House

For the first time in months, I feel happy and confident about my house. Not that anything is fixed, but we might finally have someone competent and honest to start to deal with things. Plus, they said that the bathroom isn’t going to fall off. Yay!

These builders who came by today rock. We got their number through our attorney, who says that they built both of his houses, and he loves them. He called them up on the phone to ask if they would take a look at our place. They’re a husband and wife team, and I immediately started trusting them. Don’t know why. Personal recommendation, plus the fact that they view this as a small job rather than some sort of career making centerpiece. I kept bringing up the things that other contractors had said which had confused me, and they kept saying “why would you do that? It’s much simpler to…”.

They’re going to put together a bid to:

• fix the plumbing
• fix the footings on the bathroom
• put down plastic in the crawl spaces
• insulate and seal up the crawl space under the master bathroom
• install a ridge vent in the roof
• redo all the flashings around every point that something comes through the roof
• rebuild the external portion of the chimney
• install a flue liner in said chimney
• Fix the siding on the leaky front of the house.

They assumed we were going to get everything inspected! It wasn’t some sort of ordeal to convince them that I really want it done right. Woo hoo! I’ve found the law abiding contractors! Now, let’s all say a little prayer together that they decide to bid on the job.

I’ve even learned something about inspections: When the inspector comes out, anything that’s already up and existed when I bought the house is not my fault and he can’t make me change it unless it’s a safety hazard. Meaning, that even if the inspector happens to notice that there have been two non-permitted additions put on the house, it’s not my fault. All I have to do is make them safe, and be sure that any new work (cf. plumbing) is up to code. Woo hoo! No fines for owning a craptastic house!

Oh yeah, plus we got a tree and put some lights up. Our light up deer has had a stroke, and his whole left side is dark. It makes me sad, but in the sort of way where I giggle a lot at my stroked out, light-up deer.