Here’s Emmie!

I got a new dog!

She’s some kind of mix, I’m not sure what. They called her Matilda (yuck!) —I call her Emmie.

She was billed as a Westie mix, but she’s not any kind of Westie that I can see. Everything is different. Coat, legs, tail, head, ears, eyes, everything is different. Maybe I’ll get a doggie DNA test…out of curiosity. And even though I had Westies for 35 years, I don’t care if she’s not a Westie… she’s cute (and sweet, when she’s not being fearful.)

I rescued her at the end of May from a rescue organization, Rescue Ranch in Yreka. She’s now about 1-1/2 years.

I think she was living wild for awhile. She’s happy in the backyard but can be fearful in the house. When the mulberry tree was dropping berries she was having a field day. She foraged for other edible fruit in the yard, too. Neither of my other dogs wanted to eat mulberries…

She barks ferociously when my renters come in or go up and down the stairs. Not a good thing, but she’s getting better every day. She was hiding under the bed a lot at first, but now she’s more comfortable and doesn’t hide very much.

I’m going to take her to obedience classes. She’s pretty wild and won’t even come if I call her. Sometimes she won’t even take treats out of my hand, I have to put them on the floor, especially if she is some distance away. I think she had been tricked by someone using food to bait her and trap her.

But she’s not totally wild, lets me hold her and she sits in my lap. In fact, she’s more of a lap dog than Westies ever were. And she sleeps on my bed with me.

Speaking of renters…

Carin, one of my renters, moved out at the end of August. She paid off her car and wanted her own place, so she rented an apartment a few miles north of here.

When she gave notice I started thinking about the room situation upstairs and reflecting on how little I use my office, since I have a computer in my bedroom, too. And how much more income I could create by renting the larger room. (Twice as much!)

I looked into the office from the doorway and what I saw was storage. Most of the stuff in the room was storage! THREE filing cabinets!  (Well, one did hold up the end of the desk…) And supplies! Office supplies, art and design supplies, sewing supplies and books!

Flipping the Script

So after careful consideration and planning, I downsized and moved my office into the small room (formerly Carin’s room). I gave myself a month to do it and my plan worked perfectly. There was only one piece of furniture that I had to put into attic storage, a drop-front desk. I tried to give it to David, my other renter, to use but he didn’t want it. Oh, there was also my Elfa desk but it is just two metal tubular legs on one end, and as I said, a filing cabinet holds up the other end, and a flat melamine covered panel for the desk top. So I broke that down and slipped it into the attic, too.

Here’s my (not so pretty) planning sketches:

Then I reorganized and redecorated the former office (the “cute” room—now called “La Jolie Salle” — formerly L’Atelier [workroom]) with a new rug and a little bistro table and chairs. Everything else I already had. I didn’t manage to move everything of mine out of the room, however. I left some books and half of the drawers still contain office supplies.

Everything that wouldn’t fit or need to be in the smaller office either went into the attic or the basement (and 3 empty filing cabinets into the garage). I had to have help moving the bigs things so KayeDon, my friend, came over and helped me. 

I also reclaimed the stair hall closet to use it for storage of household items like air conditioners, cleaning supplies, etc. I had let Carin use the closet because the one in that room is so small.

Here’s  ~La Jolie Salle~

The New Atelier

This room is about 10×10…

Fixing the Wall

I broke down and hired a handyman to fix the wall in the upstairs bathroom. I had been contemplating doing it myself but… I wanted it to be fixed before I rented the room. Don’t ask how it got damaged…

Much better!

He tore out the whole panel below the window and replaced it with drywall. He did a great job! Better than I could ever do. (Well, I painted!)

I also added a printed, water-resistant, peel-n-stick tile backsplash I found online above the vanity to spruce up the vanity area in the upstairs bath.

So, what else is new?

The Shower Leak Saga

Around the first of the year 2024 I discovered that my first floor master bath shower was leaking into the basement below. Ever since it was installed as part of my bathroom remodel in 2014-2015, one corner was low, because the shower pan was not correctly leveled when it was installed. Nine years later, this low corner is where the leak appeared to be emanating from. I did fairly extensive tests to verify that this was the source and came to the conclusion it was. I couldn’t ignore it, even though it wasn’t leaking very much; I had to get someone to fix it, or so I thought.

The first quote I got to fix it was almost $9,000! Not happening.

I ended up hiring my neighbor/contractor for about half of that, but he did a less than perfect job. I found out (the hard way) he’s not a detail guy… There’s a bit of a difference in skill level between re-building a fence and demo-ing, re-building and re-tiling part of a shower. 

And the worst of it was…it still leaked! 

BUT

It was a week or more after it had been “fixed” by the contractor and it was still leaking. I even called him to come back and he put some more grout in the corner, thinking that would fix it—after what he had already done to fix it— but, of course, it didn’t…

So, in my desperation, I cried out to God and told him that I know He can fix it… AND HE DID! 

I prayed — and it stopped leaking. PRAISE GOD!
I’d call that a miracle!

My Project for this year

Small but significant…

I carried out my house number plaque plan that had been on the drawing board for awhile. Here it is and how I did it.

• I glued and clamped two pieces of 1×8 fir together to make the board large enough. (Pre-made wood rounds weren’t the right size.) (Sorry, I didn’t take more process pics)
• I cut it into a circle on my band saw.
• I sanded, primed and painted it then applied the custom printed, exterior, weather resistant, adhesive-backed vinyl “decal,” for which I created the layout and uploaded the art to the sign company to print.

Voila!

Looking Ahead

I think I’m going to be “retiring” from my design business at the first of the year. I won’t be taking on any new projects, especially websites, but I may continue to do maintenance for the few clients whose websites I currently manage. Renting my rooms makes up for any income I will lose from not doing design work.

I look upon maintaining this house as my main job now. It’s my big investment. I’m its caretaker.

Merry Christmas and have fun in the new year!

Diane

Originally published November 2021

I have a bee in my bonnet. (Wow, that’s an old saying! But I couldn’t resist…it’s a bee thing…) Translate that to mean that I have an idea that’s been buzzing around in my brain for awhile now. Let me explain.

My house at 1432 East Main St. was built in 1927. The house next door, number 1428, was built the same year. It is a different style than mine, but some of the details, like window style and trim are very similar to mine. Sean and Robyn own 1428 and they are gradually fixing it up and doing some restoration, like stripping off the 1950’s facade that had been applied to their living room fireplace, to reveal the original brick.

Then there is the house next door to 1428, number 1404, which, records show, was built in 1928. These three houses are set apart from surrounding houses in architectural style, age and location. I think they are related and may have even been built by the same builder. That’s why I call them the Three Sisters.

1404 needs help. I feel so sorry for her. I’ve been trying to think of a way to help the owners fix her up. First things first— she desperately needs a new roof.

The house has a really cute sun porch on the west side. Here’s a picture…

So when I heard that she might need someone to look after him until she found a place to stay, I volunteered. I used to be a cat person… until I became a dog person.

As it turned out she found a place fairly soon so my help wasn’t needed…at that time. 

More recently, when Alexis decided she wanted to go to California for December and January she asked me if my offer might still be good—which it was. So Cy is here and he’s settling in.  

Cy arrived at my house the Friday after Thanksgiving. Each day for him was an exploration, finding his “spots” and learning the boundaries of what and where I would tolerate him to be. Not lying on the dining table, not drinking out of the toilet, etc. 

By the following Thursday he had explored the downstairs, finding special fascination with opening the door to the stairs and going up. (We usually close the door but leave it unlatched for easier opening when coming downstairs.) Nothing for cats upstairs, as all the doors to the rooms but the bathroom are kept closed. I made the mistake of showing it to him! Anyway…

By Thursday afternoon he decided he was ready to go outside. Alexis told me he’s an outdoor cat so I let him go. We have a doggie door—I showed him how it worked a few days before, but he wasn’t interested then. This time he went out and back in a few times, everything was good, so I went back to work. 

Evening came but the cat didn’t. It was dark by then and calling him was unfruitful. Nothing to do at that point but wait and see if he reappeared. 

Friday morning dawned—no cat. 

Friday afternoon I walked around the neighborhood calling and talking to anyone who was out, asking them to keep a lookout. I couldn’t imagine he would run away…not from a warm house and food. Nor did I think he would just wander away and get lost. He was too cautious. 

Friday night—no cat. Freezing temperatures. 

Saturday morning I was walking through my dining room and I heard—Meeooww. I couldn’t pinpoint the sound so I looked outside—no cat. I thought, he couldn’t be in the basement! I opened the basement door, which, oddly enough, is in the dining room, and there he was. And was he HUNGRY! 

Now for the blessing. 

Ever since we’ve lived here (6-1/2 + years) we’ve had a rat problem in the basement. Evidently it’s a problem in this neighborhood and probably beyond. I had a pest control service for a year or so but it’s too expensive, but they left me with quite a few traps. But to me, the best solution is to find where they’re getting in and take preventive measures. Pest control helped find a couple of openings, but rats, and recently a little opossum, were still getting in and meeting their demise in the deadly traps. I’d rather not kill them, just keep them out. 

But the cat ending up in the basement proved to me that there must be an opening big enough for a big black cat to get through—not to mention RATS! The only place this could have happened is under the deck on the back of the house. 

The deck was probably added in the 80’s or 90’s, as it is made of composite materials. But we hadn’t been able to see the foundation on that side of the house because of the deck. 

The cat in the basement confirmed to me that this had to be the place, so Bernie, my handyman and I did some reconnaissance to see if we could zero in on the most likely area of the breach. Turning off the lights in the basement and looking for light in the suspected location gave us the area to concentrate on. 

The basement is only about a third of the entire house footprint, mainly under my bedroom, the southwest corner. The rest is just crawl space. So the breach seemed to be in the foundation of the crawl space near the southeast corner of the house. Bernie pulled up two deck boards in that area and we discovered a hole about 14” wide and 5” high. There is a pipe running through the opening which appears to be part of the air conditioner plumbing. It looks like it was a foundation vent that never got re-screened when they installed the outside air conditioner—who knows when! Arghhh! (Remember, this house is 93 years old!) 

If Cy hadn’t come to stay and if he hadn’t disappeared, to wind up in the basement, I might never have had a strong enough suspicion about the location of the entry point to tear up deck boards. 

Hallelujah! He earned his room and board, and then some! 

Thank you Jesus!

Well, the Eagle Point gnomes just kind of hung around when they lived there, staying out of the way, well, pretty much the same as they do now, but now they have jobs to do.

One of my original gnomes—I call him Smiley—now guards secret tunnel No. 1. He’s a little (a lot!) sun bleached…(when you live most of your life in a tunnel, sudden exposure to sun can have extreme consequences) but he still gets the job done, with a smile

You can tell he’s on guard. He’s listening for any disturbances in the garden…

Gnome 2 Fountain Watcher Little did we know when we relocated our small, but mighty (think heavy) fountain next to the middle island, there was already living nearby a gnome who specializes in fountain watching. He has even befriended the frog and now they’re co-fountain watchers. They like to keep a low profile.

…

Gnome 3 is a bench-sitter. He’s looking a little lazy but…he keeps an eye on the concrete bench next to island #3. Watch out if you sit there. You might get a little poke when you’re not looking. You can call him…well… Lazy… Or not. Can you think of a better name? If so, let me know in the Comments below. I’ll take it under consideration, er, uh, he will.

Yet another secret tunnel! It runs under island 3 from the bench to the other side. Yes, it has its own guardian, Gnome 4. He looks like the sun is hurting his eyes. I’m not surprised—being a tunnel dweller! We’ll call him Squinty.

Last but not least, Gnome 5 patrols the old rosemary bush. I don’t know if he lives in the bush or he just takes up his post when I’m in the vicinity, since there is not a lot of shelter provided under the bush, well, the part where he is at the moment, anyway.

He’s one of the EP clan. He even got a refresher paint job some years ago, but you can’t really tell, other than he’s one of the few who actually has a little color.

Is he saluting or just shielding his eyes from the sun? Looks like he’s standing at attention for his photograph. I think he takes his job seriously. Should we call him Reginald? He looks almost regimental. A member of the axe brigade?

Stop on by if you’re in the neighborhood—I’ll introduce you!

The good thing about the upstairs windows is they are all casement windows, hinged vertically and they open in, so I was able to paint them from the inside, then just lean out (yikes!) to paint the exterior trim.

Last winter I hired a couple of guys, one after the other, to scrape, sand, fill and prime the windows on the outside. So that got done, but they never received a finish coat of paint. Then summer came and it was too hot. I thought about hiring someone to paint them and then finally decided to save a bunch of money and do it myself. So now THEY’RE DONE! And the house looks very pretty.

(And guess what!? — It’s raining!)

When we did the bathroom renovation, we took out the old original 1927 built-in tub/shower. It had seen better days and the shower surround was hideous. I could have updated the surround but I didn’t want a tub/shower combination. I wanted a separate shower and a clawfoot tub, even though it’s really from a previous era—the date embossed on the underside is May 8, 1907—pre-dating the house by 20 years!

The tub—found on Craigslist and purchased for $200—needed refurbishing, to say the least.  Before it was installed I had the rusty exterior of the tub sandblasted and primed, then I painted it to match the bathroom walls and sprayed the feet with “chrome” paint. But the interior of the tub didn’t get any attention until after it was installed. After it was in and I tried cleaning it, I realized that it was going to need more than just a good scrubbing.

Last week it happened. I hired a tub refinisher to do his handiwork on it and it looks pretty spectacular— gleaming white-white. So now we’re just waiting for it to “cure” so we can try it out.

Now I have a place for the little refrigerator that we use upstairs for soft drinks.