The Hill Country in My Backyard

"Backyard" is probably the wrong word. "House" is probably a better choice.

Our lovely 1938-built one-story just north of campus was built, as many homes in the area were, not on a foundation of stone or cement, but on tree trunks.

When you walk around the back of our house, you can go through a creepy door and view rows of cedar logs, still wearing their bark, supporting the weight of the house. They're not embedded in the cement, and they're not really attached to the bottom of the house too well. There are a few cross beams that are nailed to the trees, but basically it's trees holding up the house. It's kind of like we live in a tree house. (Girls are allowed, though).

When I asked my landlord if the trees are a sound foundation replacement and he said yes; he'd even had a structural engineer come out to look at the place when he bought it. While that may be true, what I can tell you is that the most obvious side effect of the trees is that they do occasionally settle, shift, and move.

I know this because the entire back half of our house is one rolling hill after another. For example, our wine rack has spaces for wine glasses, and it's right outside our kitchen. The wine glasses hang at such a crazy angle that they actually touch each other. I put a leveler (ok, fine a leveler app on my iPhone) on top of the table and the bubble goes off the end of the tube. Forget anything other than 3-legged chairs: it's impossible to get anything level. Hanging pictures is a pros and cons endeavor: do I want the picture to be parallel to the light switches (and gravity), or the lines on the walls?