We Bought A House

By Christopher Miller

So my wife and I decided to be extra proactive this holiday season by putting up our lights when it was still somewhat warm outside.

You have to hand it to her – it was a pretty good idea that spawned a few other ideas which I am going to write about now!

G’Utter Madness

If you me, I am not the most keen on climbing ladders. I’ll do it if I have to, but with caution, which is funny because according to Lou Bernard…that history guy…I am the tallest man he has ever met. I’m not afraid of heights; I just like to have a firm thing to rest the back of the ladder on before I climb.

I had the brilliant idea to clean the gutters while hanging Christmas lights! Hey – I’m still a new homeowner…why not tackle multiple projects at the same time?

Our home has very old gutters. So old in fact that they are attached under the shingles and not to the fascia. There is a clip-like metal piece that is attached around the bottom of the gutter and then under the shingles. By putting a small bread/twist tie through small cracks between the gutter and clip, I was able to secure the lights to the underside.

And why not clean out the gutters at the same time! We have a large maple tree at the front corner of the house which sheds its leaves this time of year, as trees normally do. And you guessed it – they like to land in the gutter.

I took care of some gutter maintenance earlier this year before a big storm came through and I cleared a fairly large clog in an elbow that was built-up of twigs and leaves. It was causing the water to overflow and not drain correctly! Plus after years of draining water off the roof the weight of leaves and twigs caused the gutters to be pitched in the wrong direction. You gotta’ love water – we still rely on gravity to take it out and away.

Christmas Lights

LED bulbs. The old C7 bulbs. Regular, non-LED bulbs. There are so many to choose from!

When the LED bulbs first came out and were becoming more popular, there was something off about the color blue. It was just…overly blue! The Rockefeller Tree, in my opinion, looked horrible that year.

Since then the lights have been adjusted and are toned-down from their “yellow that looked orange” and “overly blue” hues.

I will never forget the old General Electric light strands we hung up on the family Christmas tree. The familiar fading green string to match the green tree, and the red, blue, green, and yellow lights. Hmmm…green…why are there green lights on a green Christmas tree?

That one has always puzzled me.

Our house is home to about 1,000 white/golden LED lights. They don’t get hot. They don’t twinkle. They are just simple lights acting as a large flashlight on our lonely little hill in Woodward Township.

Basement Woes

Last Christmas was a tough one. Not only was the COVID pandemic raging, but the sudden 50+ degree temperatures created a very unusual warm spell that only acted as a catalyst to melt the 18” or so of snow we received a week before.

That night we learned new words such as “sump pump” and we learned how to quickly disconnect hoses to reroute water more quickly and efficiently out of our basement.

We only had about 1/2” of water at the deepest level of the basement, but to first time homeowners it might as well have been Noah’s flood.

That Christmas morning ended up being the latest I had ever slept in on Christmas Day.

This Christmas we made some major adjustments to the way things work in the basement. I removed an old porch window that had a rotten frame, and sealed it with old 1/2” subfloor and expanding foam. 1/2” weather strips were placed around the perimeter of our steel basement door to get a more effective seal from the elements, and I used more expanding foam to seal some old cracks in an effort to one day permanently remove the tarp covering the door and keeping water out.

Kate was very proactive in cleaning up some of the basement floor and reorganizing her shelving units and storage solutions. I even found a future solution to a busted step that I can dig out, set forms, put rebar pieces in, and pour a couple of bags of quick-setting concrete into.

In all, this “weekend warrior” project sounded like some pretty quick stuff, but it took the better part of a few hours on a cold Sunday afternoon to take care of.

Considering we had been planning this stuff since the Summer months, it was good to still accomplish it in 2021.