We Are Not Alone In This House!

I thought for sure I had conquered any fears of our new house the second night I had ever slept in it. We barely had any furniture inside, we were sleeping on an air mattress, and Hubby was at his mom's getting a trailer loaded up with a bunch of his stuff to bring it to the house. I had stayed behind so I could have my parents come early and start working on some fix up stuff.

So I was alone. Except for Gus. I am so very thankful Gus was with me. Although, he did add to my fear of sleeping alone in a creepy empty, old house. He was comforting because he was with me, but at the same time, he is active at night. And he was sleeping in the office, which butts up against the family room where I was sleeping. There are no doors either so I could hear each time he knocked something over, hopped on something, or took off running (he does that sometimes). And I probably woke up every fifteen minutes between him and our space heater kicking on and off. It was a rough night, and I slept with a hammer beside my bed. I even put in some Disney movies while I went to sleep to keep my mind off the shadows and what might be in them. I'm a tad dramatic, but the dark scares me and being alone in a house/apartment scares me, lol.

Anywho, I made it through. And ever since then I haven't been afraid to stay here alone... well, except for going upstairs. That part is still empty and there's a blanket covering up the entrance, so it's still a little creepy when I'm here alone. It's also 20 degrees colder up there so it feels like an old abandoned house still.

I'm getting off topic. The point was to talk about my recent scare. And now I am back to nightlights and checking corners before entering a dark room.

We had an invader. I was the one who found him. He scared the pants off of me. I never saw it coming!

I went into the bathroom to blow my nose, didn't turn on the light because it was a quick trip and the kitchen light lit it enough for me to see what I was doing. Well, I get to the tissue and a little dark "something" takes off running between my feet and the wall, which is about a 1 foot gap at that point. It then slides into the wall, changes direction, and races under the sink.

I did what any rational adult would do. I jumped into the tub and started yelling for Hubby, lol. He deciphered my high pitched mumbo jumbo and realized the little guy was trapped under the sink still. The little guy was a cute little mouse.

I am not normally afraid of mice, but he was SO FAST and I was definitely not expecting something to come running at me in the dark. So I recovered and went to get a box. It was a little big for the job, but we did managed to get him into it. We were too slow though, so he ran right back out and ran under the door, into the bedroom, never to be seen again... that night.

We gave up looking because Hubby was irritated. Why was he irritated? Because when little mouse decided to run back out of the box, he ran between me and the wall again and I screamed. Directly into Hubby's ear. Oops. He doesn't like to be scared. Makes him grumpy, lol.

So he talked me into getting some traps and we went to bed. The next night we were watching a movie and little mouse shows up again. In our family room/bedroom. We got him trapped again, but again he managed to escape. He also managed to find our traps. And in a very 007 manner licked the peanut butter right off without a single snap.

At this point Hubs decided it was unacceptable to be beaten by a mouse. I swear I could watch his testosterone levels puff up as he plotted and planned the poor mouse's funeral. I don't understand why guys get into that so much. He figured out that if you use tootsie rolls, they have to actually dig in to get it, and that leads to triggering the device. Poor mouse.

So that's what he did. And it only took a day before little mouse joined the other mice in mousy heaven. I hate to see animals die or be hurt, but Hubby swore it was going to be quick and he'd never know what was going on. I also made him promise that I wouldn't have to see the poor thing.

So Hubby now feels accomplished because he achieved his goal and our house is no longer threatened by little mouse man. So far it seems like he was a loaner. Hubby left the traps out and we haven't had any more snaps. So either the other ones are eating something else or maybe we're lucky and we only had one? Who knows.

Anyone ever had a mouse scare? Or a scare of a different color? Are there any safe ways to remove them? I've heard of live traps, but everyone says you basically destroy the thing trying to get it out and it's more suffering for the creature. Hopefully that's the last of the invaders. I'll be sure to update you if I catch a glimpse of any more whiskers or tails!

 

Since I have no mouse pictures, I'll share one of my favorite white Rabbit, Gus! : ) 

My Failed Project

Ok, I was really excited to do something on my own, but I am not very experienced in DIY stuff just yet, so I wanted to start simple. I thought, "What could be easier than putting on a new shower head?" Right? Wrong!

Well, this shower head was a gift to us for our wedding. The attachment was plastic, not metal, FYI. I will just say that from the beginning. So I took off our old shower head, which looks like it has been here for 100 years. Easy.

Then I read the instructions and get to the part where I am supposed to tighten the new shower head attachment onto the existing pipe. Well, I got a little Hulked-out I guess because I tightened it too much and cracked the plastic. So when I turned on the water, there were little streams shooting out the side. No bueno.

So I showed Hubby, in hopes that he could fix my oops. But no, we just have to get another part or maybe just another shower head. It was a nice shower head, but now it is back to sitting in its box until we figure out what we want to do with it.

I don't have any pictures either because I got frustrated and deleted them. I wasn't going to share this story, but decided to just own it and admit what happened. It wouldn't be very REAL of me to hide it, lol. I am sure I'm not the only one who has failed on a DIY project! Anyone? Ok, maybe it is just me then! ; )

Anywho, I'm over it. I'm ready to move on. We will just live with the old shower head until we get around to replacing the part or buying a totally new one. Either way, I will show you, with pictures, the next time I attempt that. I thought about letting Hubby tackle it for me, but I am now determined more than ever to take charge of the tub and show it who is boss! lol.

Ok, I'm done. But I did go back and take pictures of the old shower head, the new one, and the broken part with my phone to give you some visuals. So never mind that comment about no photos! : )

 

Our old shower head. There's a knob on the side, but I haven't really played with it to see if it does anything. 

 The new part ... the one that I broke. You can't see it very well, but it's definitely cracked.

 

And the new shower head that we were hoping to install. Nothing fancy, but an improvement from the old one, for sure. 

Crawl Space Dilemma

I mentioned before that we are getting a forced-air heating system put into our new house. And they have to put it in the ceiling because of issues with our crawl space. That issue would be that the crawl space is practically non-existent.

When we were buying the house, we had to go through a whole bunch of inspections. One of those inspections included the crawl space. That's when we found out that there is a reasonable amount of room to crawl around under our kitchen and bathroom (the addition built on to the 1900's-built house). But then there is a stone wall separating the kitchen/bathroom and the rest of the house... and we couldn't find an opening to get under the rest of the house. So we had the owner cut one. And then it still doesn't go all the way around the bottom. But that part of the house has like 1 - 1.5 feet clearance. That means that it would be impossible to do duct work and still be able to move around down there (if they could even get in to begin with).

So our only option to get a new heating system, since ours is not-so-great, is to put it in the drop ceiling. It's really not a bad option, but means we have to lower three rooms to make sure there is enough clearance for the system.

Another issue with our crawl space is that there are no vents. We've learned that in 1900, they weren't all that concerned with ventilation, standing water, mold, etc. Luckily we do not have standing water and so far no mold, but the ground does feel damp after it rains (does not help that we don't have gutters yet). So we're going to hopefully find a way to put in some kind of vent so we can open them in the spring and close in the winter. We'll have to see what our options are.

We were going to have an appointment with someone who does crawl spaces for a living, but he basically called and said he couldn't come give us a quote because as narrow as our space is, he can't do anything.

So we still haven't completely figured out what we are going to do, but we do know that we need to put gutters on ASAP! Even with winter coming and the rain being less frequent, it is still high on our priority list.

So that's the situation with the crawl space. We are finding out more and more that being home owners of a 100+ year old house means that you are likely to start hemorrhaging money and each project is 2-3x harder, more expensive, and takes longer than you thought. But I know that we are going to love it once we get some of the big things done. I'll talk about more on our Dream List! later.

Hope you all are having a good day!

Under The Weather

Monday night I went to bed feeling cold, achy, and exhausted. I had a massive headache and just felt like blah! On Tuesday, I felt much better, still a slight headache and a little bit of a runny nose, but not too bad. I guess I probably should have listened to my body a little better, but instead of resting I decided to bring the treadmill and exercise bike into the house. By myself.

I managed to roll the treadmill from the garage to the house and then realized I had to turn it side ways to get it through the door. But the part that you walk on had to be held in so it didn't catch on the door frame. So I really needed another person to help me, but if nothing else I am stubborn, so I decided I could do it myself. I managed not to break anything and I got it in the door. Then realized I couldn't put it where I wanted because it was too wide. So I decided to put it in our living room/bedroom. Then it was too long. So I decided to move the bed. After moving the bed I realized that it still wouldn't fit. So I moved the bed back and decided to move everything else in the room instead.

By the end, I had moved half of the things in the living room/bedroom upstairs, moved the bed twice for no reason, and finally found a home for the treadmill, only to realize that the cord was an inch too short to fit in the plug. Arg!

So I moved some more things around and now I can't see out the window, but at least it is in, it's settled, and it plugs in!!

I considered that my workout for yesterday and I felt like crud after I got all the way done with all of that, so I took a shower and that helped and then made dinner and that helped more. But I was still feeling bad by the time bedtime came around and this morning I am paying for my stubbornness. I have a headache again, I feel cruddy, my throat hurts, I keep sneezing, and I currently have tissues shoved in my nostrils because my nose is too sore to wipe it anymore. So I'm staying in bed to work today.

I do have to get up after work and take down some ceiling tiles though. We need to have them down before the furnace guy comes. I'm really hoping it won't be a long job and I can get back in bed and take a nap.

And speaking of being under the weather, the weather today stinks. I think it feels as bad as I do. Grey (or gray, don't know the difference) and cold and supposed to rain. Yuck! So this post is all for me to complain, lol. I don't get sick all that often anymore, thanks to my hypothyroid pills, but when I do I can be quite a big baby about it, lol.

Hope you all are having a better day than I am! Hopefully I am feeling better by this weekend and hopefully Hubby doesn't get sick. We have to go to a wedding and he is one of the groom's men, so hopefully he avoids it and I get over it quickly!

And since every post deserves a picture, here is one of Hubby and I for Halloween this year. They were costumes we reused, but still fun times. I am Mrs. Potato Head (I made it myself) and he is a pirate (goods from Good Will).

Feel The HEAT!

We are still waiting for the furnace guy. He has our furnace ordered, but is waiting to finish up a job before he can get to us. He said he would give us a day or two notice when he is ready. We are hoping it will be this week. Fingers crossed!

So the plan for heat is to get rid of our current system, which is more of a joke, really. It is a large, very large, and very ugly, propane space heater. We had our current propane company come look at it and he said it's probably about 65% efficient, which isn't great. Plus, it's loud and it takes up a TON of space. The guy who installed it also put it too close to the wall, so it's dried out the horrible paneling and so now that is cracking and peeling away from the wall. 

 

We had several different companies come and give us a quote to put in a new forced air system. It's funny because they all said something completely different about where the furnace should go and how the duct work should be placed. One wanted to put the furnace in our bedroom, one wanted to put it in our entryway, and one wanted to put it in our utility closet. We ended up choosing the one who recommended putting it in the utility closet, but also because his price was more affordable and we felt like he was more genuine than the others. I'm soft spoken so he has a hard time hearing me, but he's been in the business for 40 years and hopefully he will get the job done right! 

We just have to wait for him. But while we are waiting, we are keeping busy. He said we could go ahead and put up drywall in the bedroom, so we are 2/3 to 3/4 done with that. We've had issues there, which I'll discuss in another post, but we are making progress. Also, we have drop ceilings in every room downstairs except our bedroom, but we are planning on putting one in there too. Since our ceilings are only lowered about 5 inches in the dining room, family room, and office, we are going to have to lower those three rooms to make sure he has the 9 - 11 inches that he needs for the duct work. So we'll be getting to that soon. I am really hoping we can do it and keep the different rooms organized and not end up with a huge puzzle to piece back together when we're all done. We'll be taking some of it down and then putting it back up once he's done, that way we don't have to lower it any more than necessary. 

Typically, it's nice to have forced air go through your crawl space, but I will explain THAT mess in another post too. 

But there's the skinny on our heat... or lack of. We've been supplementing with a little propane heater on wheels that my parents got us for our anniversary. It is amazing!! Especially on those really cold, windy days when I just can't get warm! I am so looking forward to consistent heat though!! Hopefully he will get to us soon! Until then we are keeping the entire upstairs blocked off and the bedroom blocked off (we're sleeping in the family room currently until the bedroom is done). So no heat going to those rooms means our jumbo space heater doesn't have to work quite as hard. 

Gus doesn't mind. Lucky duck has a nice coat to wear to keep warm! All he needs to be happy is food and some cardboard to chew on! : )