives you a glimpse of the polar differences in personalities between my two children.

I met with the roofer yesterday (an entire blog page in itself!) and they are to start work on Monday. We have had rain for the past 3 days and in my mind, they cannot start soon enough! Mind you, there are NO leaks inside the house, but the porch needs to be rebuilt ASAP to stop the water from running under the house.

2 comments:

aireym said...

Okay, When did you become Rosie?
Like it;-)
Love your little cottage! Cute just like you.
Like your site. Ben did a good job.
Blessings from St Louie!
Barbie and the Aireys

Marlayna said...

what a fabulous project, i can't think of a better person to give a litle old house some TLC...can't wait to come help paint:) I love you, mom...and am so proud, you little blogger, you! (the page looks great, ben...come make me one!) can't wait to see whats in store for Pondicherry :)