So, we’re finally in our new house. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me, despite the huge mountains of boxes left to unpack and daunting number of rooms left to be painted. Don’t get me wrong – I love the in-laws (with whom we’ve been living for the last two months) and everything. It’s just nice to have our own space again, be able to cook in my own kitchen, actually live in the building on which we’re making large mortgage payments.
In the last couple of months, we’ve had lots of work done on the house. Hardwood floors refinished, electric and plumbing in the basement gutted, we repainted the upstairs ourselves with lots of help from Joe’s dad, recarpeted, ripped out a built-in and put in new trim in the master bedroom. I could go on.
One of the things we hadn’t been planning to do right away was replace the washer and dryer. Sure, they were old and ugly, but the old people had been using them – so they would work for us at least till the renovation dust settled. Wrong. The plumbers pointed out that the dryer was very very old, that it’s gas and uses a pilot light which could easily ignite lint that tends to collect under dryers, and poof suddenly we would have Kentucky Fried House. Then, I tried to do a load of laundry in the washer and we found out that the lid was warped or the switch was screwed up so it only works when you stick a large, heavy object on the lid. (In our case, it was a big bag of concrete that the plumber’s helper was carrying – I think it scared the crap out of him when the washer suddenly started its spin cycle!) That sealed it. New matching set. I was not-very-secretly happy that I now had an excuse to get a fancy new matching set – and thrilled to discover that a front-loading washer set was within the budget I had improvised.
So, today they finally arrived. I greeted the delivery guys at 8 a.m., called our plumber, whom I now know on a first-name basis (Steve), and feels free to bring his toddler along to play with my toddler while he does his work. He agreed to come over later in the afternoon to hook up appliances, which for whatever reason, the appliance delivery people won’t do. I go about my day – start dinner in the crock pot, take down and burn the ancient curtains in the living room, unpack a few more boxes. Steve and his toddler show up to do their respective things, and as I’m showing him what needs done.
We’re down in the basement, and he says “It smells like sewer gas down here. I’m going to have to check this out.” Now, I panicked for about half a second, but was glad to know that my favorite plumber was on top of the job. I sniff (I have a notoriously bad sense of smell) and I do notice an odor that could be sewer gas. Then, the neurons flicker – a connection is made. My face starts to redden. “Uh, I have some beans cooking upstairs. Could that be the smell?” Steve agrees that yes, it probably could be, but he’ll check around just in case. I go wandering back up the stairs mumbling about how my dinner (bean soup – we *are* a bit house-poor after $30K in renovations – did I mention we’re gutting the kitchen too?) smells like sewer gas.
An hour later, plumber and toddler are gone and Julie is happily pretending to feed her plastic horse water out of an empty Canola oil bottle. I realize I’m starving. We did eat lunch, but it was healthy and I am pregnant and all. I decide to try a bowl of my soup – not bad for sewer gas. Maybe it would be best not to visit our house (or Joe’s new office at work) tomorrow, though!