Dealing with deferred maintenance

When the first dribble of funds from my father's estate trickled in, we ordered a new mattress set. The mattress delivery guys took one look at our bridge and said we're not driving our truck over that, so these two strong young men cheerfully walked two-tenths of a mile uphill carrying the mattress and base on their backs, like tiny leaf-cutter ants carrying impossibly large loads. I tipped them well, and we've been sleeping peacefully ever since.

In case you're wondering how we've already received distributions from my father's estate, it's because he was a very smart man: after my mother died, he made all of his accounts payable on death to me and my brothers. There are still some bits and bobs hovering out there in limbo--a couple of small life insurance policies, a refund from the assisted living center, possibly a tax refund--but otherwise, Dad's modest assets have flowed smoothly into our grateful hands.

Aside from the new bed (badly needed), we've been mostly devoting my inheritance to what people in the facilities management field call deferred maintenance. For instance, last week we got both septic tanks cleaned. (Dealing with family history!)  We had a flooring company come out and measure rooms for new flooring but haven't ordered it yet. I've wanted to tear that stained wall-to-wall carpet out of our bathroom for 18 years, but I'll have to live with the new flooring for the next 18 years so I don't want to make any rash decisions.

And we've been painting. Truthfully, we were planning on painting the living areas this summer anyway, but Dad's generosity meant that I didn't blink at the price of high-quality paint. We painted the upstairs living areas before our trip to Florida and we've painted the downstairs this week, with the exception of the two most annoying spots in our house--possibly on the planet. One is the stairwell connecting upstairs to downstairs, where there are all kinds of fiddly bits to work around and you can't use a ladder or a step-stool to reach the high parts. I'm capable of finding something to trip on on an empty basketball court, so a stairwell covered with plastic drop-cloths and surrounded by wet paint is strictly a no-go zone for me. This is one of those times when my husband fully realizes the disadvantage of being the graceful one in the relationship.

The other difficult area is a big stretch of wall behind the old entertainment center in the basement. The basement is full of heavy things that don't get moved often--two old sofas, the piano, many overflowing bookshelves--but the entertainment center is actually bolted to the wall, and there's nowhere to put it until all those other things get moved back in place. In addition, it's full of stuff: books, old stereo equipment, piles of vinyl LP's, boxes of board games, an old radio-controlled airplane, several wooden hippopotamuses (don't ask), and an old-style television too unwieldy for any one person to handle.

This would be a good time to chuck the old TV and get a new flat-screen TV and a tidy stand, but then what to do with that ancient entertainment center? It's not exactly fine furniture--it came into our lives close to 40 years ago as a stack of particle-board pieces in a flat box accompanied by incomprehensible directions, and it's a miracle our marriage survived the process of putting that behemoth together. Last night I learned that the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore won't even accept entertainment centers, which is fine because I have no idea how we would get it there. It would be deeply satisfying to take an axe to it and burn the resulting pieces, but that's not a particularly respectful way to treat family history. I suspect that it will end up in the garage, gathering dust and mouse nests with all the other stuff we don't know what to do with.

Someday we can pass it on to our children--part of their inheritance. Along with an axe and a box of matches.    

Who wants to paint around that carpet?

Just a part of the basement chaos.