LJ Idol Season 9 Week 2 - A Very, Very Fine House
o/` "I'll light the fire, you place the flowers in the vase that you bought today.
Staring at the fire for hours and hours while I listen to you
Play your love songs all night long for me, only for me." o/`
-- "Our House" performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
We ended up nicknaming it "the puppy trap".
Most of you know Fox and I were rather impulsive when we bought the place. Newly married, madly in love, and completely ignorant that our lives would take us anywhere but the direction in which we planned to go, we had marched onto the lot and told the sales representative to show us the largest model on the lot.
He showed us the home we now possess, a monstrous thirty-two hundred square foot manufactured home with four bedrooms a recreation room with a sliding glass door, and a utility room which I'd imagined would provide immediate access to an old fashioned clothes line. The workers hauling it down in two pieces from Georgia to the property made dozens of jokes about us raising a basketball team to fill all that space. I blushed but didn't bother correcting them.
I'd ordered three sets of stairs --- one for each main entrance --- and had envisioned them to be like the ones on the sales lot or the lovely redwood one which had been the sole beauty of the crappy, ancient single wide trailer I'd lived in back in Colorado. That set of stairs had had a longer, wider landing which allowed for one or two outdoor chairs and several spectacular planters sprouting geraniums and herbs.
They delivered --- the first of many disappointments --- two sets of rickety stairs such as you might see in any trailer park. Made of greenish, pressure treated wood (which, incidentally, did nothing to keep either the ravages of Florida's climate or the depredation of insects away), they never did sit flush with the bottom of either door. "Have a nice trip" took on a whole new meaning at FoxHeart Acres. We warned our guests before they came and as they were leaving, but those damned steps seemed determined to eat anyone within reach.
The back stairs were even worse. I gave up on having a clothesline out there the first time I tripped, the door sprang open, and I found myself tumbling arse over kettle into the dog run. This might have been less of a disaster if I hadn't been wearing absolutely nothing at the time it happened. Naked is naked, even out in the boonies, and such an accident inevitably assures that someone besides your beloved pets will see you in that state.
These were the same puke green as the front stairs but with even less craftsmanship put into them if that was at all possible. A six inch gap existed between the house and the landing and they seemed to be missing a tread because it was another six inches down to the landing. I never could remember to lift my foot over the threshold as though I were living in a submarine because, frankly, my home wasn't a submarine and never should have had this tricky entrance in the first place.
The dogs absolutely loved this arrangement. It became a game of dominance between them to hurtle themselves from the bottom stair to the landing and from the landing through the back door. If they managed to plow down the human letting them inside, I'm sure they awarded the mutt who accomplished this extra points.
How very unfortunate that objects such as stairs when built at ground level and without a foundation have no resistance at all to settling or other Florida-made disasters! Each year, the stairs tilted a little more and separated just a hair farther from the house. One fateful day, I opened the back door and instead of a pack of jostling pups tumbling through with lolling tongues and joyful barking, they all disappeared when they got to where the landing ought to have been.
I timidly stepped forward but decided against trying to step over and down into the yard below. It's a good thing I didn't; looking at me with reproachful eyes, her coat mud spattered, Freyja (the female eskie) sat in a large mud puddle beneath the stairs. They were all down there and looked as though I were the one responsible for the missing step and their reduced dignity.
When Fox came home, I told him about it. We laughed and then I suggested he fix it, perhaps rebuild the stairs. Today the front stairs are gone and I have a nice deck which I can ascend or descend in my wheelchair.
The puppy trap remains where it still lists to one side. The dogs eventually learned to jump the gap, but on occasion one of them will forget. It's not a long fall and it doesn't hurt anything except perhaps their self esteem and so I feel free to laugh at them.
Staring at the fire for hours and hours while I listen to you
Play your love songs all night long for me, only for me." o/`
-- "Our House" performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
We ended up nicknaming it "the puppy trap".
Most of you know Fox and I were rather impulsive when we bought the place. Newly married, madly in love, and completely ignorant that our lives would take us anywhere but the direction in which we planned to go, we had marched onto the lot and told the sales representative to show us the largest model on the lot.
He showed us the home we now possess, a monstrous thirty-two hundred square foot manufactured home with four bedrooms a recreation room with a sliding glass door, and a utility room which I'd imagined would provide immediate access to an old fashioned clothes line. The workers hauling it down in two pieces from Georgia to the property made dozens of jokes about us raising a basketball team to fill all that space. I blushed but didn't bother correcting them.
I'd ordered three sets of stairs --- one for each main entrance --- and had envisioned them to be like the ones on the sales lot or the lovely redwood one which had been the sole beauty of the crappy, ancient single wide trailer I'd lived in back in Colorado. That set of stairs had had a longer, wider landing which allowed for one or two outdoor chairs and several spectacular planters sprouting geraniums and herbs.
They delivered --- the first of many disappointments --- two sets of rickety stairs such as you might see in any trailer park. Made of greenish, pressure treated wood (which, incidentally, did nothing to keep either the ravages of Florida's climate or the depredation of insects away), they never did sit flush with the bottom of either door. "Have a nice trip" took on a whole new meaning at FoxHeart Acres. We warned our guests before they came and as they were leaving, but those damned steps seemed determined to eat anyone within reach.
The back stairs were even worse. I gave up on having a clothesline out there the first time I tripped, the door sprang open, and I found myself tumbling arse over kettle into the dog run. This might have been less of a disaster if I hadn't been wearing absolutely nothing at the time it happened. Naked is naked, even out in the boonies, and such an accident inevitably assures that someone besides your beloved pets will see you in that state.
These were the same puke green as the front stairs but with even less craftsmanship put into them if that was at all possible. A six inch gap existed between the house and the landing and they seemed to be missing a tread because it was another six inches down to the landing. I never could remember to lift my foot over the threshold as though I were living in a submarine because, frankly, my home wasn't a submarine and never should have had this tricky entrance in the first place.
The dogs absolutely loved this arrangement. It became a game of dominance between them to hurtle themselves from the bottom stair to the landing and from the landing through the back door. If they managed to plow down the human letting them inside, I'm sure they awarded the mutt who accomplished this extra points.
How very unfortunate that objects such as stairs when built at ground level and without a foundation have no resistance at all to settling or other Florida-made disasters! Each year, the stairs tilted a little more and separated just a hair farther from the house. One fateful day, I opened the back door and instead of a pack of jostling pups tumbling through with lolling tongues and joyful barking, they all disappeared when they got to where the landing ought to have been.
I timidly stepped forward but decided against trying to step over and down into the yard below. It's a good thing I didn't; looking at me with reproachful eyes, her coat mud spattered, Freyja (the female eskie) sat in a large mud puddle beneath the stairs. They were all down there and looked as though I were the one responsible for the missing step and their reduced dignity.
When Fox came home, I told him about it. We laughed and then I suggested he fix it, perhaps rebuild the stairs. Today the front stairs are gone and I have a nice deck which I can ascend or descend in my wheelchair.
The puppy trap remains where it still lists to one side. The dogs eventually learned to jump the gap, but on occasion one of them will forget. It's not a long fall and it doesn't hurt anything except perhaps their self esteem and so I feel free to laugh at them.