Sunday, July 25, 2004

Window Troubles

We are renting a house. It is a beautiful house, with a stunning room for my wife's piano (named George) and what we had hoped was enough room for my books (no). Renting is not optimal, but the house looked great and was near the shul so in we plunged. Renting a house is, now I discover, the worst of both worlds. Renting means you lose with any capital improvement - but in an apartment building those problems are usually offset by having a furnished and well-maintained interior (with elevator, doormen, washers & driers, etc). Owning a house comes with the loads of solitude-based problems but those are offset by the idea that any material enhancement will benefit your selling price. Not so when you rent a house. Live and learn.

I whine like this because we need to purchase and install window covers for the whole house. The windows are nekkid (we are the first people to live here in a long time) and it’s a big annoying job to cover 'em. Now, as you probably guessed, I'm as knowledgeable about home furnishings as I am in ladies eveningwear. Evidently there's a difference between (a) blinds (b) curtains, and (c) shades. This difference is enforced.
  • Blinds = slats
  • Shade = vertical
  • Curtain = horizontal
I bought myself a cordless drill which is, second to the dreaded and awesome Nail Gun, a very dangerous thing to own. Nail Guns are pretty much useless for simple housework but who *doesn't* want to own a device capable of driving 3 inch metal spikes with great power into any surface? Anyway, my portable drill and I have date with drapes (which are part of the curtain family, or so I'm told).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You want to buy a house eventually you are now learning things you'll need to know before you buy. Renting is the great aggravation but a great teacher. How would you evaluate a house to buy without knowing what you're start to learn now?