Now that I’m a proud new homeowner (really, home-dweller as Shani bought the house), you are all going to have to endure my tales of first-time owner/dweller. Just be thankful you’re not getting the tale of why I was hunched over in my living room at midnight trying to remove purple candlewax from the hardwood floors by flashlight, using a cheap plastic knife.
Before moving into the new house, it was decided that my responsibility would be divided between the inside of the house and the outside of the house. I’m not a landscaping or gardening pro by any means, but I have years of lawn-mowing experience, which is more than my years of staring at failed light bulbs and saying, “Do we get a plumber to fix this thing? Or what?” It was easy to make me overseer of all things exterior.
A week ago we moved into the new house. I circled the premises and created a list of tasks that needed to be accomplished immediately. This list included:
1) Buy a couple gallons of Diet Coke 2) Call Mom and ask her what to do
Then I went inside and set up a huge downstairs entertainment system that included surround sound. Meanwhile, my Mom decided to come out from DC and make her inaugural visit to Minnesota (not unlike current VP Cheney, who came here yesterday for the first time). Mom has been given advanced photos and blueprints. She’s already calling local nurseries. She will undoubtedly reconstruct the entire aesthetic.
Meanwhile, a visit the local hardware store occurred yesterday. I purchased a lawn mower and ladder. The reason for the first is obvious. The second purchase was because I noticed that, from standing on the ground in the front yard, I was able to stare up 13 feet and actually see the roof gutters overflowing with twigs & stuff. In my estimation, given their demographic and disposition, the previous owners avoided climbing onto the roof and removing the crud from the gutters. This means that the gutters had been accumulating swill for the past 5 years.
With the help of my trust inside-house partner, I scaled the ladder and peered into the gutter.
Let’s just say that it was the combination of every episode of the Discovery channel. Except there no were sharks. At least, I didn’t come across any sharks up there. Larvae, grime, mushrooms, small green plants, branches, decaying leaves, spiders, webs, cocoons, ants, and other assorted nature lovelies grimed up to the brim of the 5-inch gutters. Too bad I forgot to pick up some gardening gloves at the hardware store.
Nasty. But 2 hours and a couple showers later, I was a content man, knowing that the gutters were clean.
Finally: HOME DEPOT UPDATE: I have been in the house for eight days and still have not had to make a trip to Home Depot.
EDIT by matthew: Fixed a couple of half-quotes that were Microsoft “smart” half-quotes. Those are borked in any browser but Internet Explorer.
Back in da day
While we’re on first-time homeowner stories, I have a pretty good one:
I bought a townhouse in 1999. One of the things this townhouse had was a clothes dryer (as opposed to the clothesline I was familiar with at my parents house). I was cool with the colors vs whites vs towels part of washing, and having a dryer was cool!. No carrying out to the clothesline, hanging them up, checking for critters when folder, etc. Just throw ’em in a hit start!
Well, everything was working fine, but I noticed the dryer efficiency was starting to suffer. It seemed to dry less and less, and I was having to run clothes through a second and third time.
Baffled, I asked my friend Curt, who had almost 5 years of homeowning experience behind him, what he thought. He asked my if I had emptied the lint screen.
My answer was this: “Lint screen?”
So he proceed to go over to the dryer and pull out the lint screen. No, make that ATTEMPT to pull out the lint screen. The amount of lint in the screen was so much that it had condensed, collapsed upon itself, and now had its own gravitation pull. Socks, sweaters, small farm animals, even light was trapped in this lint screen. We managed to clean it using particle physics and multiple Walmart bags, and then Curt ran the dryer lint-screen-free for a few minuts to make sure the vent was clear.
No one had ever TOLD me about a lint screen. Needless to say, the dryer worked quite admirably after that.
My $.02 Weed
P.S. Note to Sam: If your mother decides to install hardscape (i.e. brick/stone/etc), the base needs to be 4 inches of crush-n-run and 2 inches of stone dust, leveled and tamped down hard. My Weed Tip O’The Day!
candle wax?
Here’s a great tip to help get wax out of just about anything. Grab a roll of paper towel and a hot iron. Put a couple layers of paper towel over the wax and set the hot iron on it. The iron will melt the wax and the wax will soak into the paper towel. Depending on the amount of wax involved, you will need to repeat the process several times. I speak from a big experience.
—
Christy
No Power
Christy, great idea. That would have worked wonders, except we didn’t have any power at the time. Hence, why I was working by flashlight.
Yeah, the full story is actually long and boring, which I why I just cut to the punchline. Middle of the night, flashlight, no power, candlewax all over our new hardwoods floors, me with a plastic knife.
Help came at midnight when the power company finally showed up.
Get In Groove, Sammy G
Heh
Good times. 🙂
— Ben Schuman Mad, Mad Tenor