Our Olde House, July 2026 Un-lit lamps, 1” blinds and a cinder block

By Guest Columnists Sherry Landrum and Gerald M. Kerner    

Miss Sherry and I live in a circa 1863 house in Olde Towne Clinton.  Our house has had at least two major extensions and several interior rearrangements during the past 163 years.  As we are taking our turn at caring for this part of Clinton’s history, we have learned to accept that there are no simple fixes to anything that needs attention or updating, and that whoever last fixed what we are fixing again did their best with what they had at the time; judge not, lest ye be judged.

I do not think Our Olde House is haunted, but you may have noticed in this picture that the lamp on the table is off, even though it is plugged in, turned on, and all of the other lamps on this same circuit work. While the first explanation that comes to mind for this outlet’s behavior may be to think that this house is haunted, we do have another think coming, and should take it.

This is not the first time this has happened. A few years ago, this front hall outlet stopped working for no apparent reason. We had an electrician replace the physical receptacle, and it worked for a few weeks, then stopped working again. Another electrician replaced the photo sensor on the outside pole light, which is on this circuit, and this outlet started working and did so for the several years since, until last week when it stopped working, again.

The photo sensor and the pole light are working fine, the receptacle is new and the lamp bulbs work, so I am out of quick fixes. I ran an extension cord from another outlet to this one and plugged in the lamp and weather radio. This is not a solution, but a workaround until the answer comes to me.

After our kitchen was rebuilt three years ago, it did not take us long to realize that the two southern-facing windows over the sink needed window shades to block the blinding light that came through them during afternoons. Miss Sherry found some really nice looking wooden mini blinds with one-inch slats that we purchased to cover just the top half of these two windows. We still have an unobstructed view through the bottom half of these windows into the backyard.

Several months after purchasing these blinds, the changing of the seasons brought the bright sun into the kitchen through the one east-facing window during mornings. While we decided to purchase another identical blind for this window, the entire mini blind manufacturing world decided to no longer make wooden mini blinds with one-inch slats. Wooden blinds with two-inch slats are available, but we thought those would not blend well with the kitchen. As a temporary, short-term solution to this bright sun issue, I covered the top half of this window with a very thin sheet of white styrofoam that blocked the direct sun but let in lots of light.

Now, after three years, the “temporary” styrofoam solution was still in place. I thought that surely now wooden mini blinds with one-inch slats would be available, but I was wrong. Miss Sherry, who speaks fluent Amazonian, said she would find some blinds for the kitchen window. After a few days of looking, she realized that we were not going to find wooden mini blinds with one-inch slats, so we decided to order some aluminum mini blinds with one-inch slats that look like wood. These blinds arrived last week, several months after the promised three-to-four-day delivery window; fortunately, when they finally arrived, we still remembered that we ordered these blinds and which window they were for.

I put the blinds up the next day, and they look very nice, even though they are not identical to the other two blinds. The success of the project by this time had a very low bar; we abandoned any hope of an exact match to the other blinds and settled upon a standard of “they need to look better than the thin sheet of styrofoam taped to the window with electrical tape.” We nailed it.

The new circuit board for the air conditioner arrived and was installed shortly thereafter. The air conditioner ran fine for one day, but, during the night, I noticed that the house was still very warm, and the unit’s fan was not blowing air as strongly as it used to. Miss Sherry called the A/C guy the next morning, and he came out after a couple of hours. He worked on it for about an hour before he knocked on the door. He said the air conditioner was running fine, both the temperature and volume of air out of the ducts was good, and he cleaned the coils, but…. The “but” was a picture under the house he showed me of a cinder block squishing the main duct leaving the air conditioner. He said he removed the cinder block, which greatly improved the air flow.

After he left, Miss Sherry said it was funny that a cinder block was crushing the duct. I agreed it was odd, especially since no cinder blocks were used to build this house, so when and how did a cinder block get under the house, much less perch precariously over the air conditioner duct. The cinder block was not put under the house during the last fifteen years that I have lived here, and it certainly could not have “fallen” more than one day before, since the air flow has always been sufficient.

It is also a stretch to say the A/C guy must have knocked it down when he replaced the circuit board, because the air flow was fine after he left. However, the most interesting part of this situation is that the air conditioner now runs better, actually much better than it ever did before. It blows colder air than before, with plenty of volume, and keeps the house several degrees cooler on hot days than before. It also cycles on and off more frequently than before, which apparently results in better efficiency. Home repairs are not always just an inconvenience and an unexpected cost, sometimes they are the way we improve our homes and our lives.