Cause and effect

As long-time readers know, our house has been a bit of a challenge. For those not in the know, we bought our 123-year-old house four years ago. When we bought it, we thought it was perfect for fixing up. And when I say fixing up, I really mean completely gutting the first floor.

That was the best decision ever. It took our house from "oh, a house" to "OH! A house!" in our minds. Our kitchen kicks all kinds of ass and we really like the open layout the remodel created. We also built a third bedroom upstairs, giving us a lot more space.

Then, we grew out of our space when we had Emmie, and decided to convert our two-family house to a single-family house. Sure we lost the rental income, but we weren't tripping over toys and we could once again host the grandparents in a guestroom. And that was important because when the grandparents stay over, Mommy and Daddy get to sleep in. We like our sleep. Clearly, the conversion was the way to go.

Converting gave us an extra bedroom and full bath as well as created an office for Josh and a huge play space for the kids. Which was all kinds of awesome. Not any kind of awesome was the discovery of termites and the dietary delicacy they considered our house. That pretty much sucked ass.

In between the two interior remodeling projects, we also did some landscaping outside. I am very proud of the landscaping as we built several retaining walls and raised planter beds in various spots as well as laid our own brick patio. I did 75 percent of the work on that project by myself as Josh was sitting on the sidelines with a wrist injury. It was my blood, sweat and tears. And I am proud of my landscaping.

When it came to problems with the interior remodeling, we couldn't blame ourselves. I mean the house is 123 years old. Things are wonky. Then floors are a little slanty, the walls aren't plumb, the support beams are a little saggy. But it's got charm. But when it comes to the exterior and the landscaping, we are a pair of huge DUMBASSES.

When we built the raised planter beds and retaining walls, we piled a bunch of dirt up and penned it in with the paver bricks from the corner of the house to the corner of the eight-foot-high retaining wall. So we just piled a bunch of dirt right up against the brick foundation of our house. The corner of the house, to be exact. You know, where two sides of the house are held up.

Today we had a guy come over to give us an estimate on tuckpointing the brick on the first level of the house. He took one look at the retaining wall/raised planter and told us we have damage behind it. Not maybe, not he guessed. He said we definitely did. He can't believe we haven't seen water damage inside the house yet. The area in question inside the house would be right behind my brand-new, custom-built bookshelves.

In the annals of Dumb Shit Amy and Josh Have Done, this one takes the cake. Not only have we potentially done damage to the single largest investment in our lives, but we also brought a whole shitload of extra work on ourselves. Well, on Josh because I am not in a position to do any manual labor right now.

So in the next few days, Josh has to disassemble the wall and move all the dirt so the tuckpointer can come back and take a look. Then they'll fix the damage to the brick, put down a rubber membrane over that portion of the brick and then Josh can move all the dirt back and rebuild the wall. Again.

Because of the way projects concerning this house go, we'll probably be banned from the premises because the house will fall down and we'll be living in a tent on the driveway out back when the baby comes home. In December. In the snow.