house

Everyone talks about how you should buy a house, a house is the biggest and best investment you'll ever make, etc etc... Of course, there's caveats and asterix and footnotes and exceptions to every one of those "house" cliches. Like, how you should buy a house...if you plan on staying in the same neighborhood, city, or state for the next 10 years, or if you plan on having the same job with regular pay increases or advancement, or guarantee that you will have a series of consecutively higher paying jobs, etc. Yes, a house is more like a marriage than a purchase; don't do it if you only plan on being around a couple years. Or maybe a house is more like a dog; if you do get one, make sure that the amount of time you have for it is more than the amount of time it actually needs. And of course, just as with a marriage or a dog, make sure you are getting a house for the right reason! (and that everyone who is getting the house agrees on what that reason is, same as married and getting a dog).

Well, last week I actually started a finished my first real house project since Felix was born, I think. I'm not counting fixing the kitchen sink because my dad did that. Last week I replaced the seal around our tub which was poorly done in the first place and was pretty much coming off in all the places where you'd wish it wouldn't. In finally pulling out the old nasty (and wrong sized) caulk-strip, I discovered that water was not seeping under the tiles and into the void between the walls and int othe drywall of my kitchen ceiling. No, the edge of the tub behind the tile actually has a lip. Instead the water that pools on the tub's ledge (due probably to a combination of the half-assery of the "remodel" job they did putting the tub in crooked and the fact that this 100 year old house is probably shifting on its foundation and what may have been kinda sorta level before is now just outta whack)and just soaks into the caulk and makes it mushy. And nasty funky stuff likes to grow there. So, in pulling out the bad, I discovered a little good. AND I replaced it all with a double-strength application of extra wide caulk strips that are also bright and shiny white and will rewmain so if we are methodical about trying to squeegy the water off of them after showers or baths (Felix likes to splash).