9. Tiny homes, sheds, and campers, oh my!

A tiny house possibility with lots of windows
Lovely TH park model in Spokane. Too many windows for high winds and summer hailstorms?

I was in the Spokane area recently. Beautiful surrounding wilderness areas. The city’s got character too. This was part family visit, part fact-finding mission to check out jobs, business opportunities, housing, property. I specifically wanted to look at tiny homes, and secondarily, campers.

Read more

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8. The pink stuff is safe to drink, but I wouldn’t.

Upstairs brick chimney remnant, sealed but still standingIt’s been cold here (Jan 31-Feb 1 2019), but we didn’t make the news with our temps. It’s Montana. Bitter cold is normal. We were hardly mentioned in the news of the Polar Vortex, which sounded like a made-up marketing term to me anyway. I create marketing campaigns for a living. I recognize shorthand buzz-speak when I hear it.

This old drafty house is a challenge to keep warm. My great-grandparents and grandparents did it, so it should be doable. Right? I know they had a wood and coal cookstove in the kitchen, and in later years a fuel-oil burner, and in the main room a furnace of some sort with a stovepipe that fed through the ceiling to the upstairs bedrooms and chimney.

Read more

7. Flange thingy

Split flange around pipe
Split flange around water pipe, creosote drippings from stovepipe.

Why would anyone cut a big rough hole through the wall for a small-diameter pipe run? Typical, I thought angrily. I googled and found an interesting solution for $1.32 plus $5.00 shipping. It’s difficult to search when you don’t know the name of something you’re not sure exists. But I took a chance on this thing called a split flange pipe covering. They came two to a pack. There was no room on the bathroom side, but I put one of the pair around the pipe on the kitchen wall. Problem solved. There are only about 20 other possible rodent entry points along other walls, under doorsills, and in the ceiling, but at least I shut down the kitchen-to-bathroom mouse-track expressway. The only tool I needed was a screwdriver. I just loosened the fastener and opened the hinge like a handcuff, wrapped it around the pipe, then closed it back into a circle. An ingenious way to pop on a decent looking flange instead of cutting and reconnecting the pipe. (As if that was ever going to happen!) I think I was supposed to screw or glue it to the wall, but it felt tight enough to let it be rather than try to squeeze between that darn water heater and my wood stove, and try to drill arguably unneeded holes in a wall I’m going to paint or replace if at all possible. Please note the word “try.” I’m chalking this up as a success. I’m kind of proud of myself. Note to self: Clean up creosote drippings from the stovepipe and paint the wall!

Read more

6. The Dogs Just Don’t Care.

My big water heater in the corner of the kitchen
In the corner, the water heater grins and I bear it.

I was sitting at the table with a next-gen family member one night after supper, lamenting the condition of my house, making the case that I very much needed assistance with repairs. I was feeling a definite lack of sympathy; I was getting no traction with my argument. In fairness, I was probably whining. I could hear my own strident broken-record voice, and I hated it.

Then something small ran across the floor into the corner.

Read more

5. An outdoor shower sounds nice.

Vinyl ofuro-style tub.
Just add water!

Back to my shower. That same handyman who built the throne platform, bless his soul, laid in low-end laminate paneling over the back wall of the shower without consulting me. I was out of state, not yet living here full-time, and came back to find top and bottom in two pieces, patched together with caulk. Later, a friend put up some sheetboard for the side walls. Water eventually started leaking out onto the floor and through the wall to the porch. I recently painted it all again, but the walls are warping badly. New stop-gap caulking has been employed. We’ll see how that goes.

My dream is to create a (seasonal) outdoor rustic shower and galvanized tub oasis, surrounded by a pretty cedar privacy fence. I picture a steamy bath, looking up at the stars, with candles and incense burning on little log stands while I sip wine or homemade kombucha. When I propose this out loud, I get puzzled looks. Is she unhinged?? I’m sure not getting any buy-in to help me build my dream.

Read more

4. Jolly times and fun facts

Lurking behind the linoleum wall covering in my old bathroomI’ve pulled the toilet and reseated it on a new wax ring twice in the last year, and it needs doing again. A handyman built a wooden platform for the “throne” so to speak, but the boards are now warped and popping up. Did I mention the floor is sloping down at a steep angle? Hard to level a toilet on that. Hard to stand up straight sometimes too. I got tired of rocking when seated, so I inserted little plastic shims under the base. I figured they’d also help stop the water leaking out around the sides. But like I said, the floorboards are warped, so this was not a perfect solution. A friend came over and tightened the two bolts holding the toilet down, but he’s not sure they aren’t going to work loose again. (They will.) A non-working bathroom is one of the situations that makes me really want to cry. Once, a handyman who sadly is no longer with us came, worked on it, couldn’t fix it right away, and left me with no bathroom. I was not a happy camper.

Read more

3. This is one hard-water town, Mabel.

Showerhead and pipes in old bathroom
Maybe I could sell it on eBay as a vintage plumbing fixture?

The water here is terrible. Technically, with all the softener chemicals added to it, it’s potable, but I don’t know anyone who drinks it out of the tap. Well, I used to know one person who did. She was a pretty tough cookie; one of my heroes. She also ate apple seeds, cyanide and all. And thrived.

Sediment builds up in all my fixtures and water-gulping appliances. Thick white salty crusty layers coat my dish drainer. The showerhead, old and rusty, plugs up all the time, then the faceplate flies off its stem. I’ve got the original, no-frills wetbath. If I notice the problem before the disc loses its grip, just as water starts to spray out from the perimeter, I can take a nail and a toothpick to open the holes. First I have to unscrew it and clean it with vinegar. This is, unlike rolling canned goods in the kitchen, not my idea of fun, particularly.

Read more

2. Barely a headroom with barely any headroom

Christmas lights are my favorite thing about the holiday season. They lend such a warm, cheery glow indoors that I’m inspired to make every visible surface, nook, and cranny in this old house pleasing to the eye. It’s going to take some work!

I thought it would be a good idea to start my personal housing repair it/tear it/or forswear it venture by making a list of everything about this house that needs fixing that I couldn’t stand anymore. Not a list of everything that needs fixing, because that would take a week or more to write out and I don’t have enough whiteboard space. But everything that I can’t stand anymore. Turns out, I still don’t have enough whiteboard space (on my grandkids’ Fisher Price easel that I’ve co-opted for my weekly action plans). So I jotted down the most egregious house issues in a spiral notebook; I filled 2 pages with more to go. I’ll share some of these later if I can stand to overcome my mental paralysis when I look at this list. I know the right advice is to just do something. Start somewhere. The journey of the thousand steps, etc. But I have to constantly fight the overwhelming feeling of being stuck and wanting to give up. It’s hard not to think that this house is a bigger problem than my personal capacity to solve.

Read more

1. Stick-built in the ’teens and still standing.

My fixer-upper life front of house imageThis is the story of my house. It needs fixing. Maybe it needs to be torn down. Maybe I should abandon it and build a tiny house. Maybe I should move into one of my travel trailers. Or into a new trailer. Maybe I should move into my 2-room + storeroom/no bathroom little house next door. Maybe I should go live full-time in my vintage 1962 trailer sitting in one of the last throwback trailer parks in the City of Los Angeles. Maybe I should move somewhere completely different. Maybe I should build a miniature golf course on the lots north of the little house next door and make some money. And a name for myself. So many options! So little money. So few hard DIY skills. Well, you heard it here. I’ve got to do something. This is my shout-out to the universe and anyone who’s reading this that the clock starts now!

This old, dilapidated, stick-built relic of a house that my two great grandfathers built sits bravely right off a two-lane state highway running through a remote area of Eastern Montana. It’s on the edge of what some would call “nowhere,” but there is a town here (population ~96). I’ve got roots here, and I own a whole block and then some.

Read more