The hard work the girls have done to pain the upstairs has hit an unexpected snag.

And it’s because of our lack of hot water.

At least partly.

This house was very, very dry.  Suck the moisture out of your flesh, skin cracking, dry.

Then the hot water tank died.

Now we have a routine of heating up large amounts of water in the morning, so that we can wash ourselves.  Then more throughout the day so we can do dishes, etc.

The house is now very muggy.

It’s building up, upstairs.

Because the second floor is basically under the roof, there is a lot of condensation.  The windows are all fogged up, and it’s showing up in the fresh paint, preventing it from curing.

My daughter checked the walls in the morning, and they were dry, but by the time we were done heating the water for the morning, moisture was seeping again, and the paint was sloughing off.

In looking up there last night, I noticed something that I somehow missed in all the years I’ve lived here.

There is only one heat vent up there.  And the room it’s in is the colder one!

We have no fans.  No heaters.  Nothing …

Except…

Maybe…

When working on the hot water tank, I had noticed something in the corner.  An old, dusty de-humidifier.  I remembered my younger brother saying that he had set one up in the Old Part basement in the summer, because it got so wet down there (the New Part basement has proper weeping tile).

I told my daughters about it, so down into the murder basement they went, fought off the spiders (one of which kept going after my older daughter’s feet!) and dragged it upstairs.

It’s now set up and running. Whether or not it works, we will soon find out.

In the process, however, my daughters realized that not only are there only two outlets up there, but one of them is two prong only.  Which means only one outlet is useable for most of the things we have.

If this doesn’t work, we’ll either have to pick up some fans or something (it’s too cold to just open the windows).  Or, if this fails entirely, wait until spring and try painting again.

I really hope it works!

Update: it seems to be working so far.

Here is a photo from yesterday.

This is from earlier today. 

The paint is just sloughing off with the moisture.

The Re-farmer