Making a house into a home, part 2

Our house was built in 1964, so while there is a lot of charm we adore, there are also a lot of quirks! With a good sense of humor and a great home warranty plan, we seem to get along just fine with our peculiar house attributes.

A pipe under the kitchen sink busted a week after we moved in. Not a huge deal, except we are on a concrete slab, so they had to sledgehammer into our kitchen tile. Kinda freaky to 1 week old home owners. But we learned as we went and ate off of paper plates until everything was fixed.

Our heat has gone out on Thanksgiving Day both last year and this year, when we had out of town guests. Once again, thank you home warranty!

We have  a gazillion electrical outlets everywhere, except the hallway. You know, the center of the house where it would be most convenient to plug in to vacuum? We literally have 6 outlets within 2 feet of the living room fireplace. 

All three bedroom closet doors have been off their track since we moved in, and we have never fixed them. Can you say lazy?

The previous owner added on to our master bedroom but didn't have enough parquet flooring to cover it all. But nothing a huge area rug can't cover, you can't even tell.

We have three attic entries. Is that normal? Seems like a lot to me. 

One of the front porch light switches is in Loudoun's bedroom, on the other end of the house. 

The garbage disposal wiring is bizarre. I'm going to leave it at that, so that Rick doesn't divorce me, since he cannot figure out how to make it GFCI compatible. We currently use an extension cord from under the sink instead of flipping a switch. See? Not illegal right there. No non-GFCI switch flipping.

The kids' bathroom toilet makes this thumping sound, seconds after you flush. Like, you walk away and all of a sudden, it sounds like a rock was dropped in the bowl. And after you get over the scare you just had, it happens again. And a third time. Just as you've crawled back into bed and almost fallen back asleep, it happens a final time. I'd think it could be ghostly, except that would be one dedicated ghost to stick around and do that after every single flush. 

Avalon's nook area has a removable floor board with a big hole under the house. Yeah, I'll be keeping an eye on that as she enters the teenage years. 


The air conditioning heat exchanger was installed 2 inches from 2 walls on the corner of the house, where ivy was also planted to cover both of those walls. Wonderful for leaves and branches to fall into the top grate and grow in and around the blades. 

Rick wants me to add: THE DOG.

I'm sure there are plenty more that I am not remembering at this moment, probably because I have gotten used to them. I feel so fortunate that none of these quirks outweigh the love we have for this humble abode. Do you have any quirky elements to the place you live in? I would love to hear all about them.