Monday, Febuary 28, 2011 AM

It's been several days sinse I've posted.  I said in my intro that I lead an exciting life, but it's also busy with mundane things.
Steve and I are buying another house!  We're not moving, but this house is very tempting.
It's 11 rooms and two baths.  It's the old Grainger County News building, and it's pretty old, at that.
The original part of the structure is solid, and was built as a mill, with heavy, solid beams, hardwood floors, lathe and plaster walls/ceilings, and HUGE rooms.  The windows are the size of doors in other houses, the stairs are four feet wide, and the doors are six panel wood.
There are two sun rooms, with glass blocks in the rear, and large windows on the sides.  The one that's downstairs has a bathroom in the rear.  The upstairs bath is in one of the old bed rooms, is huge, and has a huge marble bath tub in it.
The whole place needs a LOT of work, but the price was right.
Dwight Bull and his son, David (who is addicted to drugs) did a lot of work on the house several years ago, and they used some of the most curious and poor construction methods I've ever seen.
They had poured a concrete porch over a wood-floored porch in front of the house, built the back porch roof so low that a six-foot tall man has to lower his head to walk out of it, installed the floor of the back porch over another old, rotted floor, installed wall plugs wired with extension cords that run through a wall and are plugged to an outlet in another room, installed light fixtures which are on pull cords, left holes in the outside walls (LARGE holes), and layed paving brick over the hardwood floors in the living room around the fireplace.
The most horrifing 're-muddle' of all is that they installed the drains of the bath tubs and sinks to drain straight down and expel under the floors onto the ground.  It's little wonder that the place was impossible to heat, and always smelled like a cat box.
All these things can be corrected, but will take a lot of work.
The last tennants moved out leaving behind a terrible mess of personal garbage, dishes, food (now spoiled), liquor bottles, beer cans, and general junk.  They took all the furniture and window dressings.  It's hard telling what those things might have looked like.
We've worked on the grounds, the basement, and the living quarters.  When I say worked, I mean WORKED!  It's been exhausting but somewhat rewarding.  I'm not 'shouting happy' about the exhausting.
It's going to be a great house when we're done.
I think the 'real' work begins tomorrow, when Bobby Curl comes to start construction work.
Get ready for a wild ride!
More later.
You all pray for me.