This post won’t be very long, but I wanted to share a few photos representing another bit of progress from this past week before I head down to the Ace Hardware store to pick up a few more pieces of sheet rock.

Here’s the first picture:

Followed by this one:

And finally, there’s this shot:

Sharp-eyed readers might notice that these are three shots of the same pressure gauge all showing 40 psi and they would likely wonder why I’d bother posting the same picture three different times.  Sharper-eyed readers might notice some slight differences in the shots, and my answer to that is; they were taken over a span of two full days.  The significance, of course, is that our replacement pipes and fittings are holding pressure and there are no leaks.  Obviously, if it holds air, it will hold water, so we’ve taken another giant leap forward!

I finished running all of the red (for hot water) and blue (for cold water) Pex the other day and went through the house to ensure that all of the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room fixtures were turned off, and fired up the air compressor to charge the system.  At first, I could barely get the needle to move at all and it wouldn’t hold any pressure.  I began getting discouraged, fearing that we still had some major problems, but I decided to call it a day and try again the following morning.  I actually woke up that night with a flash of realization:  the plumber that installed the hot water heater also ran a small, copper line to the humidifier attached to the furnace.  Just as I suspected, that tiny, 1/4 inch line was open, and once I closed it, I saw a vast improvement on the gauge.  It would take pressure, but wouldn’t hold for long, so I shut the compressor off to listen, and clearly heard hissing air.  I had overlooked one crimp clamp on a ‘T’-fitting, and once I tightened it, the hissing stopped; just like magic!

I filled it to 40 psi and took the first photo.  The next morning, I took the second photo, and yesterday, I took the third.  My Google searches all said that if the pressure holds for 15 minutes, it’s good, but obviously, it wasn’t good enough for me (a tiny bit of OCD, perhaps?)…..  though 48 hours was.  I’m convinced now, and pleased with the results, especially considering I’d never done anything like this before.  It was fairly simple, didn’t require any soldering or glue, and was cheaper than the alternatives and far less expensive than hiring a plumber.  In fact, I’d estimate that we saved somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000 doing this ourselves.

The next step is putting up sheet rock in the basement ‘closet’ where the main water supply line comes in from the well and where the new pressure tank will be installed.  Once all that is taken care of, we’ll be able to replace the air with water and we all know what that means…….  flush toilets coming soon!!!

Ace Hardware needs some more of our money, so I’m going to wrap this up and head down the hill.  We’re going to take a couple of days off this week and head down to Colorado Springs for the holiday.  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

I have to apologize in advance.  It’s been a few days since my last post, so this one is a bit long.

The Weather  We’re still trying to figure this one out.  Unfortunately, the ‘local’ news isn’t very helpful.  Even though Colorado Springs is a mere 15 miles away (as a crow flies), the temperatures there are typically 15 – 20 degrees warmer than here, and it seems to be  far more windy up here in the mountains.  As for snow, I think they got more than we did the other day, even though we’re about 4000 feet higher.  And, despite the fact that the local ABC affiliate claims that “Channel 13 is where Cripple Creek gets it’s weather”, they don’t even have us on the weather map.  I think they’r just trying to get us to watch.

I mentioned that it snowed.  It was only a couple of inches, but very pretty.  The next morning, it started melting, and was practically gone by noon, but the temperatures never got above 25 degrees and the sun never actually broke through the clouds.  How, exactly, does snow melt while it’s still freezing?

Animals  I think I mentioned before that this is a free-range area for cattle.  This means that someone has a herd of cows that just wander around, eating our grass and leaving their ‘pies’ wherever they want.  As we understand it, we would need to fence our property to keep them out, as opposed to the more logical idea of requiring their owner to fence his property to keep them in.  Anyhow, they’re gone for the time being.  I suspect they’ve been moved to a lower elevation for the winter.

We’ve had a number of deer wandering around, along with at least one fox, a den of coyotes, and a lot of rabbits.  Our least favorite are the mice.  Don’t get me wrong, they’re welcome to run around and play outside, but they just aren’t welcome inside the trailer with us.  It’s been an on-going battle, but I think we finally figured out how they were getting in.  Last week, we removed the stove and used an entire can of spray foam to fill the gaps and holes under that cabinet.  I’m not sure why the manufacturer thought they needed a six inch hole to run a 1 1/2 inch drain pipe, I’m not an engineer, so it’s not really my place to judge their methods.  I did take it upon myself to fill those voids, and for the last several days, the snap trap has remained set, with the peanut butter, just like I left it.  The poison bait trap appears undisturbed, and the sticky trap is empty.  I don’t want to jinx it, but maybe we’re on to something.  It seems to be just the two of us living in here again.

We’re still waiting and hoping to see elk and turkeys (after all, it’s nearly Thanksgiving), but yesterday, we were treated to an awesome surprise.  Down at the bottom of the property, Sandi saw a large dark animal just slowly wandering around by itself.  We needed the binoculars to be positive, but it was a bison.  Pretty exciting and very cool.

The Kitchen  This project is sort of on hold.  The counter-top measuring guy came out last week, but we’re still waiting to hear when we’ll be moving forward.  They called today and told us that the actual price will be about $1000 more than what we were quoted.  This overage, they claimed, was due in part because they ‘have to’ cut the opening for the range onsite since it was not installed at the time of the measurement.  Mind you, it was sitting in the very same room so that dimensions could be taken, but okay.  They also said there was an increased charge because we supposedly changed from a drop-in sink to an under-mount sink.  Likewise, the actual sink was in the room, along with the paper template included by the manufacturer.  I told the guy that called that I just wasn’t certain we’d be staying with them.  Looks like we may have to find a new counter top place.  He said he’s doing some checking and he’ll call me back.  I can’t wait.

A New Wrinkle  I’ve said before that it often feels like we take a full step backwards for every couple of steps forward.  We’re making progress, but it’s slow and costly at times.  When I was working on moving the cabinets and the kitchen plumbing, I noticed that one of the elbows in the copper sink pipes was split.  I figured that water had been left in the system when the house was abandoned, it got cold, and they ruptured.  I don’t solder well, but I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to make a couple of minor repairs.  But then…..  I was in the crawlspace looking a little more closely, and I discovered the true extent of the problem; nearly every piece of copper pipe was split.  This photo shows just a few of them.  Again, I’m not an engineer, but I feel like this will be a problem supplying the various sinks, toilets, and showers in the house with the water they all need to function properly.

We considered hiring a plumber to come in and completely replace everything, but after examining the problem and exploring our options, we decided to go a different direction.  We’re fortunate that the kitchen, laundry room, and bathrooms are all on the same end of the house.  All of the plumbing is visible and accessible in the ‘crawl space’ under the east side of the house.

It’s a warm, relatively clean work-space that I can sit up in, so it’s not terrible.  I’ve spent the last couple of days pulling the damaged copper out and replacing it with pex.

It’s a fairly low-cost alternative that is far easier for a do-it-yourselfer.  It requires just two special tools and involves no soldering.  Fingers crossed, we’ll have it all completed by early next week.  I’ll pressure test the system and hopefully get the well re-directed to turn on the water in the house.  Flush toilets, unlimited water, and a real shower…..  Coming Soon!!!

And Finally…..  Hold On to Your Hats, Folks  After discovering that Digger Guy had bounced a check to the county for the septic permit, we exchanged a few text messages, he made good on the charges, a couple of phone calls went back and forth between us and the County, and a new re-inspection was scheduled.

We were gone that day running errands, but I checked online and…  wait for it…..  we have final approval on our septic!!!  Yep, it’s done.  Complete.  Finished.  Final.  All Wrapped Up.

We miss seeing Digger Guy and his little dog everyday, but this project has finally come to a close and we’re another step closer.

 

I’m beginning to just accept the fact that none of our projects are going to go as smoothly, or as quickly, as I want them to.  Aside from replacing our windows and a couple of doors, which required some fairly major re-framing of the living room and kitchen walls, nothing has taken so much time as our kitchen remodel.  Okay, maybe the septic tank installation technically qualifies as our longest running, as-yet-still-unfinished project, but I digress.

The kitchen / dining room is likely the most important room in any house.  It’s where we cook and it’s where we eat.  It’s often a gathering spot, homework and school projects are frequently done at the dining room table, and it’s probably the one room in the house with the most systems and the most complications.

When we first started planning this remodel, we knew the cabinets would need to be replaced and the walls would need a fresh coat of paint.

The windows were broken and oddly sized and the sill was actually behind and lower than the back-splash.

The island was huge and needed to be shortened to accommodate a larger pantry.  The ceiling was partially open, with shop-style, florescent lights in the open rafters.  Despite the effectiveness and ready availability of bleach and latex gloves, the odor coming from the sink meant that it was simply going to the dump.  Also, the range was beyond usable, so we knew that our finished kitchen would have to have all new appliances, too.

We quickly realized this was going to need a lot of work.  In fact, the first step actually turned out to be a complete tear-out.  Cabinets, counter-tops, the island, the flooring, the ceiling light ‘framing’, the windows, the window wall…….  All gone!  This left us with a clean slate and a fresh place to start from.

We moved outlets.  We changed out switches.  We added light fixtures, and we discovered that someone cut the supply wire for the range, so the range outlet was useless.  We built an all new island and added the necessary wiring for the stove, the downdraft unit, and the extra outlet.  We modified the sink wall and changed out the window.  We patched the ceiling and the back wall, and fixed the cracks in the ceiling.  We went through nearly two rolls of paper tape, several pieces of quarter-round, and several large buckets of drywall mud to get the walls smooth enough to finish.  We went through several jugs of pre-made texture before we discovered it was much cheaper to buy a 50 pound bag of plaster and mix it ourselves.   We went with a knock-down look and it came out terrific.  We painted, connected all of the electrical fixtures, installed the lighting and and then got to work installing the cabinets.  We still have a couple of pantries to install, along with a couple more upper cabinets, but we’re far enough along that the counter-top installer can come out and take his measurements this afternoon.  They say that the turnaround time is about three weeks, so we’ll be moving on to new projects in the meantime.  Eventually, we’ll get the flooring down and trim everything out.  We’ve talked about how to finish the back splash, but we haven’t actually picked out the tile, yet.

First up on the to-do list is plumbing.  I crawled under the kitchen the other day and discovered that every piece of copper pipe has a split from freezing and bursting, so it’s all going to have to be replaced.

It’s okay, though, because we still don’t have a working septic system.  Digger Guy finished up a little over two weeks ago and called for a final inspection to show that the risers had been installed as required from the first inspection.  I checked the status of the permit online and it kept showing ‘pending’, but no one ever came out.  After a week and a half, it was still open, but with no inspection requests pending, so I called the County to ask.  It turns out that Digger Guy’s check bounced, so we’re basically just in limbo.  After all the challenges we’ve had with him, I’m not really surprised.  I think it’s cool in a way, though…  it provides a fitting finish to our septic saga!

 

Work hasn’t slowed down much for us as we continue to work towards finishing our new kitchen.  I’ll post about that later, but here, I’d like to share what I found a couple of days ago.

Anybody who knows me knows that I’m fascinated by history.  I’m so intrigued by the past that I often find myself just stopping and imagining who might have stood where I’m standing, thinking about what they were doing, or wondering what they might have left behind.  These feelings are strong in places like the Alamo in San Antonio, Custer’s Battlefield in Montana, or on Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay.  The structures that still remain, coupled with the museum displays that illustrate a place’s past and a good imagination make it fairly easy to wander back in time and spend a few moments there.  There is probably no greater example of this than Pearl Harbor.  I’ve seen the video footage of the 1941 attack, I’ve been to the museums, I’ve stood on the Arizona Memorial and looked down into the open turret just under the water’s surface, and I’ve even had the privilege of meeting and talking to several men who were actually there that morning.

This sort of mental  ‘time travel’ is far more difficult when a place lacks the lasting remnants of it’s past.  I traveled all over Germany by train and frequently caught myself staring out at the countryside, knowing that just 40 years earlier, millions of soldiers and civilians from both sides clashed there in the most violent and intense war the world has ever seen.

It’s no surprise, then, that when we moved to Cripple Creek, I took an immediate interest in the area’s rich past.  I read a wonderful history of the region within the first few weeks I was here and was immediately taken with the notion that this quiet, little, high-mountain town of just 1,600 people once boasted over 50,000 inhabitants!  Who were they?  Where did they all live?  How did they live?  What did they do?  What were their stories?  Did any of them occupy the area we now call our own home?  After all, we have twenty acres on the same hill as the city cemetery.  Surely, some of those old-timers walked the same ground that we now walk every day.

We took an afternoon off last week and visited the old Cripple Creek Jail museum.  The lady working there was very friendly and helpful, and suggested a book called ‘Money Mountain‘ .  I found it on Amazon and ordered it that very evening.  What a terrific find!  It describes the efforts of the earliest settlers here in the late 1800’s to find quality grazing land and ample water to raise cattle.  Along the way, one man found evidence of gold and spent years trying to locate it’s source.  A rush followed and the events of the next 120 years have led us to where we are today.

The book describes a survey of the region that took place in the early 1890’s and I found an 1894 US Geological Survey map on-line that shows the many mines, tunnels, and test holes that had been dug in the Cripple Creek Mining District up to that point.  It shows three X’s on our hill and I’ve found a number of ‘craters’ just above the landing where our fifth-wheel is parked, so there’s no question that at some point, men (presumably) with picks and shovels tromped around up here looking for gold.  Since the holes are fairly shallow, I assume they failed to find their fortunes here, but they were here!

I figured that if someone had been here, maybe they left something besides a hole in the ground.  Maybe they broke a shovel or pick handle and just left the useless tool behind.  Maybe, with all the exertion involved in digging, some loose coins fell from a pocket.  Maybe they set something down on a nearby rock and simply forgot it when they packed up and left.  I’m excited by the prospect of finding one of these treasures, so I spent some time with my metal detector and a shovel.  I was actually quite surprised that I picked up a number of ‘hits’ just on the rim of this test hole.  I excitedly dug down several inches and sifted through the topsoil and small rocks to see what I might find.  No tools or coins, but I was still thrilled at my discovery!  It’s going to seem a bit lame to most, and they certainly have very little actual value, but I found……..  nails!!!!

These aren’t modern, mass-produced nails made by automated machines that anyone can just buy at the local hardware store.  These are irregularly sized, square nails that some blacksmith made by hand; one at a time by heating the steel and pounding it with a hammer to create one, single nail.  To me, these are such an awesome find that raise all those questions I described at the beginning of this post: Who made them?  Who left them?  What were they used for?  Why were they left there?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to look for those tools and I’m hoping to find a pile of gold coins, but these nails were last held by someone in the 1800’s and represent an actual, tangible link to the past that I can hold in my own hand in 2017.  How cool is that?

 

 

The kids came up Saturday afternoon to pick up their trailer.  They brought it up several weeks ago so Sandi’s sister and brother-in-law could have someplace safe to stay while they were here.  Their original plan had been to camp out in a tent, but after we found the big cougar tracks, we figured a tent would just provide a hungry cat with a nylon wrapped snack, so it was a big help.  But, with winter coming, we all figured it was best to get the trailer back down to Colorado Springs, get it winterized, and park it back in the RV storage area on post.

We had a good time hanging out, shooting guns, and riding the quads.  The weather was a bit cool, but clear, sunny, and very pleasant all day.  This was the same view, a little less than 24 hours later:

It continued snowing throughout the day, but temperatures are expected to be back up around 60 later in the week, so that’s something to look forward to.  Trekking out to the porta-potty when the thermometer is showing the low 20’s is just not fun.  I hadn’t planned it, but this is as good a segue as any to give an update on Digger Guy.  The septic tank is in, the house plumbing is connected to it, and the outflow pipe is connected to the drain field.  We met up with him in Woodland Park on Friday to sign the permit application, and it sounds like the county inspection will be sometime on Wednesday.

My quad was a little tough to start this morning, due to the cold, but once it was running, it ran like a champ through the snow.  We didn’t have any traction issues at all, so that was reassuring.

We saw some deer this afternoon, too.  I had been watching several good sized bucks a month or two ago, but I haven’t seen them since I got back from my last trip to Washington.  I hadn’t seen any does (except for one really ugly young lady back in June), either, and figured it was likely due to the presence of that cat I mentioned earlier.  I enjoy watching them and I’m glad came by today.  I’m still hoping to see some elk and turkeys, now that fall is here.

On a bittersweet note, our old house has sold.  We have an appointment tomorrow to sign the closing papers and the new owners take possession on Friday.  We’ll certainly miss that house, but we’ll always have lots of wonderful memories of Christmas gatherings, birthday parties, baby showers, and backyard barbecues.  The new family seems really nice and they love it just like we did, so we’re a little sad, but very happy for them.  Hopefully, it will continue to play host to good times like it did for us.

 

The kitchen continues to come along, though nothing seems to move as quickly as I would like, or imagine.  Part of that may simply be the result of an overly optimistic, mental timeline, but the seemingly constant, unforeseen issues that pop up and need correction certainly slow things down at times, as well.

The new island is in, the new light fixtures over it are now in, and we’re moving ever closer to spraying the texture and painting.  Anybody that has ever done sheet rock knows that the process includes a lot of sanding to get the plaster smooth.  That sanding results in a great deal of dust that just seems to coat everything.  I won’t miss it when we finally wrap up this remodel, but I’m afraid this is just one room; we still have a few other rooms to do.

I’ve whined before about the impending arrival of fall and cooler weather.  Admittedly, some of my obsession is nothing more that a touch of fear of the unknown.  We have been watching the leaves turn from the front porch of the house and yesterday, we woke up to a bit of snow on the car.

By late afternoon, I was outside in a t-shirt, so clearly, this was nothing but a tease of things to come.  I’m pleased to report, however, that we’ve made a little more forward progress.  A technician came out on Tuesday to turn our furnace on, and the county inspector was scheduled to come out on Wednesday to make sure everything was up to code.  On Monday, I remembered that the installer had mentioned that we would need to have CO2 detectors on each floor in order to pass that inspection.  I rushed down to the Ace and bought the only three hardwired smoke detector  / CO2 alarms they had in stock.  We started checking and discovered that even though there was a ceiling fixture on each floor with wires in them, they were wired to each other, but they were not hooked up to power.  So, after working on the kitchen all day, we stayed until nearly 9:00 pm to get those detectors installed properly.  The building inspector arrived about noon on Wednesday, glanced at the furnace, made a little small talk about our view, and left.  All that time, sweat, and worry, and he never even noticed what a great job we had done with our code-mandated safety efforts.  It reminded me of those big inspections we had in the Army where we’d stay up all night cleaning, buffing, polishing, and arranging our equipment just so.  We even slept on the floor so as not to wrinkle the blankets on the bed, only to have the Commander poke his head in the door, nod, mumble a cursory ‘mmm hmmm’ and then leave.  After all that effort, you just wanted to drag them back in and make them acknowledge how perfectly you had rolled your socks and precisely you had your footwear lined up under the bed.

At the end of the day, we have a county-approved furnace that is keeping the chill at bay and we’ve started using our fireplace for a bit of added warmth and ambiance.  Oh, and it’s a good way to get rid of 2×4 scraps.

People keep asking about Digger Guy and whether or not our septic system is finished.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I offer a visual answer.  At the bottom of these two photos is a large equipment box that he left in the driveway.  It contains the tools and fittings he’ll need to connect the house plumbing to the new tank once it’s completely installed.  A hint……  look at the leaves on the trees in the background.

He couldn’t show up because it was raining.  He couldn’t finish because he didn’t have enough dirt.  He had dirt delivered and he couldn’t finish because the dirt had too many rocks.  He got the right dirt delivered and he couldn’t finish because he had to drive to Denver to pick up a check.  It’s been a little aggravating, though to be honest, there’s a certain amusing quality to it all, too.  It helps that we have a little time before we actually need it to be functioning, but still….

He sent me a message on Wednesday saying he’d see me yesterday morning.  He finally showed up and got to work about 4:30 pm, just as I was finishing up for the day.

I’m going to head down and make a little more dust, and then we’re going to use some of our points to spend the weekend in a hotel.  Ahh….  the idea of standing under a shower spray with unlimited hot water and sleeping in a king sized bed!!!!  I just hope we can remember how to work those newfangled flush toilet thingys.

According to the calendar, it’s still summer for another couple of days.  While it may not even be autumn yet, it seems like winter is already beginning to arrive up in the northern Rockies.  Early snowfall in Montana is a welcome relief for our friends and family there who have been suffering with the numerous forest fires for the past couple of months.

Meanwhile, here in the southern Rockies, the trees are beginning to change and the winds have a bit of a chill to them.  The weather report on tonight’s news was forecasting a mix of snow and rain down in Woodland Park this weekend.  Since we’re nearly 2000 feet higher here, I’m curious to see whether we might see our first snow of the year.  But, our propane tank is full, our new furnace will be turned on on Tuesday, and thanks to my brother-in law, I have a pretty good start on a supply of firewood, too.  I think I’ve mentioned that the previous resident here had been operating a sawmill on the property….  there are a number of logs lying strewn around the property, a huge pile of slabs and end cuts, and even a fair amount of cut and split firewood, though it’s scattered all over and needs to be collected.  While I worked down at the house, Mike was nice enough to work on the problem for me; cutting and splitting enough to fill my utility trailer.

                 

I towed the trailer down this morning and moved the wood to the empty pallets under the front porch.  There’s probably a cord there, and I need to gather more, but it’s a great start and despite the splinters in my hands, it gives me a little peace of mind.  I suppose next time I could wear gloves.

Meanwhile, I think we have the electrical figured out and the kitchen is coming along.  Our electrical panel was moved out of the pantry and into the ‘sewing room’, which means the electrician had to install several junction boxes to extend the various wires so they’d reach the new breaker box.  Not only did he not bother to write down which circuits controlled which rooms, but he didn’t even connect all of the wires to circuit breakers.  Believe it or not, the county electrical inspector didn’t seem to take issue with bare, unconnected wires simply tucked inside the panel.

I don’t have the cabinets in yet, but we’re closer.  I’ve got the sheet rock up and some of the tape and mud done.  It’s beginning to look like something!  Here’s a look at the before and now.

 

After another short break, we’re back to work on the house and beginning to feel like we might actually be making some progress.  With some subtle changes in the weather lately, getting out of the 5th-wheel and into the house is taking on a new sense of urgency.  The mornings are still clear and warm and the afternoons are still bringing rain and thunderstorms, but there’s a bit more chill in the air and the trees are starting to show their fall colors.  Winter may not be far off.

Sandi and I made a quick trip back to Washington to attend our daughter’s wedding and wrap things up with our house there.  I had no idea that we had so much stuff that the 26 foot U-haul and my utility trailer wouldn’t be enough, but with the camper shell on my pickup and a 12 foot, enclosed trailer, we managed to get just about everything that was left.  Thanks to some great friends and a couple of our kids, the few things we left behind either found new homes or ended up at the dump, and the house is ready for it’s new owners.  This trip back was completely issue-free; no lost pets, no washed-out driveway, and no tow-truck bills.  Sandi’s sister and brother-in-law both recently retired, so they followed us down to see our adventure first hand and help us out a bit.

The Digger Guy saga continues.  When we left for Washington, he had brought his equipment to the property and was going to get started the next day, promising we would have an operating septic system by the time we returned.  We had barely gotten on the road that morning when he sent us a message asking for some money up front for the purchase of the tank.  Fortunately, we hadn’t gone too far and we were able to meet with him and get him taken care of.  When we returned a week and a half later, I was glad to see the progress he’d made, but I wasn’t terribly surprised to see that he wasn’t finished as we had hoped.

The old tank has been collapsed and filled, the new hole has been dug just down the slope, and the new tank has been set into place.  It still needs to be connected and buried, but surprising absolutely no one, we’ve hit a new snag.  When he came out to finish the job, the bearings went out on the excavator.  He contacted a machinist friend in Texas who crafted new bearings for him, but they didn’t arrive until last night.  As of this morning, repairs and maintenance are underway and he expects to be back out later this afternoon or early tomorrow.  As a side note, he seems to be a really decent, hardworking guy.  I’m not sure his business management skills are what they could be, but he does seem to be trying to get us up and running.  The aggravating thing is that this experience seems pretty typical of contractors in this area…..  a little slower and less reliable than you might find in other parts of the country.

But, we’re not sitting idly by while we wait.  We ordered our kitchen cabinets a month ago, and they came in while we were gone.  I’m really beginning to dread these trips to Colorado Springs, but this time, neither traffic nor the weather posed any problems, so we made it down, got the trailer loaded, and made it back with no problems.

I have a little bit of electrical and sheet rock work to do before I can actually install them, but we have our cabinets, and they look pretty good.

Just a short update today since we’re heading back to Washington for a few days.  Our daughter is getting married on Sunday and we still have a few things there that didn’t fit in the U-Haul.

Digger Guy (his name is actually Rick, by the way) came by last week and told us he hoped to start on our septic system last Friday, but assured us he would be here by yesterday at the very latest.  True to his word, he got here just as the well crew was finishing the installation of our new pump.  Rick didn’t get much digging done, but he unloaded his equipment and dug an approach so he could get it down to where the new tank will be installed.

This is the last major piece of the puzzle.  With a little luck, we’ll be able to turn everything on in the house when we get back.  For now, it’s time to hit the road.  We have about 780 miles to cover today.

I frequently talk about the work we’re doing here, or describe some of the projects we’re undertaking, but I haven’t really talked much about how this house got to the point we found it.  From what we’ve pieced together from the county records and title report, the property was purchased by a couple in 1989 and they built the house two years later.  I’ve heard that the winters and elevation began getting to them as they got older, and they sold the house, along with the barn and twenty acres to a property investment company called Bottom Line Results.  The owner of that company sort of ‘sold’ fifty or sixty properties in varying states of distress, including this one, to individuals and families who paid him cash and moved in to start making repairs.  I’ll skip over a bunch of the details and just mention that it turned into a giant Ponzi scheme.  He went to jail for fraud, all of the properties ended up in bankruptcy court, and the families who put up the money for their dream homes lost everything they had invested as they were forced to leave.

When we first saw the house, the plywood over several of the windows made it clear that some damage had been done and that some repairs would be necessary.  Honestly, this was a big factor in our decision to pursue this project; the structure itself seemed solid, but it needed work and we’d always wanted to take on a challenge like that.  Most importantly, it meant that the price was right.

In 5. Some Good News and Some Bad News I briefly mentioned that I met Kevin, the guy who lost almost $90,000 in this place.  I was working on a section of the driveway when he just drove up.  He didn’t waste any time telling me how badly he had been treated and how horrible the experience had been for him and his wife.  Most of the conversation, though, was about how tough he is.  According to him, he was a Marine sniper who spent several tours in the Middle East killing people, and then went back as a civilian sniper with Blackwater to kill more people.  He liked this property because he could shoot “Bessie”, his sniper rifle every day; calling it his ‘therapy’.  He told me about finding trespassers on the property and holding them at gunpoint until the Sheriff’s Office arrived, and told me that thieves and tweekers were a constant threat.

I won’t bother sharing the entire encounter, but suffice to say my impression of the guy was that he was a liar who suffers from some pretty significant paranoia and an overly developed ego.  He mentioned that the house had hardwood floors, but ‘someone’ had broken in and stolen it all, along with the tankless hot water heater.  I certainly can’t prove who caused the damage we found or took the missing materials, but after 30+ years in law enforcement, I can say that vandals and thieves are typically too lazy to put much effort into their activities.  They spray paint graffiti, they break every window in the place, and they rip copper wire out of the walls that they can sell quickly.  They don’t carefully remove and haul away solid wood flooring.  Let’s face it, there’s just not much of a black market for pre-finished Maple, and I’ve never met a drug dealer willing to swap a baggie of dope for a few square feet of really nice lumber.  I’m hoping Kevin’s one visit will also be his last.

We didn’t have any graffiti issues, and the only missing wire was the main supply line that we’ve already had replaced.  The flooring will come later, but this past week has been spent addressing those door and window problems.

Since some of the windows needed to be replaced anyhow, we decided to make some design changes at the same time.  The living room had six (three pairs) windows that were six feet high, by three feet wide.  They provided spectacular views, but the lower portion was really sort of useless and there wasn’t any wall space in the entire living room along which furniture could be placed.  We swapped six vertical windows for three horizontal ones a little higher up.  We’re really excited about how they look.

Likewise, the kitchen had three separate windows over the sink, but because they were so long, they extended nearly into the corner, which meant that there wasn’t enough space to run upper cabinets along the back wall.   We removed three windows, re-framed the wall, and installed a single sliding window.  I think the result will be pretty positive.

As of this afternoon, all of the broken windows have been replaced, the mudroom door is new, and the two french doors have been swapped out.  I’m grateful for a friend’s help on Tuesday to replace the big, upper window over the living room door (which was obviously broken from the inside!).  I’m just not fond of heights and Joe was a huge help; seemingly unaffected by spending the afternoon atop a twelve-foot scaffold in the wind.

We still have a lot of work to do, but it’s official as of yesterday……

No More Plywood!