May I say, those were 5 of the most tiring days I think I’ve
ever had. After having to go up/down
stairs all day long for 5 days, if I’d had to deal with any stairs at the new
house, I think I’d run screaming down the street.
OK – we are here!!
Now it will get less stressful and hectic – right?
Nope.
On Monday morning, the contractor arrived to start the work
we wanted done. The house was in total
disarray and I couldn't unpack anything and I COULD NOT FIND ANYTHING.
I hate to move.
Not only was everything lost in space, this was an OLDER
house. Being an older house, it has
several good/bad things. We thought we
were aware of most of the bad things and had made plans to
update.
1. There were, oh, 2 plugs per room (except in the tiny room, where there was one plug). Two plugs per room is not very many
especially when the plugs are nowhere near the place where something electric
needs one to be. For instance, the
bedroom plugs were beside the door, one on each side – the bed, bedside tables,
and lamps were across the room.
2. The cable company assured me they could supply us with cable
TV and DSL – no problem except, after they got to the house, lo and
behold, they didn’t go as far as that house.
They were happy to supply us with cable and WE could stretch it across
the street and barn to the house – hmmmm - NO. Next option?
3. The telephone was supposed to be turned on between the
17-20th – nope no phone until finally at 5pm on the 22nd. Then, the sellers neglected to tell me that
they had a second line to one room so I could let the phone company know. Found out when the SBC lady says, you have no
service to that room (yes, that would be
the room where lived the computer and my desk). Fortunately, she was a very nice lady and did
her magic and a dial tone appeared on the phone in question.
4. There was a slump in the roof – something the inspector
seemed to have overlooked, so the central AC/heat unit couldn’t go up in the
attic. This meant rethinking the kitchen
remodel to make a place for it.
5. The dishwasher did not work.
Neither did the reverse osmosis water system. (Remember
I told you we were on a well? The well
water here in Wharton tastes like sulphur.
Having the reverse osmosis system – a must.) Water softener didn’t work. Nor the water
heater. In minutes, the hot water in the
TUB ONLY, cooled down during a shower until there was no HOT water (nobody ever figured that one out – and no,
it wasn’t the fixtures – we replaced those). The sellers burned their name in the wood
floor in the breeze-way entry area (that
would be the door the world in general used) – kept that covered with a rug
during all the showings. The gas heaters
(these were ugly huge wall heaters – only
heat in the house and didn’t work in fact, weren’t even hooked up because at some
time, they had caught fire and singed the attic plus there was no outside
venting for those awful things) and one of the window units went out almost
immediately (central air/heat installation became #1). The
barn, while huge, leaked like a sieve – almost as wet inside as out during a
rain.
6. And so forth
and so on.
The good things –
The house was really well built and the 2 acres it sat on were
beautiful. The barn was huge and with
careful planning and using no cardboard, great for storing things. There were lots of mature pecan trees, oak trees,
magnolia trees. There were
neighbors. The house had nice wood
floors and some really pretty antique light fixtures. The exterior was stone – not brick
veneer. We had a well (which originally, I thought was a good thing but, no electricity – no water and during Hurricane Rita, we had no electricity for 10 days – TEN – the number after 9 – 10 days).
Every night, after a long day of finding yet another major
problem that had not be found during (1) the inspection or (2) disclosed by the
sellers, Michael had to reassure me – “Yes honey, this was a really good deal
and the right move.”
Take care.
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