27 February 2017
Turns out the local council (which has to sign off on the foundation plans in order for our house to be founded on something) isn’t very swift.
I mean, we knew this already. Delightfully, we have been gifted with fresh insight into the ponderous speed of the council.
That is, I really really hope they are pondering, and not just having cups of tea. Because we have a slight issue, which is that the house has arrived, but we are not allowed to ‘found’ it on foundations.
It also turns out that the moving guys, while they did prop up the house enough to hover it a most convenient 5 feet off the ground, did not prop up the house well enough to create any semblance of a mildly flat floor.
On the plus side, walking around in the house is like taking a gentle mountain hike, which has to count for something towards our collective fitness levels.
Mama and papa and I may have had a brief moment (or day) of despair when we walked around our newly adopted house and realised that much of the work (like replacing entire rotten walls and other minor tasks) cannot be undertaken until such time as the house is in fact close to level.
This does make sense to me. Walls, however well-built and straight they may be relative to the current extremely warped position, will of course move and quite possibly create some interesting Picasso-esque lines once the house is ironed out onto some foundations.
However, even though it makes sense, it does trouble me somewhat that I have a limited amount of time to renovate this here orphan house (I haven’t yet mentioned it, but I am leaving on a jet plane on June the 14th, hence the countdown timer), and that we have our hands tied when it comes to doing really helpful things like fixing the roof and replacing those rotten walls and floors.
Sigh.
Still, papa was not to be dissuaded. He led mama and I on a death-defying mission to LEVERAGE AND PROP OUR HOUSE UP in the saggy bits, using an overgrown crow bar and suspicious looking pieces of scrap timber.
It’s quite disconcerting to have an entire house creaking in pain above your head as you wrestle timber into upright positions under the joists.
As there’s nothing we can do to hasten the pondering of the council, we have reconciled ourselves to undertaking the very simple and easy tasks like scraping sanding glueing filling and painting the 44 window sashes.
Meanwhile, our house will hover.
