Well. First weekend as homeowners, and first crisis.
We had A LOT of rain over the last few days and the ground is still pretty frozen. We didn't really think anything of it, until we glanced out the window.... to see water coming up out of the lid to our septic tank.
Thankfully that water was clear, but it was running like a bubbler! Then we had the bright idea to poke our heads down into the crawl space beneath the house and, lo and behold, a foot of dirty water was staring at us.
After some walking around, splashing and mud- we came to the general conclusion that A) living on an incline is going to be problematic and B) something needed to be done. Very basic channels were made with feet and sticks (thanks Carrie!), and we headed off to lunch and brainstorm.
Basically we decided the following:
1. The amount of water running from the property across the road added to the snow melting on our property was enough to overwhelm the leach field. It was backing up (the septic inspection we had showed that the field was in very good shape) into the tank (which is mostly empty, as no one has been living there). All the rain and groundwater was just pushing up against the lid and bubbling out.
2. We have no idea where the water from under the house came from. It's not a full basement, so it's likely that it's the same runoff problem, but taking a different path.
3. We should probably get a sump pump, and also dig a real ditch to divert the water from over the leach field.
So, off to Home Depot we went (I feel like I should just start signing over our paychecks to them...). One shovel, a sump pump and some tubing later, we were back home. Of course, when we looked down in the crawl space again, all the water was gone! Ok- not ALL of it, but we went from about 10" to 4". We decided to keep the pump and set it up anyway. It just seems safer. We don't have it running yet, but we will.
Then Carrie went out to play in the mud while I went back to painting trim. About 20 minutes and some fun with a shovel later, she came back in. The water was now running adjacent to our leach field instead of into it. We're probably going to need to have a chat with the folks who live behind us, because we don't want to flood their property either. I'm hoping for some good old fashioned neighborhood cooperation. We'll see.
Anyway. We got less done than we'd have liked to today, but at least we got our first major crisis out of the way. Only marginal panic. The yard was even starting to look less marshy when we left!
Monday, March 31, 2014
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Holy crap, we own a house!
I think in the back of our minds, we never really thought we'd get to this point. Owning a house was always the plan, of course- but this process took so long it began to feel like we were going to live forever in limbo!
Today, it finally happened. We closed on our very first home. It needs some work...
Still, it was amazing (and annoying- man do you have to sign a lot of paper)! It was joyous! We finished the signing, stopped at Home Depot and rushed over to spend the afternoon prettying up our new space...
... and then we started to notice the things we hadn't before. Nothing terrible, nothing life altering- just.. wow.. these projects are going to add up.
Our first fun discovery was that the seller had let the propane for the furnace run out. Thankfully there are no frozen pipes (and the water heater is electric), but we're still in the grips of winter here in New England, and it was COLD in there. We set up our account with the propane company pronto. Hopefully they'll deliver before the week is out.. it's a good thing we're not moving right in! We really wanted to be there though, so we decided to brave the cold for a few hours anyway to get some painting and poking around done.
The house has some major renovations being done by a contractor- when you get a rehab loan, anything covered by the loan has to be done by a licensed contractor. So, the bathroom rehab and some of the flooring will NOT be our problem to tackle- which is probably good, as there is plenty of small stuff!
Turns out, on top of the usual painting, beautifying and accessorizing, we'll also be learning about putting up trim (someone let dogs chew on the door frames), hanging doors (someone let dogs chew on the doors), fixing windows (hmmm... what a cute little porthole window.. wait.. why doesn't this close?), removing wallpaper (how did I not notice how incredibly ugly that is?) and cleaning stains out of carpet (please don't tell me what that was).
All those fun things (and probably more) are going to be dumped right into the mix with our mostly DIY kitchen redo (no, I am not going to install my own countertops, or run pipes for our appliances- we draw a line at things we don't know how to do and can't afford to get wrong), closet makeovers, painting projects, DIY furniture projects and the giant project of making the outside of this little house something someone would actually want to look at!
So: this is our little corner of the internet, where we're going to chronicle the projects as we go. Some will be bigger (time to read up on tiling a backsplash and painting cabinets) and some will be smaller (our soon to be adorable book loft), but they'll all be here for you to see, if you're so inclined. We aim to amuse and entertain.
Today, it finally happened. We closed on our very first home. It needs some work...
Still, it was amazing (and annoying- man do you have to sign a lot of paper)! It was joyous! We finished the signing, stopped at Home Depot and rushed over to spend the afternoon prettying up our new space...
... and then we started to notice the things we hadn't before. Nothing terrible, nothing life altering- just.. wow.. these projects are going to add up.
Our first fun discovery was that the seller had let the propane for the furnace run out. Thankfully there are no frozen pipes (and the water heater is electric), but we're still in the grips of winter here in New England, and it was COLD in there. We set up our account with the propane company pronto. Hopefully they'll deliver before the week is out.. it's a good thing we're not moving right in! We really wanted to be there though, so we decided to brave the cold for a few hours anyway to get some painting and poking around done.
The house has some major renovations being done by a contractor- when you get a rehab loan, anything covered by the loan has to be done by a licensed contractor. So, the bathroom rehab and some of the flooring will NOT be our problem to tackle- which is probably good, as there is plenty of small stuff!
Turns out, on top of the usual painting, beautifying and accessorizing, we'll also be learning about putting up trim (someone let dogs chew on the door frames), hanging doors (someone let dogs chew on the doors), fixing windows (hmmm... what a cute little porthole window.. wait.. why doesn't this close?), removing wallpaper (how did I not notice how incredibly ugly that is?) and cleaning stains out of carpet (please don't tell me what that was).
All those fun things (and probably more) are going to be dumped right into the mix with our mostly DIY kitchen redo (no, I am not going to install my own countertops, or run pipes for our appliances- we draw a line at things we don't know how to do and can't afford to get wrong), closet makeovers, painting projects, DIY furniture projects and the giant project of making the outside of this little house something someone would actually want to look at!
So: this is our little corner of the internet, where we're going to chronicle the projects as we go. Some will be bigger (time to read up on tiling a backsplash and painting cabinets) and some will be smaller (our soon to be adorable book loft), but they'll all be here for you to see, if you're so inclined. We aim to amuse and entertain.
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