Tiny Talks: The Great Greenhouse Battle of '18

Hi guys

D and I have been working our buts off to make the new house semi habitable as it will become our permanent residence on May 18th.

Having been built in 1961, its first owners didn't expect they'd ever need a lot of electricity. People owned a washing machine. A sewing machine. And that was pretty much it.

The whole house has eight power outlets. The first floor, where we plan to temporarily love while the ground floor gets renovated, had a hand total of three outlets. Wowsers.

We've been working hard for a few days now, trying to remedy that situation. Boy, am I glad my man knows how to do all this stuff. I mostly stick to demolition.

The most memorable demolition project so far, though, has got to be the Great Greenhouse Battle of '18.

Attached to the barn was a huge glass greenhouse. The first time we let our dogs into the yard, Henna rain straight into one of the glass side panels.

A very real concern was that one of them would put their head through the glass and get seriously injured because of the shards. We decided the greenhouse would be one of the first things to go.

After D and I spent a whole day removing glass panes from the roof, we realised how dangerous that thing really was. A lot of the panes were cracked or broken into multiple shards held in place by old, pulverised mastic.

Sus, the old man who used to live there, had layered new mastic over the old wherever he could reach it so we spent a considerable amount of time working our way through, gently tapping at the stuff with hammer and chisel until it gave way so we could remove the pieces of glass with minimal breakage.

Still, the greenhouse floor ended up covered with shards and bits of mastic. So the next day off we had, D's parents came over to help us out. D and his dad were going to put up some new fencing so the neighbourhood would be safe from our Terrible Fantastic Four, while the women were going to clear the glass from the greenhouse floor.

Afterwards, we had to remove the glass paneling from the long side, which was a bit easier to do, as they were all mounted on single hinges. That was the theory anyway. Apparently, fifty-years-old hinges tend to be rather uncooperative.

It was while carrying away another surprisingly heavy glass door, that we realised the two men got the easy job, nailing whire mesh fence onto fence posts. So much for "Women's Work," a term my MIL seems fond of.

The short side was made of--surprise surprise--more cracked glass panes. The mastic here was perfectly accessible to Sus, bless his heart, so it was perfectly fresh and extra hard to get rid of. After about two panes, MIL stars huffing and puffing. "This is not women's work." But she faithfully stuck with me despite my yelling her to rest and drink some water. After two more panes, there was another, "This is not women's work," accompanied by a "Maybe we shouldst leave this to the men."

Again, I told her it was fine to go rest and drink some water. After the third exchange, she took me up on my offer while I continued my assault on the dreaded mastic.

She tried for two more times to persuade me to leave this bit to D and his dad before turning to her husband. "Will you say something? Tell her to stop! That's not a job for a woman."

D couldn't help but laugh at that point. " The think she's gonna listen? The more you tell her to stop, the more bullheaded she'll become."

What do you know? It only took him 3 years and a half but I think he caught on to that.

Now, to MIL's credit, at this point she'd worked her butt off already and she's not really used to physical labour. We ended up forcing her to rest when she refused to abandon me and my unwomanly greenhouse crusade and giving her something else to do that was a bit more attainable for her.

In the end, victory was ours and the yard was a safe place again for all members of our family.

Stay tuned for more of our adventures as we turn this place into our house of dreams!

Hugs

Tiny

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