This house fights you

The first guys we hired to do some work on our house years ago thought it would be a quick and easy job. Putting in two exterior doors. The short morning job turned into an all-day project as they discovered one odd quirk after another – non-standard sizes, odd angles and weird framing. About halfway through the project, when they realized what they were in for, they said, “This house fights you. You really have to fight back.”

It’s fought us at every turn for 13 years – office, bathroom, kitchen, plumbing, wiring, windows, doors. So we weren’t too surprised when we found that all of the perimeter boards on the deck had to be replaced. That was the house, fighting us again.

That was just a warm-up. This morning we woke up to another surprise – no running water. We checked the breaker boxes and the pressure tank. All fine. It’s been dry here lately and that can sometimes run the well down a bit. We did run the sprinkler system for about 20 minutes last night. Dean thinks the submersible pump is either plugged or burned out. We finally found a pump guy who works weekends and he’ll be over this afternoon.

This house always fights. We just have to keep fighting back.

But there’s progress:

The final load from yesterday.

It’s level and we’re thirsty.

New steps.

Posts for the roof and railing are in.

We had planned to either go boating or go to the cherry festival today. Instead we’re sitting around waiting for the pump guy. Darn, no water to drink – fortunately the wine fridge is stocked.