d'Errata @wion@writing.exchange

Found a useful wood block image that was cited in a book published in 1979. The book cite's the image as being from a Dutch monograph published in the 18th century. I checked with a library that has the very monograph, and the librarian reported back after a spell that the monograph has no such image. Indeed, the plates that are in the book, based on two examples provided, are not remotely the same style. Makes me wonder how many fabricated bibliographies there are in the world.

One positive from this experience of being first in line, though, was being able to learn some real figures from contractors about costs of major renovation needs. We're smarter going in next time without having to call them.

As we somewhat expected due to the popularity of this area, we lost on the renegotiation. The sellers had nine parties in line after us, apparently, so told us 'au revoir'.

It's a gut punch (and my son is pissed) because now we're back to square one of house hunting (3 years and counting), but it seems like the right decision, if tiring.

Just realized 'short end of the stick' doesn't make any damn sense, but I guess people understand the expression.

Maybe it's supposed to be 'shit end of the stick'?

We've been reading that such back-pedal negotiating is a bad idea -- i.e. rarely works and makes for poor community relations -- but buying/owning a house is serious biz, like it or not. Better to not be on the short end of the stick.

They may get pissed and tell us to fuck off, fairly, or they may see our facts/figures as the honest argument it is and accept our changed offer... Because we happen to know they have already bought another house and are needing the money from this sale to help cover it, and they're going on vacation. Heh.

A big week ahead.

Now that we have better intel on renovation costs, on top of the unforeseen setbacks of being in a 'historic property' zone (so, e.g., we can't ever put up solar panels), we're going to try something rarely done in the game of house negotiations; we're going to take our project estimates/costs/hopes back to the notaire and seller, and say we'll sign the compromis, but will back out before it's binding if the seller doesn't reduce the price on house by another 20K.

We've done more crunch-time cost estimations on foreseen and necessary renovations, and even doing what we can ourselves, it's still a _lot_ of money. A lot!

The thing is, we may not stay in the house more than 5 or 6 years (future's unclear), and for less than the amount of money we would finally invest, we could buy a bigger house a little further out with more land. Or a similar-size property in better condition and ready to live in.

So we're going to try something bold...

'The appearance of these naked warriors was a terrifying spectacle, for they were all men of splendid physique and in the prime of life.'

Polybius, speaking about the ancient mainland Celts (La Tène and Holstatt periods; pre Roman Empire), who were also said to be fond of collecting human heads, much like hunters collect wall trophies today.

Addendum: We are not getting velux sun tunnels, but they are frickin' cool. If your attic is shallow, unusable space, and you're trying to get natural light/heat in dark areas of top-floor spaces, even hallways and closets, consider sun tunnels. Eliminate those lightbulbs!

There are 17 old, leaky windows of varying size in the soon-to-be house, from roof skylighting to sous-sol, all needing replaced with energy-efficient designs; not counting the skylights we'd like to install but probably won't now. It's an astronomical amount of money; a big hit to our budget for renovations. Labour fee is the least of it, so we're letting the pros do it faster and better at this scale. In the US, it's easy to find places selling suitable second-hand windows. Not in France.

The Fiskars 24" clearing machete, with its shiny, curving blade and molded synthetic grip, is creepy looking, so is the 29" machete axe. Also creepy is the fact they are always sold out.

Around all the house fun, I am making headway on the glossary project. I am now calling it an almanossary (almanac glossary), because while it will have a glossary-like structure, the individual articles will be a bit meatier than definitions alone, having photos, examples, histories here and there, instructions... whatever behooves my sense of utility, like an almanac. It probably won't see the light of day in 2020, but maybe in the first quarter.