The Conical Glass: House pet peeves

Sunday, November 25, 2007

House pet peeves

We've been in our new house for about a month now, so perhaps it's not too surprising that some things are starting to bug me. Not that I have any regrets, mind you -- I still think we made the right decision, although I still feel a little guilty about leaving our neighbors -- but no place is perfect...

1. It's dark. Our condo's western exposure made it so bright in the living room that I had to install black-out shades and tinted film over the windows; despite that, the spines of the books kept in the living room bookcase became faded over time. My office in the new house has a window facing the west, but the neighbors' high growth of bamboo (something I initially loved, as it provides so much privacy in our back yard) ensures that practically no sun at all gets in, and I have to keep a light on all day long. I have a 150-watt bulb in a torchiere lamp, and it still doesn't seem bright enough in here. I'm half-seriously considering buying a sunbox.

2. The water takes forever and a day to warm up. At all the sinks and showers in the house, you have to wait 2-3 minutes for the water to go from icy cold to comfortable. I hate the waste of water, especially now that we're responsible for paying our own water bill; apparently one solution is installing a quick-delivery system, which is something we may have to do.

3. One of our requirements when buying a house was that it have some kind of off-street parking. Our house does have a garage, although we share a driveway with our neighbor (a very nice, quiet, retired single man). Getting the car into the garage is no problem, but because the garage is at an angle, it's almost impossible to back out without running into the neighbor's steps. Net result: we only park on the street. (At least there's a space right in front of our house, and the garage does provide ample storage for 125 Records product.)

4. The master bedroom is upstairs in a converted attic with a sloped roof. I have largely managed to train myself not to clunk my head on the ceiling, although if I have to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and I'm still half-asleep, it's really hard to remember to duck.

posted by 125records @ 5:53 PM

2 Comments:

At 7:10 PM, 2fs said…

"it's really hard to remember to duck": I suggest placing a glow-in-the-dark duck on the low part of the ceiling...
At 1:59 PM, Michael Krueger said…

The "quick-delivery system" is interesting; I didn't know there was such a thing. It addresses the water waste issue neatly, but it does nothing to reduce the tremendous energy inefficiency of a centrally located tank-style water heater. When it comes time to replace your heater (they wear out every 10 years or so), you might want to consider installing on-demand tankless heaters instead:

http://www.oldhouseweb.com/stories/Detailed/13483.shtml

As you probably know if you've traveled in Europe or Asia, these are standard in just about every part of the world except the good-ol' energy-wasting U.S. of A.