Fixing a House, Making a Home

One good thing about waking up on your jobsite is there's no commute.

The downside is dwelling in a dusty, drafty, deficient domicile.

The biggest pain right now is lack of kitchen sink (we have almost everything but). Sarah rigged up a provisional kitchen in the living room with countertop, cutting board, coffee maker, and cabinet full of utensils, and the fridge is located conveniently only two rooms away, but cooking becomes less appealing when there's no simple way to do the dishes. Rigging up a temporary sanitation station outside is first on tomorrow's list while tonight's dinner residue soaks overnight in a metal washtub.

It's also pretty cold, with today's weather in that bonechilling low 30's zone (1 degree Celsius) where the moist air really gets up in there. This house was built in 1960 and the aluminum windows appear to be original. Some have been switched out for mid grade vinyl (not great but an improvement) but most are single pane metal frames that leak air even when latched and drip on the inside with condensation, which causes mildew to bloom on the one window shade in the whole place, right above our bed. The large front vinyl windows haven't been sealed or trimmed, so Sarah covered them with translucent plastic to reduce the drafts, and I cordoned off the kitchen from the rest of the house with black 6 mil plastic. All of that helped get the temp inside up to 64F but the cost of that comfort is abiding by a meth lab chic.

It's doubly cold because the house sits above an uninsulated, bare dirt crawlspace. There's no baseboard or door and window trim anywhere, which really brings home how much those little unfinished gaps waste heat. And, peeking in the attic like we were in a horror movie, it's apparent there used to be rolled fiberglass between the rafters, but that's been removed and replaced with a half-hearted attempt at blown-in insulation which sits in dejected pink piles like cotton candy lining a trash can.

Which brings me to the roof, which inadvertently became the focus of today's efforts. I say inadvertently because my only firm plan was to install a cat branch above the catctus scratching post, and we did make progress towards that end by finding a downed birch tree at the back of the property where the water is still ankle deep and more keeps trickling in. (We think there might be a seasonal spring back there, which would be the height of luxury since water is, if not everything, at least the primary thing.)

You've heard, "It's not the heat--it's the humidity." The same holds for cold and it was 100% humid today, Hood Canal all but obscured and fog shrouding the wooded hills around us. But at least it wasn't raining! So up on the roof I went for a second stab at fixing the small leak above the kitchen. I think I found it last week--a telltale tear in asphalt shingle in just about the spot--but first pass with Flex Seal (don't believe the hype) didn't fully take. But I have to admit that in desperation at the time I had glopped it on despite forebodings of rain, which by and by came. RTFM only helps if you actually follow the instructions, but sometimes you have to push your luck--even if it's wishful thinking.

Last week, I tried to dry the shingles with hair dryer (bought same day at a thrift store for $3), and I think it marginally helped but today I had a heat gun, the searing kind that made the roof moss sizzle when I set it down, metal nozzle still scorching hot even turned off. Flex Seal roof leak stopper has the color of silicone and the consistency of rubber cement and I gooped it on like Pollock. Will it work? Tune back in.

While I was up there, I started noticing other problems, and I suspect this is going to be the pattern. Maybe I should open a bait shop because there's going to be so many cans of worms, each task leading to two more tasks, a fractalizing punchlist. For example, getting up on the roof via deck stairs, I climbed over the loose railing and decided to firm it up before it got to the point of slapstick with it breaking under me. The top rail was separating, mitered corner split by the nail all the way down its 45 degree angle end, so I dried it out with heat gun intending to glue and clamp it back together but it was rotted beyond repair. I removed it instead and reinforced the corner by putting a 5.25" screw through the 4x4 post into the top cross member and now I can hop the railing with confidence-- except for the slimy fascia my toes barely cling to on the roof side.

Anyway, that digression only took a minute--not counting the time it took to make extra trips for tools and fasteners, as well pausing to breathe in the view or pet the cats, in which case it took more like 10 or 15. Each day is made up of only so many minutes and I find they trickle away in haste unless I consciously decelerate and let my mind empty, if only a moment. Like flushing a toilet.

Sarah rolled out the second hand spherical composter I bought in Sequim (skwim) a few weeks ago, a rare purchase in our parsimonious quest, and noted the firewood in the breezeway was getting wet. I knew what the problem was but had been living in denial to the point of genuine amnesia. Problem was part of a bigger problem's problem--the corrugated plastic breezeway roof extended too far over the rain gutter and butted into the pitched asphalt shingle roof of the house. This not only caused debris to pile up at that juncture, but also made it impossible to access the raingutters, so they were completely clogged. Instead of draining to downspouts, rain overflowed onto the firewood racked below.

This morning, all I wanted to do was install a cat branch in the living room, but here I was with daylight rapidly waning, cutting plastic with an angle grinder, up to my wrists in ice cold muck, barehanded because what's the point of gloves when they're only going to get soaked anyway, prodding clods of rotted leaves and granular asphalt detritus with a broomstick in hard to reach spots.

 

"You know," I thought, "you should do something about that moss."

I grabbed my big demolition grade stiff-bristled broom and bright yellow oversized butler and gently, oh so gently, dislodged the larger bouquets of pillowy green bryophytes, feeling a little bad about it but giving them a second chance by tossing them over the side to the nurturing earth below. Sink or swim, babies! I was slightly reluctant to remove them because folklore rumors it's better not to remove entrenched moss, but I figured there's no way it could be good having your roof festooned with scores of saturated sponges. Thus, gently, oh so gently, I swept upwards of 50 pounds of vegetable matter into the scoop and off of the roof. I had many more trips to the plate in me but the game was called on account of dark. Afterwards, I got confirmation from everybody's buddy, Bob Vila, that it is indeed best to evict moss. But instead of his suggestion of bleach, we'll use vinegar, diluted one part in two parts water.

In between the larger tasks, we continued unpacking, moving furniture, and tidying, because fixing the house is one thing, making it a home is another. 

Patchouli and Sunny can't get enough of the blue ladder, a perfect parapet for a pair o' pets.