House Improvements

     Early in the week before we left for my sister's wedding, our handyman came over and did a few things for us that our house needed.

     I had bought two new chandeliers, one for the entryway and one for our dining room, and then two simple ceiling lights for the family room downstairs.  I hated the track lighting in our dining room and downstairs because it was too bright in those few spots where the light was shining down, and then too dark in the areas where the light wasn't shining.  Here's what we have now:

Those hanging things are white- and sand-colored shells that go with the other decorations I have in the room.

This is the flower light I have in our dining room now.

They actually give off quite a bit of light; my camera just sucks.

     I finally have my large picture up on the wall that I bought from art.com.  I got it framed and one of our friends helped us bring home from the frame store, and our handyman hung it up for me on our dining room wall.

It's by the artist Ursula Abresch.  She has a lot of abstract art similar to this, but this one spoke to my soul.  It's called "Freedom".

How the dining room looks now.

     Our handyman also installed a cat door in our bedroom door so that Obsidian can go in and out whenever he wants and I can leave the door closed so Little One can't harass him.

Here's Baby Girl trying to coax him through the cat door for the first time, and Little One is just watching.

From the other side.

And lastly, he put up the cat shelves on the living room wall for me.

It took one week, but Obsidian was finally comfortable going up to the top with the carpet padding (Mc had to throw one of his favorite shoelaces up there so he'd chase it).

It took a couple more days, but he's finally sleeping up there.  It makes me happy!

     Those are the visible improvements to our house.  We also had the plumber come over and work on the sinks in our bathrooms so the water no longer smells like dirt.  But we found a big problem when he took a look at the storm drain in the backyard that's been flooding.  He was hoping that maybe the pipes got clogged with dirt or roots, but that's not the case at all.  There are no pipes.  The storm drain doesn't connect to the city's water system.  It doesn't go anywhere!

     That tube there comes from the gutters on the back of our house.  It connects to a hole in that black box, and there's another hole on the other side of the box that's supposed to connect to pipes in our yard that travel downhill and connect to the city's water system underground.  But as you can see, there is no pipe at all on the other side.  It's solid dirt.  So what's been happening for the past 33 years is that the water from the gutters drains into that black box and then just sits there, so the backyard starts to puddle and then flood when it rains too much.  Slowly the water sinks into the earth, but that takes a long time.

     The plumber said we've got three options:

1. The correct way and the best way would be to contact the city, have them tell us where our storm drain should connect to their system, and then lay down the piping for it.  That's also the most expensive option.
2. Put some piping from our storm drain area to the top of the street and install a pump that will pump the water uphill onto the street.
3. Dig a large square hole in the backyard called a drain pit.  Fill the drain pit with gravel and connect it to that storm drain area via a short pipe.  That will help the water dissipate better into the earth and keep the backyard from flooding.

     The plumber got back to me after about a week and told me that the city highly recommended that we go with the drain pit option because connecting the house to the city's system would cost a ton of money.  The plumber said he can build the drain pit for $1,900.  He never told me what the other two options would cost even though I specifically asked him twice for the prices for all 3 options, and $1,900 sounds like way too much money to pay someone to dig a pit in the backyard.  We don't have that kind of money right now, so we're going to shop around for price comparisons and go with the least expensive company in a few months when we've saved up a bit.

     For now I haven't refilled the storm drain hole with its dirt, and I'm just taking a bucket and scooping out some water and dumping it elsewhere on our yard.  That costs no money whatsoever, it's a bit of exercise, and it's more effort than any other owner has put into fixing the problem.

     So yeah, I'm really disappointed with the storm drain, or lack thereof, but I'm very pleased with the interior improvements, and I'm grateful for handymen who enjoy and are willing to do these small projects for less-than-handy homeowners like me.  :)

**Update:  The plumber just got back to me.  The city told him that every place for our storm drain to connect to their system is uphill, so a pump would be required no matter what and the potential for failure is high, so the city wouldn't even quote him a price.  So it looks like because of the slope of our lot, a drain pit will be the only feasible option (which is probably why our storm drain wasn't connected to the city's system in the first place).  We're still going to shop around for price comparisons, but a drain pit is the route we'll eventually take.