This Damn House

We had such big plans for this house. We bought 3D Home Architect and planned out our new kitchen. We bought every garden book under the sun, and planned out hostas and hedges, flagstone and lilies, and wrought iron benches. We window shopped for custom made Quaker furniture and handwoven oriental rugs.

We couldn't wait to get started on realizing our domiciliary dream.

Then three things happened in the first year or two that pulled the handwoven oriental rug right out from under our naive feet:

- we got pregnant with twins
- the internet bubble burst, sending our finances into a tailspin we are only just pulling out of
- we discovered that we don't actually like house- and yard-work.

So the years pass, and the house is now full-to-bursting with children and half-done projects. We don't so much have a "lawn" as a "[barely] domesticated jungle" that is the eyesore of the neighborhood. Once-white paint is grey and crayon-festooned. Our basement has been declared a Superfund site.

When nightmares descend upon Martha Stewart, it's our house she dreams about.

Fast-forward to the present. Our five-year-long involvement with the Mosaic Commons co-housing group has come to fruition, and the time is nigh for us to leave our erstwhile dream house. But before we can, we have to sell it. In fact, we have to sell it for a lot of money -- if we don't extract every penny's worth, we won't be able to afford our new dream.

And so the project begins. We have about nine months to turn this decrepit pit into the beauty we fell in love with years ago so some other more ambitious soul will want to make it their domiciliary dream. And we have no money and even less time to do the work.

Want to watch while we defy the laws of time and economics and make this happen? (Or fall flat on our faces?)

Anyone reading this?

Just checkin. Not insecure or anything, no no.

So it turns out that, while the world may beat a path to the door of the better mouse trap inventor, it doesn't beat a virtual path to the door of the better blogger. My aspirations of rivaling the nation's most popular blogs, such as Daily Kos or Boing Boing, are not being realized as quickly as they could.

But you...yes, you, sitting there in the back row, you can help, in one or both of the following ways:
1) tell your friends, and neighbors about TDH; link to it from your own blog; offer bribes to people to read it
2) fill out the following marketing poll (be patient while it loads):

In the last 48 hours, the readership of my modest blog has quintupled.

I'm guessing I was linked to by somewhere. *beam*

Where are you all coming from? (And please, pull up a chair, have a cup of tea and stay for a while. I hope you don't mind if I polish this bit of chrome while we chat. No rest for the weary and all that...)

BTW, I had been wanting to mention that I also monitor the This Damn House RSS feed on Livejournal, and I will respond to comments over there. But if there's anywhere else that's syndicating the blog, I don't know about it and won't see any comments.

Having spent yesterday afternoon at a labor union event, listening to the evils of exploitive employment practices, I'm feeling a bit defensive. So we, the management here at TDH, would like to take a moment to explain ourselves.

While it is true that we hire non-union workers to do stoop labor at below minimum wage, we think this is more than compensated for by the fact that

• All our employees are documented US citizens
  
• Compensation includes room, board, clothing, tuition, daycare and allowance
  
• We offer complete health coverage with no premiums, deductibles or co-pays, including both traditional care and alternative therapies (such as boo-boo kisses)
  
• Our workers are never asked to work more than 40 hours per week, including homework, but still qualify for "full-time" status
  
• We have a very generous benefits package, including holidays; summer, winter, fall and spring vacations; company provided cars (choice of Matchbox or Hot Wheels) and/or bicycles; unlimited sick days; and a generous toy budget
  
• Worker safety and cleanliness are our top priorities. All safety procedures are followed rigorously and and we have a 0% rate of major injury
  
• TDH promises unparalleled job security; in our 10 year history, we have never let an employee go
  
• Company culture provides for excellent working conditions, gentle discipline, unconditional love, and a "break room" with a full complement of video games
  

I took a bit of a hiatus (3 months!) from blogging. Er...did anyone notice?

My excuses are a variety of personal and medical issues which slowed down progress on The Project, and a broken camera which interfered with project documentation. Plus about a month ago I noticed that I needed to have our house on the market, like, yesterday, and a general state of complete and utter panic overtook me.

The panic has helped motivated me to do a ton of little but much needed tasks...painting hallways, packing up excess furniture, etc.

But what I needed to kick my butt back into blogging gear was a major project to post about.

So, for your reading pleasure, I spent the better part of the last three days re-tiling our main bathroom. This involved detaching and removing the toilet and vanity, tearing out the existing tile, ripping up the water-damaged sub-floor, laying new cement back-board sub-floor, and the tiling itself.

I have a whole host of new "how not to"s to post soon. In the meantime, here is the bathroom we've been living with for the past 3 months. Note in particular the lovely duct-taped plastic sheeting:

Now we are living with this. Note in particular the lovely tile on top of which there's no toilet or sink. Form over function, baby, form over function: