The Sounds and Smells of Living

It's February 7, 2020. I've been working on this house for 113 days. During that time, I've done my laundry at a laundromat twice and my mom's once while I was in Minnesota for Christmas. I had to go to T.J. Max once to restock on underwear. I've been eating cold leftovers off paper plates and drinking my coffee out of a paper cup. In the past week, the Fort has seen some pretty significant progress towards what most people consider normal living and I have to be honest, hearing the clothes dryer and dishwasher running is incredibly comforting. #urbancamping 

This morning I'm drinking my coffee out of my favorite coffee mug. I've been dragging this thing around with me for almost two decades. It was a gift from a friend when I was getting into fly fishing and has seen the cupboards of a camper, the White House in Wolf Creek, four other rental homes, and now two remodels. 

Nachos. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal but one of my favorite things growing up was placing a bunch of tortilla chips strategically on a plate and smothering them in cheese and salsa. One minute in the microwave and sheer bliss. I tested my microwave out the other day. Yum--mie!

Go without laundry machines for a couple months and tote your dirty clothes to a scummy laundromat and you will appreciate the gift Alva J. Fisher gave to us in 1908; the electric washing machine. I remember my grandmother doing laundry on an old crank clothes washer in the kitchen in the early 70's. That's crazy to think of now as we sit on our phones ordering take-out or turning our heat up in our homes 15 minutes before we arrive. Speaking of which, I'm still working out my heating situation.

As you might remember, my free-standing gas heater broke down a couple weeks ago. I've had a few HVAC guys out to suggest remedies for this. As a temporary solution, I installed a couple Heat Storm inferred electric wall heaters. They do okay but when it's really cold, I can't get the temperature in my living room above 60 degrees so it's not a long-term solution by any means.

So what are my options? A forced air system would be ultra-reliable and super efficient. I could also add AC in the future. It would take installing an entire duct system in the crawl-space of the house. The cost is $7,200. That's not in the budget. I could go with what I had but I would need to fix the chimney if I choose to vent a free standing gas heater out it. It's not so reliable and not very efficient plus, it's a single stage gas burner and you risk building up high levels of carbon monoxide. (Here's the thing I learned about CO. Just because your detector doesn't go off doesn't mean you're not at risk. CO can setting in spots in high concentration and your detector may not even detect it.) That would probably cost about $1,500. The last option would be to place a couple gas burning, direct vent, Rinnai wall furnaces at both ends of the house. They are pretty efficient and safe and about half the cost of the forced air. The problem is, they can't be converted to AC so if I wanted to add that, it would be another big cost.

When you go without, you really learn to appreciate the tech advances we have enjoyed in the last century. Running water, heat, a toilet, laundry...a microwave. I remember when we got our first microwave in the early eighties. How crazy is that? And now, I can warm up my soup again!

Anyway, here's a sneak peak of what the kitchen looks like. I should be completely done with it in the next few days. All that's left is the back splash, then a little R&R from the dust and wet paint and mud.

Keep 'em where they live...