Finally. Summer made it. After January returned last Thursday, after a solid week of downpour that held up projects in May, after chilly, overcast weeks between, Summer decided to show up today. Reportedly it’s even going to stick around.
I spent the day outdoors, trimming brush and burning a heap of construction rubble (only one of several, but it sure felt good). The wood was so rain-saturated it took an hour to get the fire going, but once it caught, the whole neighborhood knew it.
As you can imagine from the way the early stages of the Great Foundation and Screen Porch project went, we ran over budget. Not as much as you might expect, but still over. We left the job partially finished when I traipsed off to the monastery, with one foundation beam to go, not to mention wall and floor repair, porch framing, electrical, re-setting a now-crooked window, new siding, skirting, final ground grading, and various related works.
This project even has a plumbing component. Not that there’s any legitimate reason for it to involve plumbing. Of course there isn’t. But you know this house. Don’t ask me why, but plumbing pipes rise through the bedroom floor, travel along the inner wall, then turn and go outside through little round holes. In the bedroom wall. There used to be a water heater outside there, but why they ran the pipes through the bedroom rather than under the house is yet another mystery that only the drunken ghosts of this house’s past know.
So much to do to get the house fully solid and sound. So little to do it with.
I despaired even of getting the foundation finished. I really, really, really, really wanted to have all structural and drainage work on the house complete this summer. Especially because I’m sick to death of living in half a house. Especially because the Wandering Monk is making noises about that boat again, even though this time his plans for it are more modest. And without the Monk, nothing happens. The Monk is the most blessed combination of affordable and competent. If he wanders off, there’s no one to replace him.
So I took a deep breath and asked a longtime friend for a loan. My friend responded … with both a loan and a gift.
Now, between my high-financing friend and other Friends of the Blog (you know who you are), I have enough. Not to finish the house of course. “Finishing” still seems as distant as the heat death of the universe. But I have enough that by the end of this summer all the rot should be gone, all the bad drainage corrected, all the leveling (that’s going to get done) done. And everything that we did this summer will, by fall, be securely covered and protected against winter weather to come. If I then get hustling on interior finishing, I have high hopes of moving into the bedroom by January.
I dislike being in debt. And this spring I’ve indebted myself more than I have for many a year. But right now it doesn’t feel terrible. On the contrary. It feels as if a roaring train of progress is about to leave the station instead of idling on a siding. It feels like the house’s back wing is finally about to become something other than a free hotel for carpenter ants and pillbugs. It feels JUST GRAND.
“I dislike being in debt. And this spring I’ve indebted myself more than I have for many a year. But right now it doesn’t feel terrible. On the contrary. It feels as if a roaring train of progress is about to leave the station instead of idling on a siding. It feels like the house’s back wing is finally about to become something other than a free hotel for carpenter ants and pillbugs. It feels JUST GRAND.”
WAHOO,, Go for it! As long as your balance sheet says you are above water, dive in!
I actually have a couple of debts going as of this spring. My very kind high-finance friend was not only kind enough to offer a loan and a gift, but to defer payments on the loan and to charge minimal interest
If by balance sheet you mean can I afford the payments on the debt I’ve incurred — yes. But here again I’m lucky enough to have friends who’ll come to my rescue should I stumble and friends who are on my side, stumbles or no stumbles.
I’ve gotten out of the debt habit and I admit it feels weird to me. But it also feels like a healthy, necessary thing to do for now. And I’m very careful and responsible with debt. Careful not to get in over my head, responsible about paying it back (or, if it comes to it, responsible about speaking up if I’m heading for trouble.
Having no mortgage is still a huge thing. Makes other, smaller debt easier to handle.
Hey Claire nobody with any sense likes being in debt but the alternative of living without a roof over your head is worse. Remember this is only a temporary situation.
I just remembered something. I don’t know if this will prevent future rot, but I’ll toss it into the mix:
Many years ago, when I was taking wilderness survival classes, one of the school’s staff took the class on a tour of his home. It was completely underground, dug by hand, with walls made of wood cut by hand, in an area with lots of rain and a fairly high water table. He said that if he went away for more than a week, he usually came back to lots of bug and mildew problems. But, as long as he was there and had a fire burning once a week, there were no moisture problems. He had tried other forms of heat, even using a generator at one point, but nothing took care of the humidity like an old-fashioned fire.
I don’t know how hard it would be to add a woodstove or other kind of fireplace to your house, but it might help with the moisture problems in the future.
Hm. Interesting, Ellendra. I can see how that might work in an underground house; perhaps the bugs get “smoked out” or something. I can’t see how it would work here. The last owners had nothing but wood heat and still got rot — but OTOH, they also had a leaky roof, collapsing foundation, and decades of deferred maintenance.
One good thing: Although we’ve seen lots of carpenter ants and pillbugs as we’ve torn things out, and I understand there are beetles that live their entire lives inside wood, I’ve only ever seen only ONE termite. Now, of course where you see one termite, there are certainly more. And when we’ve finished the foundation I will absolutely have a pest-control guy come in and give me a report. But the type of termite we’re most likely to have here (so I’ve read) can’t live outside of damp wood. So (cross fingers) all that’s needed is to remove the infestation, replace with good, dry wood, and monitor frequently. With luck, expensive chemical treatment won’t be required. And if it is, I’ll try DIY first.
We’ve certainly been replacing all the rot with good, dry wood. Ground-contact treated wood, in the case of the foundation work.
(But yikes, who builds an underground house out of wood — especially in a wet climate?)
Do you remember the name of this termite? As a fellow resident living west of the Cascades, I’d like to know.
I always heard that termites nest in the ground, and travel to the wood (through mud tunnels) for dinner, while carpenter ants chewed out the wood to make a nest, but didn’t actually eat it, unlike termites that can digest cellulose.
bud — Dampwood termites. I believe the type you’re thinking of are called subterranean termites, but there are at least five or six different termite types in the U.S.
There’s also a LOT of conflicting info about termite treatment online. Much of it is from pest-control interests and naturally advocates the most extensive and expensive forms of treatment. Hard to know what to believe.
Thanks. I’ve fought carpenter ants for years. As existing trees have have come down from various causes, I haven’t dug out the stumps (one had a 6′ diameter) but let them rot out naturally. Unfortunately, nature sometimes has trouble telling a stump I don’t care about from my house. 🙂
Dampwood termites. Since we have lots of damp wood around here 9 months of the year that’s something else to worry about.
The sun is shining today, though. Have a good weekend.