In and Out of Hot Water

Fiascos, Home and Renovation, Uncategorized

As most friends here know, I have a couple of ongoing health management things. These few things require a tub and hot water.

On Sunday evening, I was taking a bath, and the water stopped. I thought, “Huh. Water main break or something.” It’s an old city, happens now and then. Our plumbing is only five years old and we have an on-demand hot water heater the same age, so I just sat there a minute … until J said, “There’s a bunch of water out here on the floor.”

That, of course, was the end of my bath. After drying off and collecting my wits, I took a look at the “closet full of a million pipes,” and found this, with hot water gushing out of it —

The lead from the water heater had separated from the pipe that takes the hot water to the rest of the house. The clamp on the top broke. I actually thought, “thank the plumbing deities for that,” because it looked like an easy fix.

You may or may not know — I don’t do plumbing fixes. Won’t touch ’em. But. I do understand most plumbing things. To confirm my suspicions, I had J go down to the basement to turn the main waterline off-and-on while I checked the bazillion valves in the plumbing closet. Looked like I was right. It was already evening, so we decided on cold water sink baths in the morning, and I Scarlett O’Hara-ed it until the next day.

Called my good friend and contractor (who also happens to be our next-door neighbor) Monday morning. He ran by the hardware store to buy a few things, and it was fixed by noon! Couldn’t have taken him more than five minutes. He only wanted the cost of the supplies, but of course I doubled it and made him take it. Because calling in a plumber for something so simple and stupid would’ve cost three or four times that much. Let alone, having it fixed in less than a day.

So, as I was thinking when I first saw it, if we were going to have a plumbing issue, I’m glad it was a simple one.

I was back in the bath by 12:30!

Only Beautiful Things

Arts and Crafts, Goals, Home and Renovation, Personal

We all know that I am currently ill, and abed atop a hot water bottle.

However, I don’t want to talk about that today. Today, I resist torpor and complaining. Today I only want to talk about beautiful things.

I have to thank my dear friend, Madame K, for asking about my projects, and how things are going. It reminded me that I am not made of illness. I am made of creativity. She always knows just the right thing to say.

You see, my trade is creating beautiful things; whether that’s a cottage kitchen, live music, a flower garden, students excited about the possibilities of music, or a musical based on a 1728 play. And, I am privileged to have been able to spend my life as a creator.

So, with illness and frustration aside, I walked around the house today and took photos of things I’m working on that I find beautiful.

The front yard flower garden. I’m definitely an English cottage garden type person. (No surprises there.)

A (mostly) finished corner of the kitchen, with our now-exposed huge beams. I had to fill in the space at the top of the wall, of course. I stained new rough-hewn wood to match the old beams.

Another kitchen wall. Still needs some paint work, but I left the little cellar door rough on purpose. I like to see the history.

A staircase wall in progress. Because I decided to go with stucco in between dark-stained beams, (Tudor-style), I went with artwork that reflects that.

And that’s all I know about that! I’m off to rest and have a little bit of dinner. Yep, at 4:00. =)

How Doers Get Nothing Done

Fiascos, Home and Renovation, Personal

An update. Un-date, really.

I had to cancel the purchase, ergo the whole renovation. The bathtub had been delayed three times already, and today’s fourth delay would put it here after my contractor/plumber was scheduled.

Nevermind the fact that this was all arranged so it would be done while I was out of town; because there wouldn’t be a bathtub or shower here for three or four days.

Honestly, I’m glad to be rid of thinking about it. The sheer hours of work, websites, phone calls about screwed-up delivery has been exhausting.

I’ll spare you my further thoughts about large corporations destroying the service economy through greed.

ETA – And now, the giant awful infection at the surgical site is back. And my surgeon is on vacation. And I’m supposed to be on a plane a week from today,

Home Depot, the Delivery Disaster Pros

Fiascos, Home and Renovation, Mobility, Personal, Psychology

“How doers get less done.”

If you’ll pardon me, I have to get this off my chest. I’ll feel better.

I’d planned the new bathroom for months. I carefully chose the shower curtain, the floor planks, the mirror, the towels, the rug, the sconces, the art, the 36×60 deep-soak tub, the old-timey shower/tap … and the tile.

Not my best drawing (and it makes the bathroom look a little bigger than it is) but this is what was planned.

The old-timey shower kit arrived quickly and easily from Amazon. The special deep-soak plumbing stuff I needed arrived quickly via UPS. The tub arrives later today. Know what else arrived today? Eight very heavy cases of the wrong tile.

I ordered the brown/blue/green you see above. I got eight cases of white marble with grey veins.

No problem, I think. I’ll call them, and surely they’ll swap it. Nope.

Home Depot (of course) does not do their own large deliveries (from the local store). It’s farmed out to a logistics company.

Long story short, I’m told by three different reps (none of whom work for Home Depot) that all they can do is process a return, give me my money back, and come pick it up. Three/four days+. Then I have to place a new order for the correct tile. Again. Which will take a week-ish for delivery.

But, I don’t want my money back. I want the correct tile. Because otherwise, I’m going to have a contractor in here with nothing to install.

Anyhow. Yes, it got to the point where I was yelling. Most of you know me well — It’s very, very difficult to get me to angrily holler at you.

So. I’ve decided I’m going with the mistake marble-looking tile. I don’t hate it, it’s not ugly, it doesn’t clash, and it’ll reflect light in a dim bathroom. Plenty of people would happily choose it on purpose. It’ll look something like this, color-wise. It’ll be okay with the blue & green room. It’s fine.

As my psychiatrist tells me — manage your aggravation and pick your battles according to what’s worth it and what’s not. It’s nice tile, it’s just not what I chose.

This wouldn’t smart quite so much if this weren’t the third time we’d ordered from Home Depot (actually, their logistics company) over about a year and had the wrong thing delivered.

So, Home Depot — never again.

Now, the mental part.

I realize that if this were five years ago, I would have put the eight cases of tile in the back of the SUV, driven them to the store, pitched a stinky fit, and drove home with the correct tile. I’m no longer capable of doing that. I couldn’t even lift a single box. So that’s about coming to terms with what you can no longer do. Plus, this sort of thing pushes my buttons, and I spout things like, “I wish I had a job or ran a company where I could constantly screw up and then tell people, ‘So, what?'”

But, pick your battles. Be the overly-reasonable bigger person when it’s beneficial to you. Be grateful that I’m in a position to pay for a bathroom redo. I’m learnin’.

I hope there are some helpful thoughts in here along with my frustration. And yes, I’m tagging the hell out of Home Depot and the logistics company. Right @homedepot? Ha!

Spring Fling(s)

Arts and Crafts, Home and Renovation, Travel

OMG.

That was a helluva two weeks, preceding Easter and the week after. (A helluva few months, if I’m honest.) I finally got back up to snuff early last week, and we just got back from the Catskills.

I’m at Walt Disney World (as usual) next month, and visiting my family in Tampa for a week in July. Let the vacations begin!

The cottage we rented in the Catskills was wonderful. Certainly, there was no skiing or climbing mountains; but there was plenty of antique shopping! Terrific prices at a few antique malls we found, and I didn’t go too too crazy … and my wonky leg warned me when it was time to stop!

The only really guilty pleasure purchase was a 3×5′ early-Victorian (actual) Persian rug. Most everything else was knickknacks — but more on that later, in another post.

While we were gone, our neighbor and general contractor took down our plaster-and-lathe kitchen ceiling, exposing the gorgeous gigantic beams. They’re about 4″ x 10″ and around 180 years old.

This was a job I was never going to do myself. It’s technically easy work, but 1″ thick plaster is very heavy, and it has to be carried outside, put in a truck, and taken to the dump. Plus, almost 200 years of dirt, literal soot, and plaster dust. Nope. And I can’t imagine what the 1″ plaster ceiling of a 20′ x 10’+ kitchen would weigh. I mean, it’s essentially limestone. More on all that a bit later as well. I have a little work to do to clean the beams up. Here’s a preview though —