Away Entropy!

Away, Entropy! is a new series of articles that deal with the joy and frustration of improving and maintaining an old house.

Part of the joy of living in Warren is the unfussy way we deal with our history. Buildings from the 1700s exist side by side with newer houses. None of the streets give me that that heavy-handed, you are in a historic area please keep your voice down and think about churning butter vibe some of our nation’s older towns have. Some of our houses even have <gasp> chipped paint.

This is an actual historic building

However, and much to my dismay, there is a difference between historic and old. The armory is historic. My house is old. When I bought my four bedroom cape cod in 2005 and made the epic move from Bristol to Warren, it would be kind to say I didn’t know anything about home repair. And I didn’t care either.  When I bought my house I simply didn’t have the knowledge to evaluate whether it would be high maintenance or not. Turns out, it was. Since the day I moved in, I have spent every waking hour keeping the house upright. They say there are no atheists in foxholes, and by the same token there was no way I could survive in my house without becoming some kind of hack handyman. If I had to pay for every emergency repair I’ve done over the last six years, I would be broke and living in one of the many giant boxes that came with my replacement heaters and refrigerators.

Since 2005 I have, among other things: built a wall to separate a large room,

This is not a historic house.

removed carpeting,  sanded and polyurethaned wood floors, painted wood paneling, tiled two floors, replaced toilets, replaced just parts of toilets, replaced gutters, replaced stop valves, repaired vinyl siding, laid down new wood floors, replaced countertop and replaced sink fixtures. I’m not bragging here; I have to stress that at no time did I really know what I was doing. I don’t have a contractor uncle that can come over and tear a wall down. Most of my learning consisted of asking coworkers and family for advice, reading books and internet forums, wandering through home depot like a child lost at the mall, and just plain trying to figure things out in my head. If you turn a pipe and water starts spraying out, turn the pipe back the other way. I have no more lucid advice for you than that.

That’s what I’d like this column to be: the diary of a mind thinking on the fly, trying to repair a house that has charm but just does not want to cooperate. There’s still a lot of work to be done over here, and I hope you’ll get a kick out of seeing it in progress. If you own an older home in Warren, I’m sure you can relate. At it’s best, I’d like this column to capture the moment when the mouse (me) starts to smell the cheese and makes a bee-line for that last stretch of the maze. That epiphany moment when I realize, hey, I can actually do this. My next project, and the first I’ll write about, is to turn this mess:

 

into a respectful garage front. My only plan at first was to remove the old, sagging piece of gutter and replace it with something clean and new. However, in this case the sagging originated from rotted wood. An old house always has at least one secret waiting for you. But I think I have a plan for dealing with it. Entropy never dies, but we can keep it at arm’s length.