House reality

Mostly I really enjoyed my time in the Oregon house, and God wot it relaxed me. Even though, or maybe because, I was so active and worked so hard, physically. But some of the hard realities are definitely sinking in.

First, there’s the size. It’s nowhere near as large as it had become in my memory, and the rooms, particularly downstairs, are actually rather small. The two upstairs bedrooms are of a pretty good size, but the downstairs rooms, including kitchen and bathroom, are, well, small. Rooms look bigger when uncluttered:

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vs when they have stuff in them:

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Second, there’s how much work it needs. The amount of work I’ll need to do is mildly intimidating; the potential cost somewhat worrisome. I mean, I knew it needed a lot of work, but when up there I (of course) discovered even more. And I suspect I’ll find even more next time I go back.

For example, take the floors. Under the older-than-I-had-thought carpets are potentially lovely hardwood floors, both upstairs and down. On the one hand, I love hardwood floors, and if they are finished in a light color, as they once were, revealing them has the potential of lightening the house considerable, a good thing. On the other–dog pee. I knew there was some in the house, and as a dog owner of long standing, I’m not overly fastidious or squeamish about it. In a 70+ year old house, one would expect pet stains to accumulate a bit. However, I am now very suspicious that the most recent occupant(s) of the house had a male dog that routinely peed in the house, uninhibited by the owner(s).

I had long ago decided to pull up the carpet in the dining room, just because I don’t want carpet under where food is regularly consumed, and therefore at least semi-regularly spilled. Toward the end of my time up there, I therefore pulled and cut and tugged, and rolled up and removed the carpet and padding in that room, to reveal this:

Definitely more pee stains that I had anticipated. And in the far right corner:

–that male dog marked on a regular basis. Those dark stains? Still sticky (to say nothing of malodorous), and the house has been empty at least two and probably three years.

So, what to do, what to do. Besides engage in an odor elimination campaign. I dithered a bit, among re-carpeting, painting, or sanding and re-finishing. Finally decided on the last–even if not all the stains come out completely, and some discoloration remains after sanding, re-staining, and re-finishing, I think the floors will look better than if carpeted or painted. It was beautiful hardwood to begin with, and I think it can be beautiful again.

That decided, I begin to think. Do one room at a time? Do one floor at a time? I’m still chewing on this one. One room at a time seems more do-able to me, but then there’s the question if I can match up a part I’ve already done with the part I’m doing now. If that’s a big problem, I really should do a whole floor at once. Which scares me. How long will that take? Can I do it in one summer visit? And still have time to travel some and enjoy my summer? But I have months yet to chew on that one before I make my decision.

You get the idea. I knew I wanted to pull up carpet and re-do the dining room floor. Now I want to do the whole house. How many more such expandable projects await me? Hopefully I won’t find too many at one time.

Besides pulling the carpet from the dining room, I took advantage of the good weather to do a fair amount of yardwork. Mostly cutting, lopping, pulling, trimming, trying to get the hegemonic plants trying to take over the yard, and house, under control. Here’s some evidence, not that you can tell, but I’ll tell you:

There was some kind of a shrub in front of both windows that had sent shoots up as far as 3 feet onto the windows. I started with just clipping those back, but ended up taking the one on the left out entirely, and got the one on the right about half out. I want to be able to get to the windows for maintenance and cleaning, and if I decide I want something in the beds in front of the windows, I’ll plant annuals. I clipped and cut a lot of other places too, but this was the easiest to show.

Also worked at de-mossing the deck and patio. Made significant progress, but could have done more. We’ll see next summer how much affect the Moss-out spray had.

And got someone to do the fence in the back yard. It was about half done when I left, so when I go up again I won’t have to walk the dogs morning and night–I can just put them out and let them do their thing without my supervision. That will be good. Here’s a few pictures of the fencing process.

That one was taken from the neighbor’s yard, so that I could get my whole yard in. The old falling-down, ivy-and-blackberry-vine-covered fence had been removed, and the new one wasn’t in yet, so I could just back up and take the picture. CJ seriously enjoyed having access to both yards–she’ll be disappointed to be confined to my yard when we go back up. The pole you can see in the front of the picture is one of the fenceposts; you can see the fence guy, Scott, over on the right by the house.

There will be/is a gate in that corner, one of four I decided I’ll want.

The posts on the right show where the fence will be/is across the back. Scott mowed down a 15-20 foot wide swath of ivy and blackberries in front of the fence line–I’ll be expending energy, and no doubt money and chemicals, in trying to eradicate them when I go back up.

Other things accomplished: underground oil tank drained, new oil tank installed (both actually completed after I left, but now done), and chimney cap arranged (to keep rain from coming down the chimney and draining out at its base, staining the basement floor). New oil has been ordered for the new tank, so the next step will be to see if the furnace works. Or how it works, if it does at all. The woman who was my real-estate person, and who has continued to be unbelievably helpful with the house, is going to go up and see what happens when she turns up the thermostat. I await the results with some trepidation. All the above has tapped me out of accumulated funds, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I won’t need a whole new furnace.

But all that notwithstanding, part of the house reality was how well it felt the house fit me. I’ve never had a house with a fireplace in it before, and I love this one.

It was very nice to cozy up in front of it every evening, tired, have a glass of wine before dinner, turn on a classical music NPR station on the iPad, and read. I felt positively decadent, in spite of all that’s not there and all that needs doing.

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