shed, garage, neighbors and lead paint

All week Grant has been busting his ass.

I have a shed in the backyard and I've always hated its baby blue trim. It was like that when I got here. For four years I've been staring at it and saying, "I really hate that blue" - it was my ritual.

I have a deep large cement porch in the front of the house.

On the side of my house under the canopy section of the driveway is where buggies use to pull up and pick people up from a platform. This way, since the platform was an even height with the buggy floor, people could just step right into them. The door to the platform is one of two in my living room.

There are eight doors that lead into the main part of this house; including a second floor entry.

My house is 99 years old.
It will be 100 years old later this year.

The platform has since had a brick wall covered in stucco added to it. The steps are concrete as well.

I'm a fan of concrete.
It's solid and dependable.

The concrete of the front steps, front porch and the side steps are a deep garnet red. A lot like the color of semi-dried blood and I love it.

You can see how the ugly baby blue trim on the shed in the backyard just mocks the ruby redness of the concrete on the rest of the house and violates every sense I own.

Hence my, "I really hate that blue" sentiment.

Grant and my daughter were out there scraping the shed at the beginning of the week and two days later - a newly painted white shed with dark red trim that matches perfectly was in play.

It looks great.
They did a wonderful job.

There are two features of my house that are, what I consider, an eyesore. The masonry around the bottom of the house where the stucco is cracking away from the brick - and the garage.

The garage was added twenty years after the house was built, so it's only a mere 80 years old to the 100 year old home.

Grant has been out there for the last three days blasting the hell out of it with a pressure washer. Come to find out, it use to be painted dark red and then before that a deep forest green, which I also really like.

There are 80 years worth of paint chips all over my yard, the flower beds, the drive way, Grant, the girl child and the trees.

...and I couldn't care less.
The neighbors will just have to deal.

These days, Grant is sporting a mask more often than not. I'm not even going to get into how much lead he would be inhaling if he didn't.

Brain damage isn't attractive.

People have been stopping by all week to stop and say something about all the improvements.

We live in the Historical Village of a town and believe it or not, my house is the baby in the area. Some of the houses are from 1840.

Four neighbors have already been over today. If there was ever an area that could still be considered to resemble a Norman Rockwell place - this is it.

Every neighbor that stopped by said the same thing, "If you need anything, just yell - we've got more tools than Chase Pitkins" - this is said because everyone around here knows that dealing with an old house from another century is far different than making improvements on a house from 1970+.

It's nice.

They're all friendly people without getting all in your business.
It's a delicate balance.

Since there's no way in hell that I'm going to be working with pressure washers and power sanders and re-injure my spine, I've been taking care of everything inside.

Except the kitchen floor.

Every day until today, I've been down on my hands and knees cleaning that God forsaken fucking floor. It's a stately looking floor when it's done. It's the black and white squares like below.



Let me say this...

Don't install that shit. I don't care how it looks, it's a giant pain in the ass to stay clean. Beautiful when it's done, but unless you're going to shoot everyone in the Florida room before they walk on it - it's NEVER going to stay clean.

When I first moved in here, I use to have to clean it three times a day.

WHO THE HELL WANTS TO MAKE A PART-TIME CAREER OUT OF CLEANING A FUCKING FLOOR?

Not... me...

And since no one in this house has figured out that they can't track all sorts of crap across it 875 times a day from outside and it remain clean - I'm not doing it.

Really, WHY do I have a mud room again?

Trust me on this one, even if you're one of those easy going pacifists - if someone makes a mess of a floor like that that you cleaned, you will consider choking them or using some kind of violence.

At the very least, poisoning someones coffee WILL cross your mind.
It's not worth the felony charge.

I'm not saying a felony charge is never worth it.
I'm just saying it should never be over a kitchen floor.
That's all.

Can you see how stupid you'd look to the other inmates?
"What are you in for?"
"I killed 27 people at McDonald's back in the 80's. What are you here for?"
"Nice to meet you. Aren't you the ambitious one? I killed someone for tracking paint chips and mud on my kitchen floor."
"O-kay! You know what, I don't even want to know you. Freak."

It would not be a confidence building exercise.

That was probably all very wrong to write.
You get the picture though.