Something's Leaking

There's nothing more disturbing when you're half awake, wandering downstairs to turn on the espresso machine and take the dog out, to groggily realize that the rain you believe to be running down the outside of the kitchen window is actually on the inside. Water covered the countertop, had soaked the formica backsplash, and saturated the plaster wall behind the sink. It stank.

Ahh, December '03. After returning from our holiday travels, I finally decided to do something about the water infiltration problem. Ayse bought some caulk at the local hardware store (they're getting rich off of us, I'm sure) and I went up on a ladder. Caulk, caulk, caulk. It's not going to prevent all of the water coming in, since there are huge rents in the wood siding above the window (where they patched the hole from which they removed a nice double-hung). Hopefully it'll prevent glacial Lake Agassi from forming on our countertop.

Before caulking, I needed to do a bit of prep work, which mainly involved removing paint chips. (The painters came by with a carbide-blade scraper a few weeks back and removed a bunch of the flaking and peeling paint.) As I cleaned the area around the window, I noticed a lot of paint was still coming off. Ayse came out as I was finishing up and, with her fingernails, removed a bunch of paint from under the window. Hmm. We need to talk with the painters.

posted by noel on 01/04/04