who needs an alarm when you have a 100 year old house?
so…the guy that used to own our house before us was a BIG guy.
Now, I’m a big guy, but this guy was years of ignoring doctor’s orders big; this guy was break-my-house BIG!
you see, at some point, our house settled, and started to lean to “that” side (as opposed to “this” side — sorry to get all technical on your ass so early in the morning but that’s just how I roll). I think all of the extra weight over the years took its toll, especially once they jacked up the house so it leans to neither “this” nor “that” side:
the floor boards creak with the sound of a mighty redwood snapping in half!
There is no way to walk up to the second floor without announcing yourself — Erika likes to think of it as a motion detector — and the same holds true for the hallway between our bedroom and the bathroom.
There is one board that is the biggest offender — did I forget to mention that the hallway is carpetted? yeah, blue shag between the toes — and it sounds like Mr. Big might have actually fractured the hardwood floor here. The board is right in front of the right-side door jamb for Sammy’s room…
…are you starting to see where this is all going? No? Go get some coffee…might as well be awake like the rest of us…
The pull of the broken floor board makes the door pop a little bit, kind of like the sound of the paint on the door sticking to the jamb on a humid day, only magnified by the usually ungodly early hour that we’re padding down the hall.
Sammy has taken to waking up and then sitting up in his crib — a very normal milestone. The problem is he waits for one of us to come and get him…by waiting until one of us walks by his room, and then crying. At first, I thought the kid had x-ray vision, but then I realized that the popping sound actually sounds like we’re opening the door.
Well, I told you all of that to tell you he “trapped” me this morning at 4:45.
He was still up at 5:15, with Erika…sorry honey!
November 30th, 2006 at 10:53 am
I know what you mean with the old house. Mine is 70 years old and every room has settled to the middle. Could never play with marbles becuase they’d all just roll to the middle.
November 30th, 2006 at 7:30 pm
I do feel your pain. Living with the creaks and doors that don’t close have become a way of life for me … which is so different from my professional life where I need everything plumb, level, and straight.
The thing that bothers me most about my 99-year-old house is the fact that there are no outlets on the exterior walls. It will be a chore to put them there because the foundation is 739 feet thick and the basement has a lath-and-plaster finished ceiling.