I love to share the "pretty" stories...the ones that involve decorating rooms, thrift store/yard sale finds, baking, beaches, and all sorts of things that put the "chic" in "shore house chic." Some things aren't as eye-candyriffic, but fabulous nonetheless.
The man of the shore house ripped out our basement stairs and put in new ones. I had no idea I had such a handy man! It took him a couple of weekends. Looking back, he said he'd gladly pay someone else to do the honors.
He redid the stairs in preparation for a little mold remediation project (at the end of last summer, our lawn chairs grew moldy *fur* in the basement. For. Real.). Once the stairs were in, we in fact did pay someone else to come in and scrape the mold out of the basement (worth every dime) and to paint with a waterproofing base and two coats of oil-based paint.
Two days after he finished, we got water in our basement for the first time since moving in. Ahhh...the joys of home ownership.
We're attributing the leak to the fact that it RAINS ALL THE TIME. It's raining now, in fact. On my day off. Some "holiday." Hrmph.
We also embarked on a scary home improvement journey...the installation of central air in a hundred year-old home with no duct work. I'm trying to keep my eye on the prize, but when I come home to things like this:
And I can see clear through to the room above...
...I get a little tweaked.
We're trying to maintain the historic integrity of the home as much as humanly possible, but it's hot as a pistol in here in the summer and having a huge window unit in each room last summer prevented us from opening windows on nice days. When we bought the house we figured the cost of the HVAC installation into our offer price, plus the great state of New Jersey is offering rebates and incentives for updating the energy efficiency of your home. So we figured may as well knock out the project now and enjoy it.
I'm not enjoying the clean up, though. But at least it's raining out, so I'm not missing much. (Plus, truth told, I'm procrastinating by writing this blog post.)
Hope everyone stateside has nice plans for the holiday weekend. I'll be marching in the local parade tomorrow in a kazoo band. And no; that's not a typo.
10 comments:
I am so jealous! I want central air!
Gotta have the central air....but wait until you get your first electric bill....ceiling fans along with the air sure helps...and maybe Jersey's utilties aren't as bad as us down here in Georgia....Have a great
4th....And what did you think of Mrs. Dangerfield commenting on the blog...pretty cool yes?
completely understand the central air..but wait for the utilities bill you'll find yourself saying it's not THAT hot! Is it???? Congrats on the AC. We've got it and there are days I'm soooo thankful but then that little bill comes...and ruins it! Oh well.
Wow! Okay, first I *love* the new stairs! Talk about handy! I think your Mister has earned major kudos for that project! And second: central air! I envy you so. Don't listen to what other people may say about the utility bills (see Mom's post above) the window units are *LAME* they're loud, loud, loud and aren't really that much more cost effective than the real thing. I would love to put central air in my house, but with the whole "stone wall" thing it would not be easy and it way out of out budget! Keep us posted on how this project goes!!
Finally: Kazoo band, huh? You must post photos after the fact. Happy fourth!
I sincerely hope that you are running around in the sand today in your bikini! It is gorgeous out! What do they say about things getting ugly before they can be beautiful? You are going to love the central air..it will be worth it. Happy Independence Day my friend.
♥, Susan
Erick put in new stairs too...and our basement just got wet, smack dab where all of our belongings were stored! Great, huh? ;-)
All that work will be worth it in the end...
Fresh air is good, but the ac is my kind of air in the hot sticky humid days of the summer. Congrats on the AC!! xoxo
YIKES!!! Do you have a de-humidifier in the basement? Best money we ever spent for our house! It helps a bit with the mold if I do say...
I wish I could get central air Conditioning in my house! We have radiators so we have to use window air conditioner :-(
I have a dehumidifier in my basement and it takes GALLONS of moisture out of the air! Maybe you should get one too?
It will all be worth it in the end Laura --hang in there!
This is really frustrating to have these dirt and molds eating your homes slowly. You badly need mold removal procedures to totally get rid of it. Aside from being clean, health considerations are also an issue since this could affect any of the family members.
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