After I mentioned the scary basement (with its aptly-named trap door) in my last post, a couple of folks reminded me that I should take my cell phone with me just in case the door slams shut while I'm down there in the basement. I always take my cell phone to the basement with me, but it occurs to me that I might've forgotten to tell y'all exactly why I do that. (Aside from the obvious fear of entrapment.)
I take my phone with me everywhere because of the South Street Rule.
The South Street Rule: If you are alone in your old house and you will be standing on a ladder, climbing atop a chair or countertop or some such thing, going down to the basement, going up to the attic, running up or down steep stairs, playing with electricity, or doing anything at all which might possibly in someone's wildest imagination cause you to be injured, carry a phone with you at all times.
The South Street Rule, Abundance of Caution Clause: Before engaging in any potentially injurious activities, call a neighbor and tell them what you will be doing, where in the house you will be, and what time you expect to be finished. Call the neighbor again when you are finished to sound the all-clear. If you fail to call said neighbor or answer the phone within a reasonable time frame, said neighbor has the right to kick in your door (if necessary) to ascertain your level of health and welfare.
This rule was enacted a decade or so ago in my neighborhood because a little old lady who lived all alone took a tumble off a ladder, badly broke her leg, and laid there on the floor in pain for over 24 hours until one of her friends, having not heard from her in awhile, went to her house and discovered her injury. Since then, many other calamitous things have occurred--among them, the seat of a cane-bottomed chair gave way while Carl was standing on it, Katherine whacked her head on a heat duct in her attic, Mary fell down the stairs (twice), I pitched off a ladder, a storm window fell on me, I hit myself in the face with a prybar--and in every instance, help was there almost immediately.
The South Street Rule. Reason #3,287,491 why I love my neighborhood.
What To Do?
I have four nights off. Four. Nights. Off. What to do, what to do? I did a "lap" through the house to decide: bedroom, second parlor, foyer, first parlor, dining room, kitchen, then back to the bedroom. Hmm.
I really, really want to knock out the wall between the two bathrooms, just to see what it'll look like. Since there's plumbing and electrical in that wall, that might not be the smartest thing to do.
Maybe I'd be lucky enough that the original ceiling on the back porch is still there and I could tear out that ugly acoustic tile ceiling. A few minutes' investigation with a flashlight while standing on a chair and looking through the transom above the kitchen door proved that, of course, I am not that lucky.
The other night I had a dream that I painted my bedroom floor. It still seems like a good idea. Before I could do that, I'd need to move all the furniture into the second parlor, then clean the floor and sand it and prime it and....yeah, that sounds like a big pain in the hiney. Especially since the second parlor's in shambles.
The second parlor. That's it.
So here's the to-do list for the next four nights/days:
And one more thing on the tentative, possibly, maybe, just maybe to-do list: Brave the scary basement to try to figure out where the other end of that damn extension cord is. There's about 18 inches of extension cord poking out of the floor in the second parlor. (Why in the Sam Hill would someone do that?!?!) I have no idea where it's plugged in, but White Trash Bob and I believe the basement is a good possibility.
Wish me luck. Photos and tales of woe to follow.
I really, really want to knock out the wall between the two bathrooms, just to see what it'll look like. Since there's plumbing and electrical in that wall, that might not be the smartest thing to do.
Maybe I'd be lucky enough that the original ceiling on the back porch is still there and I could tear out that ugly acoustic tile ceiling. A few minutes' investigation with a flashlight while standing on a chair and looking through the transom above the kitchen door proved that, of course, I am not that lucky.
The other night I had a dream that I painted my bedroom floor. It still seems like a good idea. Before I could do that, I'd need to move all the furniture into the second parlor, then clean the floor and sand it and prime it and....yeah, that sounds like a big pain in the hiney. Especially since the second parlor's in shambles.
The second parlor. That's it.
So here's the to-do list for the next four nights/days:
- Put a third coat of paint on the foyer side of the door.
- Patch & paint the parlor side of that same door.
- Finish painting the trim in the parlor.
- Tear up the last little strip of carpet in there.
- Scrape up the glued-down carpet pad.
- Patch & paint the parlor side of the parlor/bedroom door.
And one more thing on the tentative, possibly, maybe, just maybe to-do list: Brave the scary basement to try to figure out where the other end of that damn extension cord is. There's about 18 inches of extension cord poking out of the floor in the second parlor. (Why in the Sam Hill would someone do that?!?!) I have no idea where it's plugged in, but White Trash Bob and I believe the basement is a good possibility.
Wish me luck. Photos and tales of woe to follow.
More Water
Here's a different kind of before-and-after...
This is the photo I took of the Sni Bridge in Wellington last week. Wellington is the next town west of Lexington along the Missouri River. The woman standing on the bridge works at Catfish Charlie's, a restaurant there in Wellington. I asked her then if the flooding had cut down on their business. "It has, a little," she said. This was taken before the Missouri River rose on Friday to 26.8 feet at Napoleon, which is just west of Wellington. Flood stage at Napoleon is 17.0 feet. (An aside to history buffs: Lafayette County has Wellington and Napoleon, and in between is an itty-bitty town called Waterloo. Hee hee.)
And here's a photo of that same area, taken Friday evening:
That's Catfish Charlie's on the left with the green roof. The Sni Mini Mart is on the right. I stood in their parking lot to take that photo last week. Someone from Charlie's told me on Facebook yesterday that since the restaurant is on stilts, the water hasn't flooded the interior. With the parking lot and the ramp to the door underwater, they've had to close for now. They've sandbagged the Mini Mart and it's become a little island, so it's still open. Friday was supposed to be the crest at 26.8, but I just checked NOAA and the river's now at 27.2 feet and predicted to drop over the next several days.
I promise that I'll write about something besides water soon!
This is the photo I took of the Sni Bridge in Wellington last week. Wellington is the next town west of Lexington along the Missouri River. The woman standing on the bridge works at Catfish Charlie's, a restaurant there in Wellington. I asked her then if the flooding had cut down on their business. "It has, a little," she said. This was taken before the Missouri River rose on Friday to 26.8 feet at Napoleon, which is just west of Wellington. Flood stage at Napoleon is 17.0 feet. (An aside to history buffs: Lafayette County has Wellington and Napoleon, and in between is an itty-bitty town called Waterloo. Hee hee.)
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| Before the Missouri River crested. |
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| After the river crested. Photo courtesy of John Pinkston. |
I promise that I'll write about something besides water soon!
Gray Water Ahead
You know you've worked really hard and gotten really filthy when the water going down the shower drain is gray. I predict that, just a few minutes after I hit the "Publish Post" button, gray water will be swirling in my shower.
Why? Because today, I dug up some ginormous hostas on the west side of the house and divided them into less-ginormous hostas, then did the same with some ginormous daylilies, then hammered in 14 ft of edging, then planted the hostas and the daylilies in the front flower bed, then bought five coral bells and planted them, then yanked hundreds of weeds out of that bed and spread mulch there. Now it looks like this:
This is the former site of the dratted vinca. In two years it's gone from a huge bed of vinca (some of it's still growing there under the rose), to a big ugly muddy mess, to a bed of newspaper weighted down with bricks (to smother the stubborn vinca), to a weedy mess, to this. I'm looking forward to seeing those daylilies bloom because, although they came from my mom's yard a couple of years ago, neither of us can remember what color they are.
Why? Because today, I dug up some ginormous hostas on the west side of the house and divided them into less-ginormous hostas, then did the same with some ginormous daylilies, then hammered in 14 ft of edging, then planted the hostas and the daylilies in the front flower bed, then bought five coral bells and planted them, then yanked hundreds of weeds out of that bed and spread mulch there. Now it looks like this:
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| The porch would look nicer without that orange extension cord.... |
And then, because I wasn't quite filthy and tired enough, I hammered in another 6 ft of edging around the other front flower bed, weeded it, and put some leftover mulch on it. (I didn't quite have enough, as you can see.)
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| Please ignore the bare back corner. |
And now, I think I'll stand in the shower until the water no longer swirls gray and I've used up all the hot water, and then I'll sit on the front porch with a big glass of lemonade and eat some of the raspberries Gwen picked out of her garden for me this morning.
Water Over Road
More signs are popping up along 224 Highway (an east/west route that runs along the Missouri River) that warn "Water Over Road". In the little river towns, that's a common thing every spring. We usually drive around the roadblocks to see for ourselves. That's what I did Monday morning on my way home from work.
The bridge at Wellington didn't have any water over it, so I parked my car in the Mini Mart parking lot to see how high Sni-A-Bar Creek is. Pretty darn high.
And then I walked across the bridge to get a closer look at the water over the highway.
So I got back in the Brave Little Toaster (the nickname the guys at work have given my Kia Soul) to find another way home. With 24 Highway (the other main east/west route through Lafayette County besides the interstate) closed for bridge replacement just east of Wellington, getting from here to there is...interesting. I backtracked just a little ways on 224 to get back to Route 131, which runs north/south from Wellington. I took 131 to FF Highway, then took FF to a gravel road called Flournoy School Road, then drove along the gravel road until I could get back on 24 Highway east of where it's closed. And when I finally got to Lexington, I decided to drive over to 224 again to see how bad it is from the east end of the flooding.
That was taken at about the same location where my son took a photo back on June 4th. It sure doesn't look like 224 will be open for traffic anytime soon. So far, that's my biggest inconvenience. The town's water plant has been sandbagged for about three weeks and the river hasn't topped the sandbags yet. Let's hope it stays that way. I feel sorry for all the people upriver who have been evacuated and are losing their homes and belongings.
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| Taken looking WB from the Sni Mini Mart parking lot. |
And then I walked across the bridge to get a closer look at the water over the highway.
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| Yikes. No way am I driving through all that. |
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| Not looking so good here either. |
Someday
Someday.
Greg told me, in the interest of fairness and accuracy, that I should've added the word "someday" to the first sentence of my last post. As in, "Someday I'm gonna knock out this wall right here to get rid of this stupid little bathroom and make one nice-sized bathroom, and then someday that tub you're givin me will go about right there where that sink is now." Not tomorrow. Not next month. Maybe not even til next year. But someday. Someday, by God, I'll have that bathroom. Someday when I have the money saved up (although Greg generously giving me a clawfoot tub will save me a chunk of money) and when I have the courage worked up to tear out a wall, a shower stall, two sinks, two toilets and the ceiling from three rooms. Then I'll have that bathroom. Someday.
Someday soon, I need to move that clawfoot tub of Greg's from the hardware store parking lot to my back porch. And someday even sooner than that, I need to put one more coat of paint on the door between the foyer and the second parlor.
Greg told me, in the interest of fairness and accuracy, that I should've added the word "someday" to the first sentence of my last post. As in, "Someday I'm gonna knock out this wall right here to get rid of this stupid little bathroom and make one nice-sized bathroom, and then someday that tub you're givin me will go about right there where that sink is now." Not tomorrow. Not next month. Maybe not even til next year. But someday. Someday, by God, I'll have that bathroom. Someday when I have the money saved up (although Greg generously giving me a clawfoot tub will save me a chunk of money) and when I have the courage worked up to tear out a wall, a shower stall, two sinks, two toilets and the ceiling from three rooms. Then I'll have that bathroom. Someday.
Someday soon, I need to move that clawfoot tub of Greg's from the hardware store parking lot to my back porch. And someday even sooner than that, I need to put one more coat of paint on the door between the foyer and the second parlor.
Yep, It's Drywall
Me: So I'm gonna knock out this wall right here to get rid of this stupid little bathroom and make one nice-sized bathroom, and then that tub you're givin me will go about right there where that sink is now.
Greg: Wait a minute, are you sure that's not an original wall?
Me: I'm sure. Welllll....now that you say that...
Greg: I'm not sure, hon. It makes sense that this might've been a little room off the back porch originally, like a 19th-century version of a mudroom.
I get a hammer. WHACK!!
We peer at the hole I've just knocked in the bathroom wall.
Greg: Yep, it's drywall.
Greg: Wait a minute, are you sure that's not an original wall?
Me: I'm sure. Welllll....now that you say that...
Greg: I'm not sure, hon. It makes sense that this might've been a little room off the back porch originally, like a 19th-century version of a mudroom.
I get a hammer. WHACK!!
We peer at the hole I've just knocked in the bathroom wall.
Greg: Yep, it's drywall.
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