Fixing It Up

When the guys delivered the chest of drawers the other day, Fabgrandpa asked them if they knew of a good plumber. And they did. They gave us Larry Cash’s name and phone number, and he showed up today ready to work on our plumbing problem.

We have known since last spring that we’d have to get a plumber to look at the pipes in the bathroom. There was no water pressure at all in the shower. It was just a dribble of water coming out even when the faucets were open all the way.Larry knew exactly what to do. The valves were stopped up, so he had to install new ones. And to get to the place where he needed to be to install them, he had to move the hot water heater.

The hot water heater was installed backwards, with the door to the heating elements facing the wall on the inside of the closet. The drain valve was also probably stopped up, because the water heater wouldn’t drain. This means we will more than likely be buying a new water heater in the near future. Sigh.

The good news is that when Larry left, we had water in the shower. And he only charged $234 for all that work. Next up is finding an electrician.

We were VERY busy this week, trying to get just the basics we need to move into our house. We are still living in the RV in the back yard while we get things ready to move in. It is sort of weird to get up, put on my robe and slippers, grab a cup of coffee, and walk over to the house to my office, to get online. Just a few steps, but still, it’s weird.

We went to the furniture store on Monday, and got a refrigerator, gas stove, microwave, sofa, and a side chair for the living room. When they delivered the furniture, the microwave didn’t work. The delivery guy was taking it apart to fix it, and I told him “Honey, if it doesn’t work out of the box, take it back, I don’t want it.” So, we are still waiting for them to deliver another one.

On Tuesday, I had an appointment with my doctor in Tallapoosa, so we went to town for that. I took her myrecords from my hospital stay in Flagstaff, and we talked about it for a several minutes. I mainly went to her because I am still in pain, and needed some pain medication. She was very understanding and got me fixed right up. We had to hurry back home because we were waiting for the propane guy to deliver gas to us. He finally came around 5:30 p.m. but now the tank is full.

Wednesday, we went to Douglasville, about 45 miles away, to shop for the bed we won from Sears. After we did our shopping, we went to visit my mother for a bit before driving back home. We stopped at our favorite barbecue place in town on the way home, mmmm.

Thursday was a stay at home day, I think. We slept late and just hung around the house. I am trying to carry one thing over to the house every time I come over here, but it is hard to do because the doctor told me I shouldn’t be lifting anything over five pounds. How can you move from one place to another if you can’t pick stuff up?

Friday we had some business in Carrollton. It is about a 30 mile drive over there. When we were finished with that, we went over to Target to pick up some more things for the house. We got rugs for the bathroom, some kitchen towels, a dish drainer, a dust mop, a vacuum cleaner, a trash can, and an entertainment center for the living room. When we got home, Fabgrandpa took the vacuum cleaner out of the box, and when he did, one of the wheels fell off and we couldn’t get it to go back on. Also, the trash can had one of those spring lids, where you push a button and the lid pops open. The first time I pushed the button, the spring jumped out on the floor. So, we had to go back to Carrollton on Saturday to return the defective trash can and vacuum cleaner.

When we got home from Carrollton, our daughter, Becky, arrived to visit for the afternoon. It was so good to see her! She brought us some things for the house: some glass glasses, a bin full of pictures she has been keeping for us for the last 13 years, and two framed paintings that Becca painted when she was in college. Becky also brought her hair clippers and scissors, and cut my hair, so that I finally look halfway decent since I got my hair cut off back in August. It has stopped falling out, but now all the hairs that fell out are growing back in and it was looking weird.

Today, we spent the day in the house, putting things together. Well, at least Fabgrandpa did. I sat there and handed him screws and read the instructions and stuff like that. We got the entertainment center put together. Then he put my bookcase together, and then the vacuum cleaner. This one didn’t fall apart. So, I hope we have a less busy week this week.

While we still don’t have much furniture, and no refrigerator or stove in the new house, I decided last week that I was going to move over here and use my house for an office while we are still here.

Doing this is accomplishing a couple of things for me. First, it is making me get up and get dressed earlier in the day. Second, it is making me feel more like I really do own this house. It does seem strange to be sitting here by myself in a half empty house, working away on the computer or on my sewing machine, but the more I come over here (just across the yard, really) the more I feel at home.And third, I am accomplishing so much more as far as my projects are concerned.

It has been nearly twelve years since we lived in an actual house. It feels strange to have so much room that is MINE. I mean, the kitchen area is bigger than our whole trailer. The freakin hallway is bigger than our trailer! While the house still echos from being so empty, I am learning the sounds it makes and starting to adjust to so much space.

This week, a contractor is coming to close in the back porch with real siding, putting in two new windows and a steel door so it will be more secure than this plastic paneling is. This is the last thing we are doing to the house before we leave for Arizona, and doing it will make me feel more comfortable going away and leaving my things in the house. When we get back this fall, we’ll have someone put in the sheet rock and make a laundry closet and pantry, and then the rest of the space will be my office. I can’t wait to see it all happen.

The dump truck driver called about 9:00 a.m. to tell us he was on the way to the quarry to pick up a 20 ton load of gravel for the driveway. We ate breakfast, and drove over to the house to wait for him. He arrived in good time, but he couldn’t get the dump truck up the drive way. It was too soft and muddy, and his rear tires started spinning. He had to back the truck out of the driveway, while we tried to decide what to do. You can’t hardly return a 40,000 pound load of gravel. It was ours whether we could put it where we wanted it or not!

We decided to have him back the truck up the driveway until he reached the mudhole, then start dumping the gravel out as he pulled back out. It created a beautiful gravel drive on the “good” part of the driveway, but this still left us with a rutted mudhole halfway to the back yard.

It was just about this point that I wanted to cry. My stomach turned to knots and I had to run to the bathroom really quickly. Fabgrandpa and I had to decide what to do about this. So far, we had spent a $650 and still couldn’t get up the driveway with our trailer. And we’re still paying rent at the campground. I was beginning to feel like I was in that  movie, “The Money Pit“, only it wasn’t a comedy.

After discussing the options with the dump truck driver, we decided to buy a load of slate. The driver, Mark, told us that slate is what loggers use to create a road in the forest when they are cutting trees and need to haul heavy equipment and log trailers out. It can be spread out and then you can drive on the same day, and the  more you drive on it, the harder it gets. That sounded good to us, so he left to go get the load, another $150 added to the total.

Mark had to back up the driveway again to the mudhole to dump this load of slate. He also told us the name of a a guy who is our new neighbor, who has a bobcat who can spread it and get it right. The guy we had hired on Saturday has a fulltime job during the week, so he was not available to do it until the weekend. So, we called the new guy, and he invited us over to his shop to look at his driveway that he had put slate on so we could see what it would look like when it was done.

We drove over there, and I was still feeling a little sick to my stomach at how this job was adding up to more and more expense. We met Toby, and talked with him for quite a while. He is so friendly and nice! When we asked him how much he would charge to do the grading on our driveway, he just looked at us like we were crazy, and said, “I can’t charge my neighbor for that!”

I feel like this new home purchase is in the exact right place. We have come into a really nice, friendly, caring neighborhood, where people look out for each other. I thought such a place no longer existed. When we got back in the truck to leave, I started crying, because I just couldn’t believe how nice this young man could be to us. He said he can get the slate spread out on Thursday, so now we are hoping we can get moved in by Friday. Keep your fingers crossed for us that this will do the trick.

The driveway to our new house goes all the way around the back of the house in a semi-circle, with two entryways from the road. The one closest to the house is narrow–too narrow for the truck and trailer to get through. It is a close call for just the truck. The one at the lower end of the property also had two fence poles, making it difficult if not impossible to get the trailer in from that way. If the road had been a little bit wider so that we could swing out more, we could have made it, but it wasn’t.

Because of all that, we had to hire a guy with a bobcat grader to come and do a little work on the driveway. The first thing he did was take down one of the fence posts and one section of the fence next to the road at the lower end of the driveway. I didn’t get a picture of that because he started before I got there with my camera. He did a great job and now you can’t even tell that there was a fence post there at all, and it gives us room to get the truck and trailer into the driveway without worrying about scraping the side of the trailer.

Blake, the grading guy, skimmed the topsoil from the back of the property to fill in the deep ruts and “squishy” places where we almost got the truck stuck a couple of times while coming up the driveway. Then he used the scraper blade to even it out and make it level.

It didn’t take long for this part of the work to be done, and it really improved the driveway a lot. Now we are waiting for a dump truck load of gravel to be delivered and spread out over this so that it won’t wash away, and we won’t get the trailer stuck when we tow it over to the house.

For now, we are waiting for the rain to stop so the dump truck driver can get out there and get the gravel down. After that happens, we can finally move in!

Friday was another good day. Our good friend, Darrell, and his son came to install the electrical connection for the RV. He is a licensed electrician, so he definitely knew what he was doing. The entire process involved him checking in the breaker box inside the house to find a place to hook the wires.

Because of renovations made by previous owners, there were already four 220 volt connections coming out of the box–one for the Jennair range top; one for an electric stove; and two for dryer connections. Since we taking out the Jennair and having a gas stove installed, we could take out those two connections right off the bat. And we only need one dryer connection. However, there is one on the back porch and one in the kitchen. Right now, we are using the one in the kitchen for the dryer, until we get the back porch redone and made more secure.

So, Darrell sent his son under the house to find the wire to the Jennair and the stove connection. Then, he re-routed one of them to the outside of the house to use for the RV connection. All this took about three hours to accomplish. We now have a place to plug in the RV for power!

The only thing left to do is to get a plastic “hood” or cover to put over the breaker box and we will be done with the electric connection. Now on to the driveway…

This week has been a good one towards getting moved in to our new house. We needed to have a sewer connection and an electrical connection for our RV so that we can live in it in the back yard while we take our time fixing up the house. We also did not want to buy all of the furniture we need and then leave for six months while we go back to work. So, finding the right people to do the work was first on our list of things to do.

All American Septic was the right company for the job of adding a sewer connection. I had NO IDEA what all was involved in adding one. I don’t know what exactly I thought they would do, but it is a lot of work, and a lot of digging to get it done.

First, they had to find the septic tank by poking a metal rod into the ground in various places until they hit a solid slab. Then, they used a backhoe to dig up the existing sewer line from the house to the septic tank. Once that was done, they dug another trench from the existing line to the place where we wanted the sewer connection to be.

After all the digging was done, the plumber set to work placing the lines. He used a sort of epoxy glue to connect everything together, first the purple primer, then the glue, then stick the pipes and fittings together. After he set the sewer connection in place, he also moved the drain pipe for the washing machine. The previous owner of the house had the drain just pouring the water out into the yard. We had him attach it to where the water will go into the septic tank. He was finished doing all of that in about three hours, then used the backhoe to cover it all up. They did a fabulous job of it, and the yard looks good after it was all done.

The result of all that work was this sewer connection for our RV in our backyard. The next thing we need is an electric connection.