This Old House: Austin

As I've mentioned here recently, we bought a new house. We closed on it almost exactly a month ago. We haven't moved in yet, despite the beginning of school and the arrival of Trish's "regular" work time with the Fall semester.

Actually, its not a new house. Its a different house from the one we have now that is actually about forty years older. It needs work. Well, "needs" is a bit subjective. Structurally, there is nothing preventing us from moving in. Its in excellent shape, really. But esthetically, it’s a bit of a nightmare. Okay, not a nightmare, more like thpse weird dreams you get after devournig a whole plate of cheese fries with ranch dressing and watching the end of 2001 while sipping stale Heineken. Like the pale pink walls in what will be the living room. Or the pale yellow (I call it p!ss-yellow) paint in the dining area, the too-pink laminate wood in the kitchen, the stained off-white carpet, the…well, you get the idea.

Then there is the garage, which we want to convert into a study/library/office. It's half-converted right now, but with the original car doors in place and no insulation whatsoever. Despite the fact someone ran an AC duct into it, as well as network cable for high-speed internet.

There are some minor actual repairs that do need doing, but they are mostly outside. The point is, we could move in now.

Except we would still want the walls painted, the carpet replaced (mostly with tile), and the garage properly converted. We could do this while living there. We could. With the dogs barking at the workers, and the cats, already traumatized from moving, trying to either make a break for the door (along with the dogs, who would be having a fine old time (aside from the workers) and mostly trying to sniff every molecule of new scent in a three block radius) or trying to hide in the attic. Plus our furniture getting shunted back and forth again and us dodging the dust and carpet nails and tile cement. Hopefully our computers would not get clogged with sawdust or our sinuses with insulation bits.

In short we are envisioning the sort of whole-house work that tends to make your life miserable if you have to live through it. So, since we don't have to we're choosing not to. But the waiting isn't easy, especially for poor Trish, who is still driving an extra 30-45 minutes because we haven't gotten in there yet, or me who has to drive down to pick up Jake at the school there and mow two yards. But we think the wait will be worth it. If we can just get the last bid to arrive and then get these people started.

More to come!