Fallen Soldier

Good morning!  As promised, here are the pictures of the truly grody closet the water heater lived in for the past how ever many years.  The "fallen soldier" is laying off the front porch and looks to be pretty much drained of water.  I took a picture of the floor and one from the hall standing as far back at the wall will allow so you can see the "whole" space inside that door -- complete with the peek-a-boo plumbing wall.

I think you'll agree that Hunnyman will have a little issue trying to get any range for swinging a hammer when he takes that wall down.  Our most faithful friends, Bob and Sandy are coming up to help us this weekend.  Bob may be able to get around in there a little better.  He doesn't take up as much room as Roger does.  Bob always gets (stuck with) the tight jobs - he's such a trooper.  I suspect we will need to do something under the floor to hold the heater up (ya think?) while we (they) remove the bad parts of the floor.  Oh - I guess that would be ALL of the floor.  Not quite sure how this will happen, but have no fear because the brain trust that is Roger and Bob have always figured out how to make things work out.  It's just better that Sandy and I aren't hovering and putting our two cents in, what with them having hammers and crowbars and other heavy tools of mass destruction.

So, Sandy and I will play Vanna I and II by hauling out the debris, mopping their foreheads and if required, selling them a vowel. (They may need them with the words they will be using).  Or we could just pull weeds or vacuum icky corners or clean the porch.  It's good to have choices.  We work really well together - and I haven't seen her in months.  Fun will be had by all.

BTW - I did cruise around the cotton field last night.  It was really nice.  I took my phone in case a giant rattlesnake bit me or Nessie came up out of the swamp but it was dead (the phone, not Nessie) anyway and the walk was peacefully uneventful.

OK - I'll close for now.  Hugs to you all and thanks for reading.

Big House - first strike

The true first task was removing the collapsing, leaking, molding water heater out of the big house last night!!!  Or I should say Roger got it out, I just mopped up after wards.  You see, it was completely full of water and sinking into the rotting floor.  He couldn't get a hose to attach to the nasty, rusty valve in order to drain the 40+ gallons of water, so he just muscled it up and out, tipped that grody thing down and wheeled it out on an appliance dolly, sloshing and splashing all the way.  That's my man.  We figured 40 gals x 8 lbs per is 320 lbs of water plus the weight of the sediment and the water heater.  By the time it was done, it was too dark for a photo op but I'll try and get one tonight.  Wait till you see the closet it came out of - YUCK!!!

The water heater was the reason we decided to move out while we ruminated on what to do with the big house.  It's a gas water heater and when we noticed it was sinking into the floor and the boards under it were getting white and powdery (mold), we knew it wasn't a good situation.  I was afraid of the gas pigtail starting to leak if the water heater sank and there's just no good ending to that story.  Then when we got the water heater out and discovered the nest of pipes DIRECTLY under it, we would have had one hell of a catastrophy.

This weekend we will start taking down the plumbing wall so we (a term that will be used loosely throughout this adventure, but it's mostly "he") can replace the plumbing that was installed somewhere between 1938 and 1950.  I figure there's a little more than a string's width of water coursing through those 1" pipes -- the rest is occupied by the red, oozy matter. 

The walls are lathe and plaster - oh joy.  There's not even enough room in that "closet" to swing a sledge hammer so I don't know how fast/slow the demo will go on that.  I do know it's not like breaking drywall.  The heater (which is slightly smaller than a Volkswagen) also lives in there with the water heater.  The master bedroom closet is on the backside of the plumbing wall.  Hmmmm.  Maybe the closet will need to get a little smaller.  A nice armoire could suffice in lieu of, right?

The floor is a completely different matter.  Wood with a dirt lining and no crawl space --- oh, and Roger says most of the water lines for the house all run under the water heater.  He will probably have to re-plumb everything.  Notice I did not say 'we' this time.  My friend Lynnie says she wanted to be a plumber, but she's an internationally known fusing and bead artist.  Be still your heart because she will be teaching here at some point, she promises.  Still, I may call on her to come assist on plumbing matters from time to time.  It's always good to have a fall back vocation and she should keep those skills sharp.

Roger has a meeting at work tonight, so I will go back out and take some pics to document the 'before'.  Those 'befores' are going to be really important so we can all be reminded of just how far we've come.

I also hope to take a walk around the cotton fields tonight before it gets dark.  I miss that.  I think we figured the perimeters of two fields is about a mile.

Until later, Gators...

The official Start

It's official - we have started the improvement of the Big House. I've decided to track our progress on a blog, as I told my friend Steve, for a few reasons, the most important of which is to keep us motivated.

We have so many wonderful friends from our former life in Tempe that keep tabs on our progress. It's our hope that with everyone's well wishes and encouragement -- we will reach our ultimate goal sooner rather than later. Oh, and feel free to come up and see us yourself. Bring your work gloves.

FarmHouse Arts wants very much to be a place of laughter, creativity, peace and prosperity for all who get involved. We don't have a grand plan beyond that so we are tackling the obvious. Now, of course to get to where we want to be will involve lots and lots (and lots) of hard work. Here's the shortlist of our opportunity:

1 large brick barn - technically off limits because that's where my Dad keeps his stuff
1 large farm house (in this picture) 3 bdrm 2 bath. I'll go into the history of the place later.
1 small house (not currently livable)
1 - 3 room adobe storage building
1 - large tin barn
7 acres of potential.

I'll give the details of each building as we start to work on it. Some will probably come down, some will be shored up and some we will gut and go from there. This place has some history, for sure. I started a 'To Do' list once last year and got so depressed I had to toss it. As my good friend Cindy says "Baby Steps". OK - Baby steps will do just fine.

So, I'd love your comments and observations.