It is daunting being a homeowner. It is further daunting still being a homeowner of a 150 year old house. And it is most daunting of all being a landlord to an apartment which is half of a 150 year old house.
Actually, most of that isn't true. Because mostly, I just ignore the seventeen million things around my house that need fixing that I will never get around to. Or least not until the kids are in college. Which is why we've had a closet door collecting dust in our garage for 7 years, and a porch in need of refinishing for 4 years, and the garage window that's been dangling precipitiously out of it's frame for...well, ever since we moved in.
But I have tenants, and they, rightly so, do not have to ignore what is wrong with their/my house.
So, it was pointed out to me that it might be slightly inconvenient to have a thermostat located in one's bedroom when two other occupants of the same apartment might need to tip the heat up a bit at 3 or 4 in the (cold New England) morning. And so that was how I came to add 'relocate a thermostat to opposite side of wall' to my skill set.
I was all ready to hand the job over to the plumber, but the fact that the plumber usually tak
es several months to make it over here (by which time it will presumably not be winter), combined with some advice I got about how EASY it would be for me to do myself, led me to give it a shot. No problem, this person said, all you gotta do is drill a hole in the other side of the wall, and pull the wires through. But after I got through taking off all the thermostat-y parts, this is what I had to contend with.
It looked sorta like the box for an outlet or a light switch, but it wasn't (I don't think!), and it had me very confused. Where were the tiny, easy to maniuplate, color-coded wires I was told to expect? This all looked so...menacing. I was filled with trepedation...but after 10 minutes of mumbling to myself (and realizing that if I gave up now, I'd still have to put everything back together again AND pay the plumber to do it the right way), I decided to ditch the box, pull the wires through, set everything up again, and hope for the best. And it worked! I think! And I feel just the teensiest bit proud of myself, and just the tiniest bit less resentful of my wretched old house.
And what did my daughter tell me this evening, after my small but significant handywoman victory? That she wants to be a cheerleader. And when can she have a credit card.*
*Please blame the book 'The Accidental Cheerleader' for these comments. And please note that I refused to BUY this book from the Scholastic flyer sent home from school, but the darn thing showed up at a recent book swap and I missed my chance to make it disappear.
