This Week 3 has been particularly hard for the Man and the Lady. It's frankly been a huge nightmare. We found out some daunting news about our newly bought house, which has made us think twice about this house. Too late now, we're in it 100%....
We have been working everyday after work (our day jobs) at the house, scraping the ceiling and taping off the rooms with plastic sheets. Mentally, it's an exhausting job. I know the Man and I are both pretty burnt out. We get home to our current apartment, which is nice and clean and construction-free, and it's so comforting to be there. We hardly sleep because we have to work afterhours on our house till late at night, it's just like being in college finishing projects, except it's our house.
Nightmare might not be a strong enough word for this week......it's surely been like hell. As I anticipated, once you start opening up the house, it's like opening pandora's box. It's bound to release bad things. We found out that the foundation of our house is basically useless. Our home inspector at the time of the sale told us that the brick was bolted down to the foundation. This past weekend, we had two foundation specialist and structural engineer come out to inspect and evaluate our house. Turns out, the work the previous owner had done to the foundation was basically crap. If anything, they said, it "weakened" the structural support of the house. Basically, we need a new foundation by means of a "sister" foundation.....which short story short, is going to cost anywhere from $30-$40K.....ouch. That's a big slap in the face.
On top of that horrific news (which the Man was very upset about), there's the asbestos we have to get rid of in the house and COMPLETE renovation of the upstair master bathroom and downstairs kitchen/laundry/powder room. Don't get me started on that!!! Okay, Lady has to vent a little about that......sooooooo, I am an interior designer/architect and being in the trade, I know of certain construction details and home renovations. I'm in the business, of course I would know a thing or two. Right? Right. My very first mentor, who taught me pretty much everything about this business, whom I respect and to this day keep in touch with told me long long ago, that General Contractors are like aliens. You'll never quite get their rational and neither will they. They are just from a different planet and don't think like you.....or so interior designers say.
To close off Week 3, we found a leak in the drain pipe for the upstairs bathroom. Another wonderful surprise that comes with an old house. Yay us! NOT!
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| (The Man on a ladder looking at the leak from upstairs) |
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(A hole in the drywall ceiling the Man created to get to the source of the leak.
Fantastico! We have a hole in our ceiling!) |
When will this end....,
The Lady
