Just Shoot Me

Basically, my house is in pretty good shape.  Really and truly.  But for some reason, this past year, when I could least afford it, I've had to throw big chunks of money at all sorts of things that had nothing to do with tile or a new kitchen floor or a new bathroom or anything fun and sexy and visible like that.

No.  First the water softener ruptured and after living with scary hard water for several months I admitted I needed a new one, and a water filter as well if the job were to be done properly.  Then the attic insulation went bad and the only feasible way to replace it was with spray foam.  At the same time, I found out I had all sorts of things wrong with my roof and flashing, and that had to be taken care of.  As it was being taken care of, I was informed that the wet place on my chimney breast is due to my having no liner in the flue for my hot water heater.  OK, I got a decent bid from some plumbing and heating guys to come put one in.  But up the ladders they go, and down they come-- they couldn't get the liner in, due to the bend in the chimney, they said.  Call a chimney sweep/technician, they recommend.

I've been calling chimney firms on and off the past month, but only two have actually come by to take a look at things.  And only one has actually gotten up on a ladder and looked down the chimney.  That was today, and just shoot me, it doesn't look good, it looks expensive, and it looks like the kind of thing that can't really be put off.

I want to get the water heater flue lined so I can get the chimney breast dried out and hang the wallpaper in the living room.  But the chimney repairman who was out this evening tells me the real problem is birds' or squirrels' nest material that's practically blocking the flue and sending not only condensation, but also carbon monoxide, back down into the house.  Worse carbon monoxide, since the HVAC guys knocked out the cement that used to seal the WH pipe into the wall of the flue in the basement in their futile attempt to install the liner last month.  I'd wondered why I seemed to get a whiff of gas down there, even when the furnace was off.  And maybe I should wonder why I've been feeling stupider than usual these days.

So it won't be enough just to shove an aluminum liner in there, I'm told.  The chimney must be cleared, then I really should get a stainless steel liner, because aluminum will pit and corrode out in three years or so.  If I was to be really, really pessimistic about my employment chances, I'd say who cares, I'll be selling the house before then anyway.  But what if I don't?  Then I've got the same problem again.

And, says the chimney tech, it won't be enough for me to run the liner in then slam the existing cap with the cute fins back on.  Those cute fins have way big gaps, 2" or so, that let all those birds and/or squirrels in, and nothing to stop them building their nests in the new liner.  So I would have to get new caps for my flues, and no, it wouldn't work just to stretch some wire mesh over the top of the flues under the existing cap.  That would just mean the birds would build their nests at the top and block it up there.

I know this is no hypothetical situation.  I dug around three 13-gallon trash bags worth of birds' nest material out of my eaves last October.  And their handiwork is in my WH flue right now.

Crap.  He's given me a ballpark estimate, and I thought if I ever would spend that much on the chimney, it'd be going well towards covering the cost of a pretty new gas fireplace insert.  He's willing to work out financial terms, but crap, crap, crappity crap, why does all this have to come up now?

Hey, Lord, don't You realize how broke I am?  Or maybe I should just let the house moulder and go to ruin, in the good old-fashioned style?

Meanwhile, I've cracked open a window in the basement.  And a CO detector is on my shopping list when I go to Home Depot after work tomorrow.

For a Moment, I Wavered

For awhile there this past weekend, I about gave up my DIY card on the 2nd floor hall sanding.

Very early this past Friday morning I was minutes away from heading to a substitute teaching engagement, when a call came in from the school's dispatching secretary.  Class was cancelled: some bright soul had crashed his car into the power pole carrying the transformer that fed both the junior and senior high schools.

I can cope with that, she said brightly to herself.  That gives me an entire day to make good progress on my hallway floor.  With my tamed belt sander.  Yeaa!!

Or maybe not.  Ever try sanding a floor with a liquidly runny nose?  There I am with my goggles getting fogged up because I keep the thermostat low and my dust mask catching snot every time I bend over to work.  I can't see, I can't breathe, and besides, it's gross.

And then here's the belt sander, with the belt getting off track.  Damn!

I got online and looked up how to fix that.  All the while, my cold is getting worse and my head more congested.  Okay, it says to find some screw on the side of the sander and adjust that while holding onto the switch.  Oh, gosh, that'll mean my big screw flathead driver, and I can't even fiiiiiiiinnnnndd it!!!!!  I doubt I can even find the blinking screw!!

I try using the orbital sander instead.  It does No. Good. At. All.  Crap-crap-crappity (sneeze-sneeze-sneeze!!)-CRAP!

I find a diagram of my sander.  Oh, good grief, it's not a screw, it's a knob!  Why the dickens do they want to call it a screw for?

I try adjusting said knob.  Maybe now my sandpaper will track and I can get something done.  Between drips, that is.

But no.  The belt slid over again and sent up sparks, and every time I bent over, my nose sent out snot.

I'LL NEVER GET THIS DONE!!!!!!

So I wavered.  I confess it, I did.  I got back online and looked up "Floor sanding Beaver County PA."  And found the website of an outfit not too far away that seemed to do good work and came with good references.  I measured the hallway (approximately 65 square feet) and  the treads (14 at 3'-0" x 10") and put in a call.

The refinisher guys weren't in, but hopefully they'd call me back on Monday.  If the bid would came in at $250 or less for the rough sanding (or all the sanding), they could have the job.  Screw my pride, I didn't give a single damn.  My health can't take this.

That evening, I went to bed early.

But hope springs eternal.  Saturday I dragged myself to a local hardware store that was having a one-day coupon sale, and among other things bought some 80-grit belts.  Maybe I could manage them better than the 60-grit I just got in the mail.  And when I got home, I tried retracking the 60-grit belt that was on it (too sick, tired, or lazy to change it) and got to work.  In the closet, where it wouldn't show.

Whoa!  Good thing I did!  It took the dirt off, but it definitely left treadmarks in the floor!  Blast it, it wasn't the sandpaper, it was the forward roller of the sander.

Back to the Internet.  Oh! you're supposed to turn the thing on while turning the tracking knob!

That was too much for me.  I went back to bed with a new box of tissues.  For the rest of the weekend.

Yesterday afternoon the floor refinishing people called back.  My little hallway would be their minimum $600.  $1,100, if they did the treads down to the 1st floor, too.  "Treads are very labor-intensive."  Yeah, tell me about it.

Six hundred dollars for that hallway?  Another $510 for the treads?  Uh, thanks but no thanks.  Looks like I'll have to stiffen the backbone and get on with it myself.  After I get over the cold.

And as earnest of that, this afternoon I took the Hitachi down the basement, clamped it in the vise, and did the tracking job properly.  It's still sending out sparks from the dust it's collected, so work will have to wait till I get a new can of compressed air.  Just as well-- that'll give my sinuses the chance to clear up, too.

But my DIY resolve is returning.  Funny how the prospect of a humongous professional bill can do that for you.

A Discreet DIY-Related B1tch-and-Moan

Something I didn't mention in my last post:

The other day, when I was using the mouse sander to groom the ratty nosings on the stair treads to the 3rd floor, I was doing my usual thing and taking pictures of the progress whenever I got a tread done.

Well, after I'd been working awhile I picked up my digital camera and was fiddling around with the controls, setting the focus to close-up, adjusting the light color temperature, that sort of thing.  And darned if my right hand wasn't shaking and I could hardly push the right buttons at all!

Weird, weird, weird.  I really hadn't been sanding that long, either.

I shook off the cramp or whatever it was and got back to work.  And comforted myself with the thought that it couldn't be the peripheral neuropathy that sometimes appears as a side effect to the chemo drugs I'm taking.  That would be a pins-and-needles sensation in the fingertips, and that's not what this sudden trembling seemed to be.  Besides, I got over it and things seemed fine.

But by the next day . . .  Well, I can't accurately describe the course of things; I'd rather keep detailed records of holes filled than of chemo side-effect symptoms experienced.  (Does that mean I'm a normal person-- or that I'm not sufficiently attentive to my care?  Whatever.)  It's just that while the shakiness has not recurred, by Friday my right fingertips were definitely tingly, sausagey-feeling, or occasionally painful, and as of yesterday the left ones seem to be joining in.

Damn and blast!  I am sooooooo talented!  I can't throw up like normal chemo patients do, I gotta get peripheral neuropathy.  Which damn well better not go any further and better not be permanent.

But here's the deal:  this evening at church a friend who's a nurse was making noises to the effect that running a sander can exacerbate the problem.  Now, the next thing on the DIY agenda is filling the holes in the stair treads.  But after that, the sander has got to be run.  Those steps have to be fine sanded before they can be refinished, and I'm the person who has to do it.  There is no money to hire a pro, even if I trusted anyone else to do the job I want.

And leaving the stairs and hall floor unfinished isn't an option, either.  In this economy nobody can afford to have a house torn up any longer than necessary, especially not me. 

I know the motto on my blog banner says "I'll make a silk purse out of this house if it kills me."  I don't plan on fulfilling that resolution, not really.  But under the circumstances, it really looks like I'm going to have to--  Well, let's just say I hope the new Bosch sander won't send up too much vibration when I'm taking down the wood filler.  In any case, I've got to try.

Down Day

Got up this morning, put on my work clothes, and was going to spend all day sanding steps.

But the mild weather tempted me outside to do something about the net-bound black raspberry canes.  Spent all morning detangling the net and cutting off the tops that'd grown through it; pulling up the suckers that had ranged out of bounds (including through the fence into the neighbors' yard), and lopping off the old growth.  Ended up with three paper leaf bags full of trimmings.  I'd glad I did it and I wish I'd done it a month ago, but after that I was scratched and exhausted.

And went upstairs and took a four hour nap.

And still felt draggy and tired after that.

So no sanding today.  Damn.  I guess this chemo business does have an effect on me after all.

Quick Update

I have been working on the house the past two-plus weeks; I just haven't been working in the house.

Nope, time and the growing season waits for no one, so it's been yard and garden, garden and yard, since the 19th of June.

Grinding up last fall's leaves to mulch the vegetable beds, mostly.  How long I could do that each day has depended upon three factors:  1) the relative wetness of the leaves to be chopped, 2) the battery life remaining in my lawn mower, and 3) the energy remaining in me.  Nos. 1 and 2 are the most determinative, since I'd be tempted to keep going until I dropped (though I know I shouldn't) if the mower would keep going and if there were enough dry leaves to do.

This process has really done a number on part of my back lawn.  Set the mower low enough the mulch the leaves, and there goes the grass.  What I really need is one of those leaf-grinding machines, but you know what they say about wishes and beggars.

There's been a lot more planting, too.  Local nursery had a good sale on flowers annual and perennial a week or so ago and I took advantage.  Put in some impatiens under the kerrias by the back gate, and it looks so nice, I wonder why I never did it before.

Got some pruning in, too, late last week.  My weeping cherry needed a haircut, badly, and I confess to taking my pruners to the shrubs of the neighbors to the west, here and there, to clean up where he'd done a crudely quick-and-dirty hack job on them about a month ago.  I mean, I'm the one who's gotta look at them, right?

Week ago Saturday, the neighbor across the street brought over his ladder and cleaned the maple seeds out of my back porch downspout.  We thought he'd got them all, till it rained hard that afternoon and the gutter was still overflowing.  I was watching the spout over the rain barrel, when whoosh!!!  the last of the clog cleared and that water exploded out of the spout and, completely missing the barrel, made a small temporary pond in my back yard.

It settled down and filled the barrel, and we got another good barrel-filler the 23rd.  Hope we get another soon.  That's the last it's rained worth a darn around here.

What else?  Once the leaves were gone from their spot in the west border, I moved the broken bricks I put there two years ago, then dug out the river rock and took up the landscape fabric.  Discovered a cool thing when I did:  the previous owners, when they put in the board fence, lined the foot of it with brick pavers.  Funny, it's only like this on the west side.  Looks like it keeps small creatures from burrowing underneath.  I laid another row of bricks over that, since the fence has shifted a bit.

That done, I was able to turn my compost pile.  Lots of nice dirt on the bottom, which I'll have to decide where to use.  Maybe I can fill the depressions in my front lawn.  Heaven knows that with this dry spell the grass in those areas might be dead already. 

Anyway, tonight, even though there were more leaves to mulch (raked out from the dark and mysterious side yard), I elected to come inside and strip old shellac off the stairs to the third floor.  Don't think I've tackled that since the 12th.  I knocked off about twenty till midnight, even though I only have two treads and risers and a certain amount of stringer left to do.  My sensible reason is that I have round two of chemotherapy in the morning and should get a good night's sleep beforehand.  My real reason for stopping is that my hair is falling out, and although I got it cropped short a week ago, it got really annoying with the hairs sticking to the sweat on my back and shoulders.  If I didn't have more heat gun work to do, I probably would have pushed through.  But I'm not feeling that dedicated.

So I'll try to add a picture or two to this post, then it's off to the shower.

Blog Life Meets Real Life

One of the neatest things about publishing a weblog is getting to know people whose blogs you read and who read yours. Generally that acquaintance is sustained in cyberspace and that can be good in its way. But sometimes you get the chance to meet face to face, and that's best of all.

That happened for me this evening, when I was visited by Elaine and Dylan of Bless This DIY Mess and The Old House Web. They're fellow Pittsburgh area housebloggers (actually, they're Pittsburgh housebloggers; I'm the one who lives into the "area"), but we'd never met till now. This was one of those occasions when good things come out of not-so-good events like major surgery, for when Elaine found out I was going to be activity-restricted post-op, she promised to bring me her killer Mediterranean tuna noodle casserole. And tonight was the night!

I admit that she and Dylan might have gotten back to Pittsburgh earlier were my recovery not going so well . . . I had the energy, and a totally opportunistic lack of shame, to give them the ten-dollar tour of my own DIY mess. But it was irresistible to talk to a couple who know just what you're dealing with in renovating your house. Woodwork stripping techniques, the struggle to get the right color of stain when refinishing, second thoughts and redos of paint colors, dealing with uneven walls and floors, and all the other joys of working on an older house.

And really, guys, now that you've seen the Sow's Ear, I want to return the favour. Whenever it suits us all I'll make the drive down and feast my eyes on that gorgeous stripped and soon-to-be-reshellacked staircase of yours, the exciting glowing tin ceiling above it, and all the rest of your hard work.

Tonight, though, it was fun to have my transplanted black and white soapstone Victorian mantelpiece admired (as if I were the one who'd put it in, oh yeah!) and delightful to have my little town of Beaver appreciated. True, the neighborhood showed to special advantage this evening, with the neighborhood kids making a playground of half the lawns on the block as they ran around in the brilliant warm weather.

Elaine's cooking showed to advantage, too, when I dug into the reheated casserole after she and Dylan took off home. Tuna and noodles and red sweet peppers and antichokes, yum! My dog enjoyed it, too . . . the outer corner of it, as we were outside saying goodbye-- oops! And it was hard to keep the cats out of my plate: they know good as well.

So thanks, yinz guys. I had two big helpings with a bottle of Hornsby's hard cider. And in appreciation of your appreciation of my town and neighborhood, I took the rest of the bottle over and joined the next-door neighbors at the neighbors' on the corner. Sitting on their porch talking, we hung out and watched the kids play, till the full moon had risen high over the bluffs of the Ohio, the light of day was gone, and it was time to go in.

And to happily contemplate future meals of tuna casserole and how I hope my place will look next time fellow housebloggers come by.

Impatient

I'm getting better post-op, I really am. I've been feeling well enough that, once equipped with a stool to sit on and a collapsible stand to set my music folder on, I've been able to sing in all five of the spring concerts given by the community choir I'm in.

But I'm still not allowed to do really useful things around the house. Like run the vacuum. Or sand the floor. Or use the lawnmower. I have nice people who will, from time to time, come round and do 1) and 3) for me. But I hate having to wait for that. It frustrates me to see the lawn go a week past the time it needs to be cut. It distresses me even more when I come home, as I did last evening, and find my yard has been scalped. Oh, I hope we're not headed for a hot spell, or those patches of grass are gone.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised if my neighbor hasn't quite got the hang of adjusting the level of my lawnmower. Or that she doesn't understand that grass as high as mine should be cut at maximum height all over. At least she took the initiative and got it done, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I need to be grateful. And I am. Really.

But I can hardly wait for my six-week check-up a week from this coming Wednesday. That's when I can get cleared for regular activity. After that, I can get out there and do all this myself.

Worth the Effort

Considering that my stoopy tumor turned out to be a Stage 1C, Grade 1 ovarian cancer, and considering that it was 1c instead of 1A only because it ruptured during surgery, there certainly is a little voice in me that questions whether it would have made a difference had I been able to get it all out on March 25th as originally planned.

But accepting that the bad cold I got prevented that, I have to be glad for the four additional weeks I had to do things and get ready before I went in.

Like getting my hollies planted. I am so grateful that I made the effort to get those rocks out and get that job done.

Here's some pictures taken today:

See that? That's berries. Meaning that the clerk at Lowe's was right: It was okay for me to plant two female Blue Angel hollies on my property, provided there was some kind of male holly bush within a block. I don't know the paternity of these green offspring, but there they are!

The second bush that didn't come through the winter as well is nowhere close to catching up to its sister, but it sports new growth and berries, too.

In other garden news, all the roses have buds on them and in a week or two I should have blooms.

The white lilac I transplanted two autumns ago is very happy in its new position on the east side of the house and promises to present an abundant display of blossom pretty soon.

The year-and-a-half-old blackberry bush is running riot in the east back garden border. It looks like I should have berries (yum!)-- if the birds don't get to them first.

The kerrias are the best they've been so far, and the bearded irises and the clematis lift up their heads for joy.

It's really chilly here in southwestern Pennsylvania today, in the 40s and 50s, and they say it'll get below freezing tonight. I heard on a radio garden show this morning that my perennials should weather that just fine; it's annuals, only, one needs to cover. Makes me wonder if I should put sheets over my leaf lettuce and snow peas. But both of those like being planted before the last frost, so unless I'm feeling really energetic after evening service, I'll let them take their chances, too.

Et Voila!

No, I didn't have my surgery this past Thursday. More on that later.

But a week ago Friday, the 19th, Joe Venn the plasterer did make his fourth and final visit to finish up the work on my 3rd floor Study ceiling. Things have been a little . . . distracted . . . around here, so it was only this afternoon that I got around to taking any After pictures.

Today's task was to sand the finish coat he applied on Wednesday, and touch the surfaces up with spackle wherever that might be needed. He nearly wasn't able to accomplish that, because I had to be out this morning and totally forgot to carry out the arrangements I'd made to let him in. Thank goodness he had some time after lunch to come back, since his bookings this past week would have prevented him from working on my job for who knows how long.

Anyway, here it is nine days later and I think it's pretty amazing to have a nice, smooth surface after months of staring at lath and broken keys. And damn! am I glad I didn't give in to the suggestions that I patch in a piece of drywall and skim coat it over. Would have been asking for trouble, since there's no way the materials would have worked well together over time. I'd forever be reminded of where the patched places were.

Not that there won't be any stress cracks in the new plaster. Joe said that would be normal, as it cures. Any that appear, I can skim on a little joint compound and sand it down, before painting.

One thing he was very emphatic about, is that I should prime the new plaster at any cracks, before I apply the compound. I told him that made sense to me. Otherwise, the bare plaster will leach all the water out of the patching material and hey, presto! there's your crack again. If it's primed with BINS or Zinsser or something like that, you won't have that problem. Yeah, he said, but I'd be surprised at how many clients of his don't believe that and think they can leave out that step.

I was very gratified to have him tell me I need to wait at least a month for the new plaster to cure before I can even think of painting it. Oh, good, that means I don't have to feel guilty for being physically incapable of doing that while I'm recuperating. I can look at the filled-in places and say, "That plaster is curing. It's Not Time to paint it yet."

It's definitely been curing the past week or two. A sharp, fizzy smell, that gets up your nose. Nice, that the weather hasn't been too chilly, and I could keep the Study windows open.

I think Joe did a good job. Maybe I could have done as well . . . if I practiced for five or ten years. The money was well-spent. So if anyone in the area northwest of Pittsburgh needs a plasterer, leave me a comment and I can put you in touch. Or just look up "Venn Plastering" in the Yellow Pages.

But . . . as I intimated above, my surgery was postponed. Because in all the errand-running and cleaning and preaching and concert-singing and staying up way too late I engaged in the end of last week and the beginning of the week just past, I managed to pick up the local cold. And a runny, drippy, sodden, snowplow-run-over-your-body-achy cold it proved to be, too. I called the surgeon's office last Wednesday morning to get their advice and the nurse said No, they weren't operating on me like that. The stupid tumor's got to come out, but it isn't that urgent.

And the reason it slipped my mind to make sure Joe the Plasterer could get in the morning of the 19th? Oh, that was a little matter of a followup ultrasound I had to go get because the CT scan from the previous Monday had revealed a suspicious "indeterminate lesion" on my liver. Thank God, thank God, the sonogram showed it to be a benign cyst.

But you can see why "distracted" has been the operative term!

Awkward News

This isn't the sort of thing I'd usually mention on my houseblog, but considering that in the near future I might be posting even less often than I have been lately, I suppose I should say something about it.

"It" has to do with some physical symptoms I took to my doctor this past week. Had an imaging test yesterday, the doctor took a look at the results, and unless some strange and extraordinary and happy anomaly is taking place, I have cancer.

And not a particularly curable cancer, either.

Driving home, I got to thinking about the house and the state it's in. I'd really, really like to get it done, at least the wood trim and wallpaper projects I've had going the past, oh, seven years . . .

Weird, huh? A person's facing major surgery and chemotherapy, which maybe it won't be any use in the end, and she's worrying about the renovations to her house???

Well, yeah. Though I suppose I don't have to explain the impulse to any diehard houseblogger.

Why do I care? For any number of reasons, in no particular order all jumbled in together.

Because if I do peg out in the foreseeable future I'd like to think I'd left something finished and beautiful behind. Because if I recover, I'd like an orderly environment to recuperate in. Because until I pay off my mortgage, I'm only the steward of this house, and it would be irresponsible to leave it torn limb from limb. Because working on the house will keep me from moping about my prognosis.

Yeah, I know there's no way I can get the trim refinished and back up before my surgery. At least, I hope there wouldn't be time for that. This isn't Canada or Great Britain-- yet. I want this damn growth out-- ASAP. But I do want to stop wasting time and get done what I can before I go in.

Of course, there's a lot of stoopy pleh business things I'll have to take care of when I would rather be shellacking trim or whatever. So I think I'll try to come up with the funds to have the plasterer do the repairs in my Study ceiling. I really wanted to do it myself. This past week I found a local store that can sell me all the plastering supplies I need, and I had it on my calendar to go buy them today. But no. As much as I'd like to point to that ceiling repair and say, "Look at that! I plastered that! It's real keen!" that's not where my energies should go. White-painted plaster is white-painted plaster. Anybody (well, any plasterer) can do that. But I doubt I can get anyone to shellack my trim the way I want it done.

And God willing, I'll be spared to do that.