Monday, February 10, 2014

Home, Sweet, Broken-Down Home

Home ownership can be a big pain in the neck.

Home ownership with a gaggle of children makes me want to live in a shack with nothing of value.

Or at least make them live in a shack in the backyard, so I can live in a house that has a couch with intact springs.

Alas, the "shack" is full of chickens, so in the house the children must stay.  Add their destructive selves to the normal home repairs all home owners have to deal with, and you will find a house with a need-to-do list the length of a football field.

Would you like some examples?

That was a rhetorical question.  All photos were taken this morning.  I would not suggest starting your day by taking inventory of all the broken things in your home.  It is a tad depressing.

1.  This queen-sized bedroom set was purchased when we first married.  It is broken, not because of the wild, nighttime escapades of COW and me, but because of our children who like to come into our bed on weekend mornings and "sleep" with us.  When they were little, it was more of a "climb all over Mommy and Daddy, making sure to step on their heads, pull their hair, and thrust a knee into their guts while getting comfortable and in a spot far away from the touch of any sibling" than it was a "sleep".  So far, no one's head has been punctured by the nails jutting out.  I guess crossing your fingers actually works.



2.  The boys were playing basketball in the house.



3.  A child in time-out decided he didn't like the wallpaper.



4.  All three of the light bulbs in the porch light are out, and we are unable to replace them until the Polar Vortex goes back to the tundra from which it came.  Changing the bulbs means COW has to climb a 30-ft. ladder, which is a tad too dangerous to do in the ice and wind and cold.  With the lack of light, I have become quite adept at pretending I'm blind as I navigate the pitch-black upstairs and attend to children who lost their blankies in their sleep.  Or had a nightmare about a snake in his bed.  Or needs zipped back into his suitcase.

See that door up there?  The light normally shines through there to illuminate the landings outside the kids' doors.

5.  Apparently, the best way to dry one's hands after washing is to grab onto the towel and swing from the towel bar.



6.   The boys found the confiscated basketball and played basketball in the house.



7.   A child walking up the stairs saw a teeny, tiny bit of wallpaper had begun to peel off and thought he should remove it.



8.  The sensors on the back of the van don't work in the middle of a monsoon-like storm, so the driver of the van, returning from the store with a trunk-load of groceries, didn't know she was too close to the porch steps until she heard and felt the crunch.



9.  Seems children can't hear or remember their mother's plea to, "GET OFF THE RAILING!!!!".



10.  When the boys couldn't find the confiscated basketball, they chose to play soccer in the house instead.



This partial tour of our should-be shack is brought to you by Stasha's Monday Listicles, where the topic for today is "10 Things in Your House Which Need to Be Fixed".  I'm the one who suggested it in a moment of weakness as I sat and looked at our unfinished game room and the living room's missing fireplace under the mantel.

What sorts of things are on your "Fix Someday" list?  Please tell me you have a "Fix Someday" list of things to do, and some of those things have been on the list for over a year or two.  Lie if you must.

Have a lovely day!

44 comments:

  1. You're bolder than me to put on public display the repair jobs needing attention. I just left things to the imagination in hopes to escape some of the embarrassment. lol Great list and fun prompt! BTW, I'm now following you & it was a joy to meet you via the Monday Listicles hop! One more thing...WOW, you have 6-kids? That's amazing! How is it that you're not insane yet? I have 3 and have been put in a straight jacket a number of times, already. lol

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    1. Hahaha! It wasn't until after I published this that I had the thought, "What if I'm the only one who does this? I could simply be proving that we are lazy bums!"
      Glad you had fun with it, and thank you for joining in!
      I don't remember every writing that I was sane. :)

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  2. A couple of weeks ago we replace our garage door and this week we'll be replacing our fence. So we do projects as they come along. Expensive but necessary, and yes it can be a pain in the neck.

    Have a fabulous day. ☺

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    1. We have plans for most of these to be taken care of. All the windows will be taken care of by the guy who watches the animals for us when we go out of town. He's been fighting cancer, but just mentioned the last time I spoke with him that he is feeling better and wants to get out here to fix them as soon as he's allowed.
      Seems for every thing we fix, two more get broken.

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  3. I LOVE IT!!!! Just love it...shows that you have a house full of happy kids and memories...even though it is annoying, LOL

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    1. I'm glad! Whew. I'm glad that's what these things tell you. For a minute there, I was wondering if I was just telling everyone that we're lazy. :)

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  4. Love this! And for the record, those towel bars are pieces of sh&*. We have one just like that in our house, and it has never stayed together, even with minimal use.

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    1. Thanks! So...COW will be pulling out the duct tape is what you're telling me. He's already fixed it once. I'm going to have to agree with you.

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  5. I am not up for being so depressed; even though I know there are at least 10 things in my house which need to be fixed, I shall opt to refrain from this link-up...thanks for sharing, though! :)

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  6. well, let's see... 5 years ago, my husband decided to refinish all the wood windows in the house, they look amazing, however they still lack locks and pulls so everytime I need to open a window it's a few choice words on just how good they look but don't function like they're suppose to.. that can be outdown by the time he decided to re-tile the bathroom floor (12 yrs ago), again, nice job but the metal strip going from the bathroom to the hall (which was purchased with the tile) is still sitting in my closet, leaning up against the wall. I asked him about that strip not long ago, his reply was "well now the tile needs to be done again so there's no point in installing it now".. Lord help me, I hope the toilet gets put back in before he stops this new project.

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    1. Hahaha!! This sounds a lot like a dear friend of mine who had a husband who loved to start projects. :) Good luck getting that toilet back.

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  7. Wow, lots of ball play in your house :-) Luckily, we don't have wallpaper, so the girls resort to wall art :-)

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    1. Yes, yes there is. Despite my best efforts. When they were little, I had plenty of great balls that wouldn't break anything. Over the years, people started giving them "indoor" basketball hoops and balls. I don't like those people anymore. :)
      Yeah, we have wall art on our wallpaper. Compared to the other things, the wall art just wasn't big enough to make the list.

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  8. Amazingly, while I was gone Saturday at a church function; my husband got the paint out and was touching up areas of nicks and dings! This has been a long time in coming. I could've done it, too, I know but he has a knack at it.

    Decided not to participate in listicles this week :(...am obsessing over another post topic...hoping to publish later this week.

    This house looks amazing despite the busted windows and peeling wallpaper :)! It has such character!

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    1. Yay productive husband!!! I love it when COW surprises me with a finished project.

      Can't wait to see what has you in its clutches.

      It is a great house. It was built in 1866 and has all sorts of interesting details. I'll be happy to give you a tour whenever you're in the area!

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  9. lol @ "so in the house the children must stay. "

    tears coming out of my eyes @ "A child in time-out decided he didn't like the wallpaper."

    Ohhhh - I completely forgot about my broken towel rack in the master bathroom. Its looks deceive...pull a towel too quickly, and one end and the bar come tumbling down.

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    1. I'm glad you enjoyed it! When we're past the initial shock of something breaking, I try my darndest to see the humor.

      Good thing it's in the master bath, so you don't need a sign to warn the guests. :)

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  10. Haha this is quite humorous for a list of house repairs! I was smiling more than once. I think this is a kinda fun challenge. I might try it myself sometime soon! Goodness knows our list is endless... Anyhow, your house looks lovely, though it may need a repair here or there!

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    1. Give it a go, if for no other reason than to make me feel like I'm not alone. :)

      When a house is almost 150 years old, there's bound to be lots of repairs to be done. Especially when 5 boys live in it.

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  11. Boys, balls and windows do not mix, do they? Oh my!

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    1. Not in any way, shape, or form. I'd board them up if I could handle not seeing the sunshine.

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  12. Okay, now I don't feel so bad cuz (at the moment) we don't have a broken window! We have several holes-in-walls, lots of scrapes on wood (our front door looks like a ram tried to get in with his horns), stains on carpet, dirt smudges on walls...yeah. destruction elves.
    and I'm not even mentioning the exploded kitchen tile from some *unknown* water coming onto our property from somewhere yet to be determined. Our house is sinking in one area due to soil erosion from water. But we have no leak. It's mother nature.

    NEAT.

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    1. DID a ram try to get in your front door?
      Check, check, check. They just weren't big enough to make the list.
      Oooh, that sinking thing doesn't sound very good. What can you do about such a situation?

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  13. OK, I actually thought about doing this post because as far as I'm concerned, we have the worst list of thing that need to be done. I was wrong. A poorly-spackled and not yet sanded hole in the upstairs hallway wall is no competition for your list! I couldn't decide if I should laugh with you or cry with you - but I have to tell you I did laugh all the way through this.

    We had carpet that was completely cat-pee demolished until the Hub and the Brother-in-Law removed it and laid vinyl planking in that basement room. And how are we so stupid that we didn't know the kitties had been peeing up a storm on the carpet down there, you ask? We have no idea either. We also had a huge hole in the upstairs hallway wall where someone tripped and fell into it. The Hub fixed it - spackled it, that is. Still has to sand it and paint. But hey, no hole. Just looks like a big old lumpy mess of dried spackle. That's been there for seventeen and a half months. And we have at least one light bulb burned out in every fixture in the hallways. How sad are we?

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    1. Oh, no, an almost fixed hole isn't even in the same ballpark as the destruction in our home.

      From the looks of the other lists I read, the light bulb thing is a universal problem. Have not heard of many badly spackled and unpainted holes in the wall, though. :)

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  14. Active kids make many things like this...

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  15. if you were to visit our house…and the light was just right, you might look down our hallway and remark, 'oh! how interesting! you were trying to get sheetrock to show that un-even texture of stucco!'
    …Ola (our first dog), was very active (and hungry) as a puppy. my attempts to patch the walls that she chewed (in the course of a boring afternoon when the humans were at work) still show, as does the wood filler repairs* to the wooden railing at the top of the living room stairs.


    *''looks exactly like wood" provided the wood in a slightly off white color with the texture of playdough

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    1. Hahahaha!! Clark, you crack me up (especially the asterisk part). I remember you talking fondly of Ola. I can't believe she would do such things to your house.

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  16. What a clever post!! I know the repairs are annoying, and yes, depressing to think about, but some of them would be slightly endearing to remember once the kiddos are all grown and gone. They might illicit more of an 'awwwww' instead of a 'grrrrrrr'.....later. Maybe. :)

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    1. Thanks! So funny that you would say this! I once heard a woman talk about her favorite table. When it was brand-new, one of her kids took a fork and pounded the tines into the table over and over and over again. She was so angry when he did it, but now, she loves those marks reminding her about the days when her kids were little.
      I'm trying to keep this in mind. Thank you for the reminder. :)

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  17. I...I...I just can't. It's way too early to cry!! :(

    If it makes you feel any better...our ensuite shower has been torn apart for going on 3 years!!! We moved to the main bathroom. Looks like we'll just keep moving bathrooms until we run out of showers. Haha!

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    1. You can't...read my post because you'll feel sorry for me...or...you can't take photos of all the things in your house which need fixed?

      It makes me feel so, so much better. Thank you.

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  18. this is part of why I now live in an apartment. House repairs are often overwhelming even with only one child and several animals.now my largest repairs are really have a more personal and organic nature...

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    1. I always knew you were smart. A friend of ours moved back into an apartment after living in his own house. He just got tired of the upkeep.
      Yes, you have plenty of other repairs to worry about without worrying about a house.

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  19. This was funny, though I don’t suppose most of them seemed that way to you at the time. I smiled in recognition at a few - when our elder daughter was a baby we had a pretty border that was just the right height for her to pull at from her cot (do you call it a crib - those baby beds with bars, but not the tiny ones?) So anyway, the border has neat row of rips all along the bottom.

    This post reminds me, we are hoping to move house soon, so are busy fixing what needs fixing, and last night I dreamed that people came to look round and the house was far from ready! Eek, maybe it’s a signal to get on with it!

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    1. Yes, it is a crib. I had forgotten, one of our kids did the same thing at our old house! Chair rails and baby cribs are not a good combination, it seems.

      Funny how we scurry around fixing things when we are trying to move instead of when we are living there and could actually enjoy the finished projects.

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  20. OH MY GOSH! We were JUST talking the other day about how I plan to gut the entire upstairs when the boys move out--new carpet, paint, doors and FLOOR IN BATHROOM where they've undoubtedly rotted out the subflooring with their poor aim.
    We never finished the basement because they would just trash it anyway, that's my reasoning.

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    1. I really wish someone would explain to me how they miss the mark every single time. How hard is it to hit that toilet bowl???
      From that tour you posted a while back, your house looks lovely. Of course, you didn't show us the upstairs... :)

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  21. Lol! Funny and oh can I relate! Two years ago we moved and everything in the house was brand spanking new...until one of my dogs found a string on my carpeted stairway and decided to pull said string and unraveled the carpet.. One day after we moved in. I got one day of "perfection" until reality slapped me in the face. Of course it all went downhill from there...I don't even recognize the place. Especially my daughter's room. But that's okay since I don't go in there anymore ;)


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    1. Oh, that almost made me cry for you. ONE DAY?!?! We had the kitchen remodeled one year ago, and I was a crazy woman, protecting my pretty, perfect kitchen from the hands of little people.

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  22. First of your home is beautiful. I feel like I must apologize but I laughed so hard reading your list. You are such a witty writer. Thanks for this suggestion, fun Listicles. May I suggest figure scaring for the boys ;)

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  23. Oh, my gosh!!! I am so glad that my house is not the only one like this. Sometimes I feel like we are raising the most destructive children on the planet! Now I know we must just be raising children! LOL

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Thank you for taking the time to tell me what you're thinking!