Sunday 4 August 2013

It will huff and will puff, and my house will fall down ...

My lovely house needed painting, like houses do. Well, old houses do - those of you with modern windows and modern doors will have no idea what I'm talking about. But my house was built in the 1830s, and has sash windows with original wobbly glass and a door that needs a strategic knee against it to turn the key.

The windows were flakey, and door bubbling a bit, so it was time to call in the painter. He took one look at the back of the house, stroked his chin, and muttered about it being a bit high. Three storeys, I concede, is a bit high. So it was time to phone the scaffolder who - to his credit - did exactly what he said he would do, just a day or so earlier.

Then the painter began his sanding, and stripping, and shaking his head - keeping his biggest frown for a bit of wood that goes along one side of the little extension to house the bathroom. It's rotten, he said, it will have to come off; you need a new one. I don't have the tools, he said, or the knowledge ...

So then my son-in-law came, with his hammers and strength and, with a yank and splattering of dust and the buzz of a few surprised bees, off came the bit of wood. And then, my son-in-law stroked his chin ... and shook his head ... and stroked his chin again.

You might have a problem, he said. I think a structural engineer should look at this.

I nodded, as if I might know what a structural engineer is.

Let me take photos, he said, I'll send them off to C, and he'll know the best thing to do.

I passed him the camera.

I wish I hadn't looked at the photos of a crumbly steel beam, that should be holding up my bathroom.

It might be fine, he said. It's not going to fall down immediately. And if it does need sorting out, they'll shore up the house and put a new one in - easy as pie. (Does he know how long it is since I last made a pie?)

In the cold light of day, this is an inconvenience - that's all it is. No one is hurt, or ill, or starving. No sons are marching off to war, no daughters deflowered. And the chances are high that all will be well for a long time - and I will be worm-food long before my bathroom falls off its trolley. But at two in the morning, when the wind blew and the rain battered my windows - that's when the house in my head ended up a heap of bricks in the garden.

So if anyone has techniques to stop me making the night-time mountains out of day time molehills, then please let me know.

20 comments:

  1. Hi, Jo, sending sympathy, but my favourite word in this post is "immediately" - I mean, is next weekend far enough away? Seriously, any structural work around us is disturbing. My house is all wood and single storey, but the whole structure shakes in a gale - maybe it needs stays pegged down around it :)

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    1. Sounds like you need guy ropes - the type that holds huge tents in a storm!

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  2. Your lovely writing and Trish's comment conjured up a memory of that house in Annie Proulx's 'The Shipping News'! Having lived in old houses with wooden windows that went rotten at the joints and at the bottom of the frames... and funny electrical wiring that was reddish brown and black and flaked away in your hands to leave bare wires... and lead piping that poisoned you over time, I'm very sympathetic! Thank goodness that there are men to stroke their chins over it all! I haven't any techniques, Jo - your imagination is a wonderful one and I wouldn't wish any of it away, even for a bathroom... ;)

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    1. Now I'll have to read 'The Shipping News' again!. I love my old house - and in the cold light of day I know things could be so much worse!

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  3. A wonderful post and one I can relate to very well, but in boating terms. Living in a barge dated 1890 has its share of these mountain moments too. Jo, my solution to rotting steel is epoxy resin…lol…half my barge's bottom is smeared with the stuff, but solutions for mountains and molehills are harder. Buy a daylight lamp and keep it on all night? Lovely writing Jo!

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    1. I suppose my bathroom falling into the garden isn't quite as alarming as the bottom of your boat giving way and you end up falling in the water! Stay safe, Val!

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  4. I've lived in old houses ever since I moved in with Mr A. He has a fascination for property that has 'potential'. Until I met him I'd never seen beneath the floorboards of a house. I thought it was clean white concrete beneath but it's not. It's earth! I'm sure your son-in-law would have whisked you out of the house if he thought for a minute you were in any danger so do sleep tight tonight... but if I were you I'd get it fixed before winter sets in.

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    1. Son-in-law is utterly trustworthy - which makes it easy, in daylight, to know this will be all right in the long run. I'll wait and see what the structural engineer says before I do anything else. If he/she says I can sleep easy for years - then I shall!

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  5. I shared your anxieties when our roof leaked some years ago...got it fixed by a roofer who made it worse, called out another who building insurance wouldn't cover having only approved the first roofer, and got it fixed properly, including half a new roof. During the process, my poor anxious heart collapsed many times as did the roof in my imagination! It actually took a very long time after the repairs were finished before I was able to happily listen to rain on the roof, without leaping out of bed and checking my kids' bedrooms for waterfalls...
    It's actually never (usually) as bad as your head thinks, so I hope it all gets fixed in time, let yourself trust those who are doing it, just get recommendations from happy customers first!

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    1. Oh no, not a leaky roof - did you have buckets in the middle of the room and someone always kicks it over when they go to the loo in the middle of the night.

      I've very lucky when it comes to finding responsible people to mend things (son-in-law knows all the right people!)

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    2. Ha ha, when it first leaked it was through our light fitting over our double bed...began at 2am and we taped plastic from the ceiling beneath it as we couldn't move the bed! When the first roofer made it worse, it began to shower upon the children's bunkbeds...and we had a row of about fifteen ice-cream boxes lined up in the attic, and I was emptying them twice a day! Great fun!

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  6. Loved this post Jo. I have lived in 'old' houses all my life so identified with every word. Years ago when between marriages and living in a Victoria cottage with my two children someone told me my creaky bathroom floor was a bit dodgy. For months I used to limit the amount of water I put in the bath because I was petrified it and I would fall through into the kitchen below. Paranoid - moi? I am sure the same floor and the same bath are there to this day! Nowadays with an architect OH, he always says that if something has held up for a hundred years it ain't going to fall down in a hurry - we hope! Good luck with the bathroom!

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    1. What a wonderful image - limiting the bath water so you don't end up in the kitchen!! The core of my house is old, but the bathroom is a strange extension on the back, put on in the 1950s with post-war materials and maybe a flimsy attitude to building regs. But it will be fine ...

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  7. Loved this post Jo and can thoroughly empathise! I live in a thatched cottage which dates back to the mid 1660s. All thick beams, wonky walls etc...and last year when we had those 70 miles an hour gusts of winds...I lay there in bed praying that the roof wouldn't come off!

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    1. Oh heck - do hope it stays put. While the thought of you chasing a roof across the moors has comic value, it would be dreadful in practice!

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  8. Hahaha...old houses. We live in a Victorian semi with similar sash windows. It has a 60's extension, and believe it or not, that's where ALL the trouble lies....every time there is a plumbing problem....steve the plumber does the 'sigh..shaking of head....hmmmm....tricky one this..'' thing. Nothing connects with anything and everything is in an inaccessible place involving amazing amounts of destruction to reach. This summer, the roof man did the same thing and told us the flat roof was going to fall in if it wasn't replaced. £2,000. It's not just the inconvenience, the fear, as an amateur that the house is about to come tumbling down around one's ears, it's the COST!!!! I hope your bathroom gets fixed. It will. Take pics. xx

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    1. Thank you, Carol - and yes, it's the new bit that's the problem, not my lovely Regency rooms. And it will be fine in the end! Might not even need doing for a year or several - we wait to see what the structural engineer says (and if I understand him!)

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  9. I'd love to live in an old house with uneven floors and bumps on the walls. I want nooks and crannies and big old fireplaces. I want a huge wooden door that needs a rather large old key to open it,oh yes and a secret garden too,am I getting carried away? Instead I live in a house that's about 30 yrs old and we still have problems with leaks. I hope you get it all fixed Jo, I know old houses can be expensive for repairs but they have character and a story to tell.

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    1. I love my old house, Anne - it has secrets I'll never know. But it leaks - in winter it's like living in a sieve. And it is on three floors so I'm forever going up and down stairs. So when I'm old and creaky I'll be looking for somewhere modern and warm (without the bathroom falling off!)

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  10. Sorry to hear about it Jo. I gave up worrying about old houses years ago - so far so good seems to be the motto to adopt!

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