Joist in time

One of the things (among many) was some problems in the basement crawlspace. There were several rotted wooden joists that had become damaged over the years from a low window moisture problem. There was also an apparent leak in a waste pipe. Once my contractor Richard was able to get in there and asses what was going on he found that the pipe was ok but that the joists really did need to be replaced. It wasn't cheap ($2600) but it was far cheaper than the credit I got from negotiating with the sellers after the house's inspection. They gave me a $5000 credit, so at least on this one I came out ahead. Here are pics of the new joists in place:

'Clark Park'

We worked like demons in the yard the last few days. Well, mostly it was Scott, but I certainly did my part. He really had a vision for clearing even more brush from the periphery of the property off to the left near the street and going back a ways. He also wanted to shear the huge rhododendron bushes up along their trunks a bit, to get the lower limbs up off the ground. His hope is that more grass and pachysandra will fill in the cleared ground. He loved his handywork, he said 'it looks like a park!'. And I called it "Clark Park" after his Jack Russell, Clark. I lost track of all the wheelbarrow loads of yard debris that I hauled to the back of the property. Thank God for that ravine, I don't know how we'd get rid of all that stuff if we didn't have a place to dump it.

Bed & a backup

Since we've started camping out here at the new house we've been sleeping on air mattresses borrowed from my broker in the Hamptons, Lillian. They were fine for the first few weeks, a little squishy to sleep on but 'beggars can't be choosers', right? But I ended up wanting to make things a little more livable, so I bought a new mattress for us to sleep on. The primary bedroom is quite sizable, I decided to splurge on a king sized one to give us more room at night. The size is really conducive for two men and a little dog who insists on sleeping with his dad! I'm still testing out the firmness. I went with FIRM because my mattress in Sag was feeling a little soft and I've been suffering from backaches (or is it just old age??) A little more support was called for...but I'm still waking up with pain, ugh. So the next step is to try a mattress cover with padding. It could be the softness I need with the support underneath. I still have a few more weeks before I'm committed to this mattress so stay tuned.

This past weekend one of my 'must' tasks was to learn how to turn on and operate the electrical generator. We hear that from time to time the power goes out in this neighborhood and having this system will allow us to weather the storm so to speak. It would keep the fridge, furnace, internet going for about 12 hours on a small amount of gas. I looked up how-to videos for the make and model the previous owners left us and I was able to start it up. It's relatively easy thank God. Now I'm sorta prepared for the first outage *fingers crossed*.

The yard overhaul

Scott really wanted all the pachysandra beds around the house weeded. Also all the day lillies around the property had to go (I hate day lillies), and the weird southwestern flavored plants along the side of the house were an eyesore too. They just didn't match the vibe of the house. We want a more 'cottege-y' look. But this was a LOT of work. He decided to have a yard crew do it, the guy that does our neighbors' yard. His name is Edgar. All this was not gonna be cheap tho. I didn't have the funds right now to cover it. It was something he wanted very much so Scott sprung for the cost, a whopping $800. I asked Edgar if he'd throw in a cut of the lawns for that price, he agreed. His crew of 3 guys were here for about about 7 hours. They worked hard. It was well worth it. It would have taken us at least a month to get all that done. It was a beautiful day, crisp Autumn weather. Here are a bunch of pics, I thought it almost looked like a park!

You an innie...or an Audi?

The day that Scott attended the final walk-thru at the new house with our realtor Marc, he then went car shopping with his friend Jeff. They ended up at the Audi dealership in Fairfield. He called me and said, "Guess where I am". He had his eyes set on a gray-green number, a 2021 pre-owned with only 21,000 miles on it. He pondered and pondered and decided to get it. He was SO happy to have wheels again. The one problem was that there was a flaw in the leater on the passenger side seat, a weird crease. He got a better deal and a few complications and weeks later (a long story about getting all the right documentation for Connecticut owneship), the car was his. He brought it home last weekend and it's very nice. Tons of bells and whistles that I know nothing about. What matters most is that he loves it.

He'll keep it here in the garage and we'll use it when we want to travel around Connecticut in style ;)

Vine time

On one of the walls off the back porch was a very large overgrown vine, a climbing hydrangea. It was beautiful but had totally gotten out of hand. It was crawling into the gutter above and I was worried it would do damage to the exterior stonework. When the technicians came to do the pest exclusion they offered to help me cut it back a lot in order to make sure there were no problems with the stone OR openings where pests could possibly be gettin in. They suggested keeping the vine (I wanted to get rid of it altogether), and that if it were kept in check, flat against the stone, it would looke much better. So that's what we did. In the Spring it should start to fill out nicely. Hopefully this 'haircut' will make it flourish. BEFORE:

AFTER:

Bye, bye ugly garden

One of my tasks the last few weeks has been to take down the ugly, and I mean UGLY, garden just off the back patio. What an eyesore. Perhaps at some point it looked decent but the previous owners had let it go to wrack and ruin. Overgrown plantings, weeds for days, unsightly and dilapidated fencing surrounding it. It was a mess. I couldn't fathom why anybody would want to mar the view to the backyard with that mess. You see it from the sun room, the living room, and the primary bedroom. All you want to see is a nice pristine expanse of yard. Instead it's blocked by junk. It had to go. But it wasn't easy. In addition to the tall wooden fence, there was wire and plastice fencing at the ground level with random old pieces of slate inserted here and there. I'm sure it was to prevent critters from getting to the vegetables and plants. The major tentpoles for the fencing were buried deep. And to add to the difficulty of pulling it up, the wire and plastic were stapled AND zip-tied to the wood. I had to use wire cutters to pull out all the staples and to cut the zips. NOT easy. Very tedious. After many hours of pulling, sweating, getting eaten by mosquitos, and backaches, i finally got it all out and it's MUCH better. And it will only improve as grass takes ove the bare plot. Here are a couple of pics of the heinous BEFORE:

And here is the AFTER: :)

One more after we had a yard crew cut the lawn...

EXPLOSION!

Earlier this week was pretty much a catastrophe. In the basement there is a very large contraption. It is the septic tank pump.

When this house was built back in the 1930's there were two septic tanks for two parts of the house. At some point one of the tanks was closed down, probably filled. As a consequence all the waste water from the dishwasher, washing machine, and kitchen now goes into one tank. It gets there via this large pump. If there were waste from the sewing room bathroom or the powder room it would also go thru it. The waste from the primary bath and upstairs bathroom goes directly into the septic as it's in the side yard by those rooms, no need to travel thru the pump. All good, except when it's not. There is a monitoring alarm system connected to the pump. The other night it started beeping. LOUDLY. And there were flashing lights.

I was freaking out. I had just put a load of wash on, could that be setting it off? Luckily there was a sticker on the pipes above it that said 'In case of emergency call this number', Garrity Water Solutions. Garrity was the company that had done the inspection on the well and had installed the new well pump a few weeks ago. I called them and they told me to umplug the pump and re-set it. I did that and it seemed to work, but they would come out the following day. Two nice technicians showed up in the afternoon, Ben and Wes. They were working away in the basement checking out the system when all of a sudden I heard a very loud noise, almost a full-blown explosion. Then voices, yelling. "Fuck! FUCK!! TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!!" Then, "It got in my eyes...and my mouth!" This did not sound good. A few minutes later I went downstairs, "Are you guys ok??" The were not. A pipe gasket above the pump gave out. Waste water went everywhere. They were drenched in it. The grossness of this cannot be overstated. There was water all over the basement floor. They said that whover had installed the pump did it very poorly. They had used fittings and gaskets that were the completely wrong size to stand up to the pressure the pump needs to generate to get the waste up and out to the septic tank in the side yard. I asked if I was going to need a new pump, or, worse, if the whole system was shot. They said no, they'd take care of it. Awhile later they had replaced the problem joint piece and left. Surprisingly, they were in good spirits considereing they were wet with yuck. Later, I was glad it was not poop water, just old kitchen waste water. But that's not the end of it. Fifteen minutes after they left I was hand washing some dishes when THE ALARM WENT OFF AGAIN. I re-set it again and went to take a shower. When I got out it was beeping AGAIN. I called the emergency 24 hour emergency number (it was 11:30). I think I woke up who I later found out was the owner, Evan Garrity. He said they'd show up tomorrow. Even himself showed up. After examination he determined that the problem was a faulty float inside the pump tank. It goes off if waste level gets too high for the pump to grind up and push out. He also replaced several of the pipe joint gaskets around the pump to make sure they were strong enough to withstand the pump's pressure. So a THOUSAND dollars later for parts and labor, all was fixed. Very expensive but if it prevents another explosion it was well worth it.

The Yard Man Cometh

I woke up that first morning in the house to find Scott had been up since 6:30 (it was now 8:00). He had been working in the yard already chopping down shrubs and bushes left and right. He was drenched with sweat because the day was so humid. Clark was watching him tethered to an in-ground stake. As a reminder, here is the house BEFORE he started...

and here is the AFTER...

Clark looking on with the cut down bushes by the wayside...

He was doing all this with a HAND SAW! Poor thing, he got blisters on his hands. I went to Home Depot and bought him a new toy, a Milwaukee brand reciprocating saw.

They're typically not used in the yard but I Googled if it was possible to cut branches with them and the answer was 'yes, if you use the right blade'. The next time he worked in the yard it worked like a charm to cut down the stumps. He cut down EVEN MORE branches on other trees...and I don't think he's done!

And so it begins...

I drove up that Friday after the closing. I picked up Scott who was staying with his good friend Jeff who lives in nearby Norwalk. We camped out at the house that weekend. I brought two air mattresses I borrowed from my Hamptons broker, Lillian, and we slept on those. I brought some basic kitchen things, linens, towels, gardening tools, etc. I woke up on Saturday morning and Scott had been up since 6 working in the yard. He had already chopped down and/or pruned many bushes, shrubs, and tree limbs. It was a super humid day and he was drenched in sweat. I decided to jump right in and begin fixin some of the house issues that the inspection report detailed. I immediately got a pest control company to start the process of sealing up the house from 'critters'. The put poison and traps in the attic space and came back a week later to see what was caught (just one mouse as it turns out). Then they cam back a week later for the exclusion process. Two technicians came and stayed all day, sealing, caulking, covering any place where pests could get in.

That week I also had a water systems company come and replace the well pump. The old one was working but was on it's last legs. The installers took quite a while to get the new one in. I heard a LOT of grunting and yelling comeing from the basement, it couldn't have been easy to get that thing in the small pump room. They told me the well was 125 feet down, pretty average as it goes.

Next up was getting the washing machine and dryer up to speed. They were both in good condition but the gasket on the washer was filthy...mold and what looked like pet hair clogged around the edges. I wanted to start fresh and clean with a new gasket, plus have the dryer looked at, just in case there were any lint build-up issues. $400 later that was taken care of.

Last on this week's list was installing the internet modem. Scott really needed wifi for when he was at the house doing his work. He offered to pay for the installation until I sold the Sag Harbor house. At first the technician and I couldn't find the right wire...then we discovered it went up into the home office, so that's where the modem will sit. Scott is buying two extenders to push the signal more efficiently thru the house.

In addition, I'm getting a bid for all the 'mechanical' list of things on the house that need fixing/updating, things that don't require an architect's attention. I also have Steve the architect working on the kitchen design. I'm not pressuring him for that as I can't pay for it until Sag sells.