#old construction

[bears-wolves-dragons]

Watched a friend try and pull down a 1930s Era shed today (rotten floor, bad shape) and apparently it decided to just roll instead.

[cultoftheswag]

The evil parfait

[bonnie-is-bumbling]

I regret buying a house. And it it's just cause of my own entitlement, so be it.

So I said in my introduction that I regret buying a house. And while I do LIKE my house, let me tell you why I'm not happy with having bought it...

When I bought my house, I was in a great spot financially, as my job during 2020 actually picked up and... Well, I made a lot of money! I was working for the railroad, and often going days without being home. (Oh no, I sense an incoming blog later about that job...) I was very pressured by my Boomer parents to buy a house while the gettin' was good. And on some fronts, they were absolutely right.

On the other fronts, they were balking at prices. They bought their house in 2004, and while prices weren't particularly excellent then, they were still a bit shocked. However, we moved on from that, and my dad, a master electrician with skills in plenty of other trades, helped me to find a house that was at least close to worth what it was listed for.

Living in rural Wyoming USA, my choices were especially narrow. But here's how I saw it- I had no partner. But I had a good job, everything I needed, friends and family around... I, at the time, had been comfortable with the idea of becoming a homeowner and settling myself. I was 24 years old, felt somewhere around 34 in honesty.

I settled on a 3 bed, 1 bath craftsman, built in 1900. Now, I DO love old houses. They're made of strong stuff, and often have unique architecture that's no longer put on new homes unless you pay extra money.

My father ran over this house with a fine tooth comb. And while I'm currently a little salty at my parentals (for reasons I won't elaborate here,) I'm incredibly thankful for my dad in this case. He told me the electrical, plumbing, and general structures looked fine, aside from some of the wallpaper, the back porch, and a beam in the attic. The beam had to be fixed shortly after I bought it, but it was handled by the seller.

The monthly payments and utility bills weren't all too bad. It was honestly made to sound like it would overall be cheaper than the apartment I lived in at the time. But oh man, that is not the case. Especially when the railroad would slow and I wouldn't be guaranteed work or a paycheck...

It took two bloody pay periods. I fell behind one time. I used my credit card to pay my bills, and so the dominos fall. As we know, 2021 introduced the start of the insane inflation we see in 2023. This didn't help. Breaking my leg didn't help. Being scammed by someone I thought was a friend and allowed to use my basement for a few months didn't help. Being a doormat and not charging fairly didn't help either.

I had set rent low, because I understood and still do understand that shit. Is. Hard. And it got harder.

My current roommate/tenant actually had to convince me to charge a little more, as I went months falling further behind and scrambling to keep the house, keep my truck, keep the lights on, keep trash service, internet, water... Essentially, my plate was full, and now late charges and collectors were coming my way, because even after getting and keeping a job, full time, I couldn't catch up.

This is the first month that I'm not paying mortgage twice in the month, and while it provides some relief, the honest truth is that the house has been the absolute bane of my existence. Maybe I'm not responsible enough. Or maybe I wasn't as ready as I thought.

I still don't have trash service. I take the trash to my dad's dumpster when a bag gets full. (That said, I'm lucky to have a roommate who, like me, doesn't tend to make a lot of trash. Between the two of us, we might make a bag a week. ) I almost lost both water and electric this month, but I managed to scrape by. Barely. It threw my bank into overdraft.

Had I not been destroyed by the addition of overdraft fees in the previous two years, I guarantee I'd have had the money to pay and maybe even do some work on the house... Speaking of the house! Let's just say two years of financial and mental health troubles will do a number on a yard and on a house. While relatively clean indoors, the carpet on the front porch is coming up. I don't particularly dig outdoor carpets, but I digress. It was there before I was.

The back porch, I'm terrified to let my 10 pound pekepoo go onto. But I don't have much a choice as it's the only way to the back yard. There's a tree looming ominously over my roof, which although only one, a shingle was blown off of. My yard looks like utter crap from the former friend's incessant littering... While he was removed in November, a rough winter hasn't helped. The man made up to three bags of trash a week on his own. And when you don't have trash service, it's a problem. It caused an earwig problem... while he did admittedly try to help fix a drain leak in the kitchen, he sort of made it worse. I still associate the space beneath the sink with the mold and earwigs I came home to. Even if it's clean now.

Earwigs are spooky. I don't do bugs.

So that's another thing potentially on my plate again this year, although his garbage is gone. But probably what scared me the most came up in March... Now, I'm aware than in the colder months, old houses are prone to a little condensation, as they just don't ventilate as well. And while I'm about 99% sure it was only because it was cold outside and Roomie and I were cooking, I'm terrified that the roof may not have been properly handled. I didn't get indoor drippings the last two winters, albeit they were mild, and this one was very much NOT mild.

This winter is one where my GMC Yukon with a V8 got terribly stuck in the bloody driveway, and the snow was up past my hips at times. I'm about 5'6"... Non Americans, please use google to translate that if it matters to you how tall I am. This winter is one that shut down an entire Wyoming town because the snow was too deep for our local plows to safely handle and they called in the highway plows one or two times. This winter damaged homes and cars.

One minor damage I did fix was when the cold made my outdoor water spigot so brittle that it cracked open, causing a nice watery issue on that ever so "stable" back porch. Thankful that it was nowhere near a door, but I panicked because at the time, I had four dollars in cash to my name. I was going to use it for snacks at work until payday, as I couldn't actually afford enough food for meals. I ensured my dogs could eat, and I always will.

Thankfully, that $4 was enough for what I needed. This was icy, cold, wet, unpleasant, and... I'm small. My body doesn't like to build fat or muscle. Not eating didn't help. I was rejected for SNAP. I hardly had the strength. While I got everything off the pipe with relative ease, it was taking the two faucets off of the old T-joint that I wound up having to call for help with. My dad sent his apprentice (who is both a neighbor and a friend in small town life) to help me with a tool more proper for the job at hand than my tiny adjustable wrench that was all I had.

I bloody hate asking for help. I feel so guilty and like a user, even if I know better.

There has been no further condensation in the door jamb that scared me, but I still intend to find a ladder tall enough for my little hiney to get to the attic, where I will brave the spiders and bugs to check on my roof. I'm not thrilled for it, but I know it's my responsibility. It makes me itch all over to think about it.

But in the end, the watery mess was stopped and dried. As weather has eased, I've taken my little yard tiller up to the job of a rake to help me clean up the front, back, and side yards. I'm working with what I have and... I have to keep reminding myself it's okay. My parents did offer me a bigger rake. With my roommate and I both working at night (he works 16:00-00:00, I work 22:00 to 06:00) it makes it hard to plan yard work together, but he is willing to help.

I'm going into Spring of 2023 with a LOT on my plate, and a lot ahead. I want to move to Colorado with my boyfriend. But when I bought the house, I promised the ghosts (whom I do believe are real, and do not believe to be malicious in any way) that I'd take care of the house. And damn it, I do want to! It was a victim of the "Landlord Special" plenty of times. I want to give it... Not the landlord special. Something I'd be proud to call mine is what I'd like to make that little, beat up old craftsman into.

I'm starting with the yard. My goal purchase is a new lawnmower, and I might know an electrician or two that can make me an outdoor outlet that's actually up to code so I can get one of those electric ones.

I've got a very basic smart home system, mostly just lighting and music so far thanks to a Google Nest device in my room, and one in Roomie's bedroom, and six, thus far, smart lights. I suppose my dream would be to keep the 1900 looks but throw in the technology and lighting of today. Maybe I can transform my regret into something I love, and feel good about either selling or renting... And while I'm here... Something I feel good about living in!

[zytes]

dusk over skyline drive; 2.14.24

[so-very-small]

a group of old man borrowers who live together. they don’t interact with the giant much. except for every time the giant does some home repair or DIY, then the tiny old men line up on the nearest high surface to watch like this

[the-kipsabian]

saw a take so fucking rancid on twitter i almost deleted the entire app from my phone jesus fucking christ

first of all ao3 is an archive site. this is like going to the library and saying "oh i dont like this" on every piece of media you find that you dislike and thinking they should be stamped with some sort of a marker just cause you didnt like it

you can always click back and leave. fic writers owe you nothing to explain themselves and their creations. if they have mistagged or miscategorized fics, then i understand, however there are report tools for that instead of yelling at the artist tbh

im not saying free works arent necessarily above criticism. but this is just. fucking wild. its common courtesy to just enjoy stuff (or fucking leave if you dont, the back button is free) and if the artist specifically asks for critiques, then give one - constructive that is, shitting all over someones work is not proper criticism, mind you

i just find it fucking wild people are treating art and archive sites as social media these days like this and everything needs to be policed and ~catered to the algorithm~ like. no. ao3 doesnt have an algorithm. you should be able to fucking tell what you like and what you dont like and steer away from that kind of content and let people fucking be with their art. they dont owe you anything (except trigger warnings i'd argue, but i know some people disagree with that as well for some reason), and imagine how much more energy you'd have if you only engaged with things you liked and spent time looking at instead of going to places where you dont enjoy yourself. let alone spending time telling other people you dont enjoy what they enjoy. what a fucking life

[superhell]

house md is wild because house tells wilson that he’ll sacrifice many things but never himself and then he sacrifices himself for wilson. and then he sacrifices himself for wilson. and then he sacrifices himself for wilson. and then he

[arc-hus]

La maison Becleu Extension, Pléneuf-Val-André, France - Dominique Rouillard & Alain Guiheux

[bixels]

I've been making the transition these past few months, but I think I'm gonna just move back to Tumblr. My Twitter's follower-base has reached a point where I can't tweet anything casually opinion-related without it overflowing like a toilet. I post a short thread on my gripes with color design in anime and I'm getting QRT'd with "kill this guy with hammers" reaction gifs. Like, damn, this isn't fun anymore. It's not fun to talk about stuff on Twitter in general anymore. I wanted to post some ship dynamic doodles sometime there, but I know I'm gonna get weirdly aggressive takes and reactions. Monkey's paw curls, but I don't particularly like having that many followers.

[vintageeurope]

Sagrada Família, Barcelona 1900

[hometoursandotherstuff]

What a bargain- beautiful original 1954 mid-century modern home in Indianapolis, IN has 3bds, 3ba, $275K.

Isn't this nice? The original fireplace is the focal point of the room.

Large living room, open concept layout, and the large fireplace acts as a divider.

Behind the fireplace is the space for the dining area. I'm going to steal that look of identical vases grouped together.

Entrance to the kitchen from the dining room.

It's sort of a galley kitchen, as is typical of MCM homes, but it's larger.

I don't think it's too narrow. Look at the cool cabinetry- it has a built in cutting board and utensil drawers. The original cabinets are walnut.

Beautiful sun porch.

Plus a very large sun room with 3 large skylights.

Stairs behind the dining room and hallway to the bedrooms.

The primary bedroom has so much storage, all built-in, including night tables. There's also a door to the sun room.

The matching en-suite also has cabinetry with storage.

The owner was a well-known photographer and there's a dark room in the cellar.

Plus a workshop.

The sun room is attached to the house, but very private. Has some possibilities. 0.79 Acre lot

https://www.zillow.com/homes/5350-Cheviot-Pl-Indianapolis,-IN-46226_rb/1140457_zpid/

[canisalbus]

Who's taller machete or vasco

They should be about the same height. If you take away his heels (and I advise against it), Machete is a tiny bit shorter than Vasco, but then again he has those antenna ears and Vasco doesn't.

In their setting they're slightly above average height at roughly 6'0/180 cm.

[webdiggerxxx]

꧁★꧂

[marzipanandminutiae]

Marzi's Old House Supply Kit: A Non-Exhaustive List

So you've moved into an old house! Congratulations! No, no, look at me. Look in my eyes. Congratulations. You don't need smart lighting. You don't need paltry things like "showers that don't make ungodly noises if you set the water outside a very specific temperature range" or "logical staircases." Because those people who say They Built Them Sturdier Back Then is survivorship bias are wrong, lead paint is only a problem if you eat it, and your new home is basically a tank

also it might have stained glass. so basically you win

(no but seriously the Survivorship Bias argument is just like. tell me you don't live in a city with large quantities of remaining working-class 110-year-old buildings without telling me. I do. they're sturdier. end of.)

but you might need some things to make it a bit more comfortable. here's what I've found, over eight years of living in houses built 1920 or earlier

Power strips. Depending on the age of your house, it may or may not have had electricity originally. And even if it did, whoever lived there almost certainly had fewer things to plug in than the average denizen of the 2020s. There also may have been gorgeous wall sconces that some asshole heartlessly ripped out at some point, forcing you to use the hideous hateful Overhead LightTM or plug in a bunch of lamps. Either way, you're going to need to turn that single outlet in the room into several more. Hence, power strips.

(hey, I never said this list was free of my design biases. deal)

A Good Fan. You may live in a place where retrofitting with air conditioning was commonplace in the last several decades. I do not. So a good pedestal fan can make the difference between comfort and just not sleeping at all from late June to mid-September. Weirdly, I did once look at a place that was from the 1850s and had been retrofitted with central A/C, which is vanishingly rare in even urban Massachusetts. But I digress.

A stud-finder. "Marzi, you spent years of your life explaining to tourists that picture rails existed because trying to hammer nails directly into horsehair plaster and then putting weight on them did Bad Things." Yes I did. "What did you attempt to do the second week of living in your first house with horsehair plaster?" ...shut up. I used the Poltergeist Method to find solid wood- I don't know if it's actually studs or the lath or what; I'm not a builder -to hang my Lady and the Unicorn tapestry from, namely knocking on the wall until it doesn't sound hollow. You might want to go a bit quieter and more advanced. Or, if you have a picture rail, embrace the "long visible hanging wires" look. It is in fact there for a reason!

Window screens. You are actually required by Massachusetts state law to provide these to your tenants. Doesn't mean my last landlady did. And if you own your place, live in another state, or have a similarly laissez-faire building owner, you might end up needing to Bring Your Own Insect-Blocking Shield. Just make sure you've got them, one way or the other. Because see above re: fan vs. air conditioning in old houses.

WD-40. When's the last time those hinges were oiled? Potentially before television. And they WILL squeak. UPDATE I HAVE BEEN INFORMED THAT WD-40 IS NOT A GOOD LONGTERM SOLUTION. Find "actual oil." Not sure what the more specific name is. Good to know!

That's just what I've found needful so far, but I'm happy to update the list as required!

And you'd better believe, if I owned my own place, this would include "the name of a preservation contractor to undo all the unnecessary ~*MoDeRnIzInG*~ aesthetic bullshit the past owners did since the End of Mainstream Western House Beauty AKA 1920 (That Brief Rococo Revival In the 1930s Can Maybe Sit With Us)"

[chippedshake]

Based on a prompt by @amethyst-writer

It's been a couple weeks since Darry and Ponyboy agreed to stop fighting. Of course, months of a strained relationship, of barely contained hollering and silent tears at night aren’t going to vanish with a simple conversation. They're going to keep on arguing, no one could believe anything else, but at least Soda won't be forced to be a middleman anymore. They won't tear their family apart anymore because they're communicating and talking to each other and not bottling up their emotions until they explode in a slap and running away and two of their friends dying.

But old habits die hard and Ponyboy is late again.

"Where've you been?" Darry asks, trying to keep the accusatory tone out of his voice.

"M'I late?" There’s a testy undertone to Ponyboy's voice, daring Darry to disagree. Is he the only one putting any sort of effort into this whole "no fighting" thing?

"Yeah, buddy, you're late."

They aren't screaming. Two months ago, they would be screaming. Now they're trading tense, passive-aggressive statements with long stretches of silence in between.

Darry doesn't know which one he prefers.

"Sorry."

"Can you stop with the sarcasm for a second and actually talk to me?"

"I am talkin' to you, Darry, you just don't care about what I say 'cause you already got your whole speech prepared."

A scathing reply is crawling up Darry's throat and dancing around his tongue, tickling his gums and pulling at his teeth, trying to force his lips open.

Pony ran away and Soda ran away because you can't keep your temper down.

"Right." He shoves it back and down his throat "I'm sorry, Ponyboy."

Ponyboy can't meet his eyes and shifts his weight to his right leg.

"Don’t worry 'bout it, Dar. I'll try an' be on time next time."

He is. On time, that is, the next time he goes out. Which is the day right after, by the way. As if he didn’t want to spend time with his brothers.

The problem this time is that he's gone out with Curly Shepard and TPd their principal's house.

Pony didn’t even tell Darry. He had to find out when the school called him because they got caught.

"I just can't believe you were this stupid! Don't you ever think, Pony? How do you expect to get out of here when all you ever do is get into trouble with Curly Shepard, who spends more time in the reformatory than in his own house?" Darry takes his coat off aggressively as they walk inside the house and Ponyboy flinches back on instinct.

Darry freezes.

"Shoot, Pony, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, I swear I didn't mean to scare you." His voice is soft and careful now; he's talking like he would to a scared child on the street who's missing his parents and scared of the big stranger talking to him.

Oh.

"I'm sorry, Pony." His voice is pleading and he's forcing tears back because he knows it won't help anything if he starts crying now. He's apologising for so much more than just taking his jacket off and they both know it, but Ponyboy won't meet his eyes. He looks anywhere but at Darry, his face drawing back awkwardly as his shoe tries to make a hole in the floor.

"S'fine Darry, I know you didn't mean to."

Pony may say it's fine, but nothing about their situation is fine.

Darry starts noticing. Every time he pulls a chair back. When he wanders out of the kitchen with a knife. A quick hair-ruffle without warning.

It all feels violent. Reminiscent of that night that gets further away with every day that goes by but still haunts Darry's mind the moment he closes his eyes.

And he's trying, he's really trying, to make sure Pony knows he doesn't mean it. Blubbering out apologies, moving slower, announcing actions.

None of it's enough.

Ponyboy doesn't seem to spend any time at home anymore. He's always out. With Cathy or Curly or Mark or even Bryon, who seems to hate him for some reason Darry can't wrap his head around.

He gets home right for dinner and hardly says a word.

It's Darry's fault, if course. No matter how much he apologises, no matter how much he tries to take back all the stupid yelling (and that night, that goddamned night that haunts every night that's come after), it's never enough. Ponyboy isn't going to forgive him and, honestly? Darry can't blame him.

But they promised. They promised Soda that they would try and that they wouldn't hurt him anymore.

And now they’re back in the same place: unspoken tension strung tight in the air whenever Ponyboy and Darry are in the same room, Soda trying his best to dissuade it without taking sides.

Darry doesn't know what to do anymore.

Is there even anything of his family left to save? Did their last hope at functionality die with their parents on those train tracks ten months ago? How can he get his little brother to forgive him?

Does he even deserve forgiveness?

Soda's gone to sleep and Darry's own eyelids are heavy but Pony isn't home yet and he's waiting up.

Ponyboy's fine. He's come home late before, always in one piece. Darry himself used to come home at ungodly hours of the morning when he was still in highschool, and his parents never waited up.

No one waits up for their kids when they go out with friends.

But the moment Darry thinks about going to bed, Ponyboy appears in the park, drowning because Darry trusted him to cool down and come back.

Sue him for being nervous.

The door squeaks open as Ponyboy comes inside and Darry leaps to his feet.

"Where the hell've you been?"

Ponyboy shrugs his jacket off and hangs it on the hook by the door before answering.

"Out."

"Out," Darry repeats sarcastically, "like you always are these days. I'd be surprised if you spent a single minute in this house that wasn't so we could feed you! You ever think about your brothers when you're off on joyrides with Curly Shepard – don't look so surprised, you know I talk to Tim –"

"If you know where I am all the time then you don't gotta worry about it, do you?"

"Yes, I do hafta worry about it because you’re my little brother and Curly Shepard is nothing but trouble."

"Like you ain't friends with Tim–"

"That’s different and you know it. I don’t know how you'd even know who I talk to since you never spend any time at home anyway, but–"

"You ever think that maybe I don’t wanna come home because all I ever get for doin' it is you hollerin' at me? Oh, it's all better now 'cause you apologise fer yellin' all day, but that don't change the fact that you do!"

"What else am I supposed to do? You know damn well we can't keep tearin' Soda apart and God knows you ain't puttin' in any of the effort. Tell me, Pony, what do you want me to do? 'Cause that's all I do, aint it? Just follow your every–"

"I want you to be a better brother!"

A beat of silence.

Ponyboy's breathing quickly, his chest shaking, and Darry can hear the tears he won't let fall.

"D'you remember when I lost your football a year ago?" His voice is fragile, tense, barely audible over the silence that's rushing through Darry's ears. "The one the whole team had signed. You hated me for days. Then we bounced back a week later without even a sorry. And now–" His voice breaks and a faint hiccup makes it through his defences. It takes all that Darry has not to wrap his arms around his little brother "–now ya can't even say two sentences without a sorry bein' in the middle of them and I'm sick of it! I'm sick of it because I ain't fragile and I ain't gonna break if ya tell me to do my homework! I just didn't want you on my case all the time, but even that's better than whatever this is.

"You wanna know why I'm always with Curly? 'Cause he calls me an idiot when I mess things up and he wrestles with me and only says sorry when he actually hurts me. 'Cause he don't treat me like I'm made of glass. And I'm not!"

Ponyboy ends his rant with a little stomp that looks so absurdly childish after their fight that Darry almost laughs.

But it's a stark reminder of the fact that Ponyboy is just a kid. He's just a kid and he's gone through about as much as Darry, who still feels unprepared for it. Ponyboy's fourteen but he isn't, not really. Fourteen-year-olds don't have to worry about their friends crumpling under streetlights or drinking so aggressively they end up in a hospital bed they can't pay for. They don't have to worry about carrying out their best friend's dying wish.

Ponyboy's sick and tired of everyone around him treating him like a kid when he can't really be called one anymore because kids are innocent and what part of Ponyboy can be called innocent right now? He's gone through enough loss to know what he can handle and how he should cope, and yet everyone's assumed he doesn't because he's a scrawny little kid.

Darry walks – stumbles – over to the couch and sinks down into it. He rubs his eyes with the palms of his hands and runs a hand down his face.

He can't look Pony in the eyes, not now. Not if he really wants to say it right. Instead he stares holes into the couch in front of him, trying his best to find where to start.

"God, I–" He cuts himself off with a sigh. "I'm so sorry, Pony. You're right. It's stupid, I wanted to protect you from the world, at first, make sure you got outta here." He laughs humourlessly. "Can't believe I didn't realise how pointless it was. You can't protect someone from the world they live in. Then I wanted to protect you from myself, which was even stupider, I don't even know what I was trying to do, but I was trying–"

He's cut off by a small body – too small, hasn't he been eating? – ramming into him as Ponyboy sits down on the couch next to him.

"I know," Ponyboy whispers as his arms snake around his older brother, his head buried in Darry's shoulder. "You're tryin' and you ain't perfect." He takes a deep breath. "And I also know I ain't exactly helped much."

Darry gives a breathless laugh. "It's fine, Pony. I wasn't a saint at fourteen either."

He wraps an arm around Ponyboy.

"We'll figure this out, someday, right?"

"'Course we will." Ponyboy's voice is muffled by Darry's shirt so he turns his head to awkwardly look up at him. "We did that thousand-piece puzzle that one time, remember? We're invincible."

He laughs again and ruffles Ponyboy's hair.

"Fuck yeah we are."

[riding-with-the-wild-hunt]

if the horror of mordor is that it’s a fundamentally dead place, the horror of beleriand under melkor is that it’s alive. every wild thing, every plant, the land itself, all of it can be bent and shaped to the will of that which wants you gone. woods with vines to choke and trap and strangle, bogs replete with depthless pools and paths that lead nowhere and clouds of mosquitoes that can turn your blood to poison. leave a wound in the open air and by nightfall infection will have set in. goats and sheep are born shrivelled and eyeless. springs that if drunk from will bloat your belly and waste you away to nothing. deer watching with too many eyes, boars running mad and foaming even after they’re felled. just endless possibilities for fear and havoc and destruction, and all of it is intended…there is no comfort in the randomness of nature when nature hates you personally