Rule #2: You can't teach an old house new tricks

This is Alex installing an outlet in our kitchen, with the help of Dave (not shown).

As most of you know, Alex and I recently moved into our "new-to-us" house. We love many things about this house, the hardwood floors we refinished (that look fabulous if I do say so myself), the yard, the enormous walnut tree...the list goes on. And while we love the charm and character our old home has...the list of "updates" keeps getting longer and longer. We "updated" the kitchen outlet to accommodate our needs, only to find out that we need to add yet another outlet for our updated gas range. But that's not a big deal, outlets are fairly easy to come by when you have two handy men as fathers...teaching Alex every step of the way how to improve our home. But we have been in our home for almost two weeks and we still do not have our washer and dryer hooked up. And not for lack of trying either. We needed extension hoses to connect our water supply, needed to extend the duct/lint connection, connect the gas and install yet another outlet. Tonight at last I thought we had done it. I thought everything was complete and I was finally going to be able to clean the burp cloths. That's what we really needed. We had already done one load of laundry at my in-laws last week and I have been holding out this week knowing we were going to hook up the dryer soon! We've been using pre-used burp cloths for two days now...ones that were only mildly dirty, or had dried enough for us not to care anymore. (Don't judge my parenting..he was just going to spit up on them again anyway).

At 9:15 tonight, my loving Step-Dad Dave left after helping install the last roadblock to laundry freedom. Then Alex turns on the water....

...and quickly turns it off again shouting for a towel. *sigh*

We inspect the water hoses, made sure thread tape was everywhere possible, tightened beyond belief and try it again. Cold water...on. No leak. A celebration in my head starts....next up, Hot water....still leaks!!! How is it possible?!?!? There are a number of maybes, maybe it's this, maybe it's that...but the celebration comes to an abrupt end.

*We only use cold water for our laundry, maybe we can still clean the burp cloths!! I think desperately.

So, we turn off the hot water and start the laundry, Alex is skeptical this will work. No leaking initially, then suddenly the hot water hose is leaking!?!? They're connected? What!!

If only that was the end of this sad tale.

I drain the water from the washer...and a few feet away water starts overflowing in the doorway. *sigh*

A gas repairman accidentally kicked our drain out last week, and the seal is now broken...one more thing to be "updated."

But what about the burp cloths?! Two days of pre-used is one thing...but three is just pushing my limit! So, I had no other choice. I went old school. That's right, I hand washed them all in my bathtub. Since our dryer is functional I didn't have to line dry them all...but it has made me appreciate those who lived in that era. It wasn't particularly difficult, just tedious and my hands were awfully dry by the end.

Ahh, the joys of home ownership.