My New House (3)

For all its virtues, my new house is not perfect. The previous owners did little to prepare the house for a new owner, and oddities are throughout the house.

When I moved in, the house was dirty. The couple who sold it to me were elderly. They probably did the best they could to have the house presentable, but dirt was everywhere. I spent days cleaning, and even now I find myself scrubbing away. I just cleaned and bleached the large sink-washtub in the utility room.

Several rooms in the house are lit by windows that go up as high as two stories. And there’s a skylight in the master bathroom. I can’t wash the windows myself—in two cases, I’d have to get on the roof to do it. So I’ll pay a pretty penny to get them cleaned.

Peculiarities abound throughout the house. I find wall switches that don’t seem to turn anything on or off. And there are a series of round switches with numbers on them that presumably connect to a heating or cooling device, but they don’t seem to do anything. Then there are the wall plugs that don’t work. I have yet to divine how all these devices are connected.

Wall switches for the lights in the three bathrooms look identical but work differently. One is a dimmer switch, one with a higher-lower setting, and one a plain on-off switch.

The house is built with two peaked roofs, called cathedral ceilings. One is over the living room is two stories high. The other is over the sun room and piano room which are, respectively, a story and a half and two stories high. That may mean that heating those rooms will be difficult. I’ll find out when the weather turns cold.

The house is a split-level like none I’ve ever seen. As noted earlier, the front door faces stairs going up half a story and down the same length. Next to the stairs is the living room. Upstairs is the main living area—kitchen, dining room, two bedrooms, the piano room, and the sunroom which leads to the deck. Downstairs is my office and adjoining rooms.

More tomorrow.