This Old House...

Does anyone remember that old song? 

When mom and dad went out when we were kids, I was left in charge. I don't know how it happened, but the house would be completely trashed in like 15 minutes! It never looked like that ordinarily. I guess it was the running around and being wild like we were never allowed to do ("hey you kids, get outside!"---and outside we went). Anyway, we'd put that LP on the record player and then we'd start singing and zooming around---to clean up.

"Ain't a-gonna need this house no longer
Ain't a-gonna need this house no more
Ain't got time to fix the shingles
Ain't got time to fix the floor
Ain't got time to oil the hinges
Nor to mend the windowpane
Ain't a-gonna need this house no longer
He's a-gettin' ready to meet the saints"

I don't remember that last line at all. The goal was to have the whole house cleaned up and put back to normal by the time the song ended. We'd sing at the top of our lungs and voila! The house was cleaned up! 

That little story has really nothing to do with this post except that it's going to be about the house. While thinking about it, the song popped in to my head. I sang it just to see if I remembered it. I did (Butch wasn't home---he'd think I was nuts--well, maybe). 

Our house is nearly 35 years old. There are a lot of things that need to be done---painting, window wood replacement, new driveway, ceilings fixed/replaced on the porches, windows replaced, garage doors replaced, garage re-done, etc. I mean a LOT of work. We've been dreading it. We had put together a 3 year plan. All of this was going to be the "unfun" stuff and pushed to year 3. But, we've decided that we need to address these issues now. So, here goes.

We went to the home show down at the convention center to talk to people and take names. The first people we talked to were the window people. I ended up making an appointment with Anderson. They came out, we talked a little and then I said, "look, I don't want to waste your time or mine. I can see we need to take a different approach." It became obvious to me that new windows were going to be out of the question. We have 43 windows, 24 transoms, 10 sets of French doors and 4 regular doors. That doesn't even include our decorative windows around the front door and the large paned arched window on the second story overlooking our entry. I was looking for energy efficient and no maintenance. Holy crap! We'd have to live here another 50 years to save enough money on that to justify the cost of the windows!

The guy was very nice and knowledgable, but he was sort of beating around the bush. I just put him on the spot and pointed to a skinny window in the kitchen and said give me a ball park on this window. He said between $1400 and $1600. What the ***!!!??? That's when I said "we're done!" Granted, Anderson Windows are the caddilac of windows---they are the only companies to still use wood. Still, you can do the math---and that was one of two of my smallest windows! I told him what I had in mind for a budget and he said we could probably get there with the 43 windows, but not the rest. Whoa! Time for plan "B." Repair and paint. 

Butch has set up some meetings. He's met with one guy so far. His bid sounds too good to be true. We'll see. We'll be really happy if we can get it done for that price or close. In the mean time, I have a guy coming out to talk to me about the driveway. I would love for him to tell me that it can be repaired. We have one HUGE driveway. 

It goes right on around to our patios in the back. I didn't have a better picture, but you can see just some of the serious cracking we have going on. I have in my mind what I think replacement will be. I hope I'm wrong!

Stay tuned.

PS A couple of side notes:

 I'm very excited about these samples of quartz for my kitchen counter tops---when we re-do the kitchen. That was supposed to be starting in 2018, but will probably have to wait until 2019 while we address the outside issues.

I'm very excited about these doors. I fell in love with these "carriage" style doors at my cousin, Chris' house. That's part of this year's projects.

This is completely unrelated to house maintenance. Well actually, I get it now. Our bodies are our own personal "house." I was wondering why they were at the home show. Connie and I sat down for a demonstration. Oh! My! Gosh! It really worked! She had tiny lines near her eyes that completely disappeared! One of my bags completely disappeared. I didn't even realize I had bags. I never really look at myself. There were two problems though. 1. The product cost $295!! We were told that if we tried to get it online, it would be 2 thousand! 2. They only "fixed" one side. We had to go around the rest of the day with half of our face looking 10 years younger!

Just goes to show---everything is EXPENSIVE! There's no way around it.