All I Wanted Was an Outlet. . .

This is my house. It's very cute, and very old (built in 1882).

The wiring is particularly ancient; I still have some knob and tube wiring in service, and the outlets all suck.

No problem, I thought. I'll just replace the outlets in the office, the ones where if you brush up against anything plugged into them, they come unplugged, especially the computer power cord (oops).

Anyone who owns an old house knows where this story is going.

So I started looking into outlets, and realized I needed to ground the outlets. And that lead to the realization that I'd need to replace the circuit panel. And while I was at it, it would probably just be easier to rewire the rest of the house, and put in a few more outlets in the office, and put the furnace on its own circuit, and so on. We called electricians and got bids and were prepared to spend eleventy-billion dollars on our modest home improvement project.

Then the furnace died.

This was not exactly a surprise, just as it was not a surprise that my ancient wiring needed to be replaced. The furnace is probably at least 50 years old, and hideously inefficient. It was really time for a new furnace anyway.

The asbestos on the ducts, also not a surprise. But it sure does add to the bill.

Old houses, I think, know when you have the checkbook out. Today, while the asbestos guys were in the basement doing their thing, we noticed a fairly significant leak in the plumbing. I swear it wasn't there two days ago.

Houses just know.

On the plus side, Sean's been really helpful with this whole process. He's spent a lot of time on the phone gathering bids and coordinating schedules, and he's staying home and dealing with the legion of workers. It's just very nice to have someone to help with all this stuff.

And a little thing that made me happy: I got a review copy of John Scalzi's The Last Colony in the mail today. I enjoyed The Ghost Brigades a lot, and am looking forward to reading Scalzi's latest.