What Were They Thinking?!

So, it's pretty much an established fact that no two people think exactly alike.  In general though, most people try to use common sense; that's why they call it 'common'.  In our new home there have been several times when I've been really confused as to what the previous owners were thinking.  Now some things, I'm sure, were simply a case of not having the means of taking care of things, ie. the screen door that was just leaning against the back deck with one of the panes of glass broken.  With others, it was likely a case of preparing for renovations that were never done, ie. the kitchen cupboard doors that were removed and put in the basement long enough to gather dust.  Some were, hopefully, a lack of knowledge that, thankfully, did not turn disastrous, ie, the wood stove hooked up to the old oil furnace chimney without ensuring that it was up to code (which it wasn't).

Another thing that I found very odd was the number of phone jacks in this house.  There's one in every bedroom, one in the dining room a whole bunch in the basement and what I thought were three in the living room.  What's that you say?  How could you think there were three and that not be the case.  Well, that brings me to another "What were they thinking?!".  When I was preparing the living room for painting I was taking the outlet covers and phone jacks off, pretty standard.  When I took it off I was so surprised that I put it back on so I could take a picture.  I didn't put the snap-on cover back for the picture just the part that  screws on.

And this is what I found behind the phone jack.  Now my big question is, where do those wires go?  It doesn't look like there was a light in the living room that would need a switch.  More importantly, what were they thinking?!

On a different note, we also learned of something else today that made us, once again, wonder what they were thinking.  DH was visiting our neighbour to check out what they're doing with their basement.  (That brings up a whole other topic craziness on the part of the previous owners here - yes, we can see that the subfloor wasn't really done correctly but that's no reason to just make random saw lines and leave it).  Anyway, the contractor doing the basement at our neighbour's said that there used to be a nice row of spruce trees along the back fence of our place, actually a few rows of spruce.  So when Hydro One came to trim them a bit so they didn't get in the way of the power lines, the previous owner had them cut them all down, apparently so she could use them as fire wood . . . in the not completely safe wood stove.  Did I mention that it was spruce?  In an area where hardwoods are plentiful and much preferred for burning. 

With the spruce trees gone this is what we get to see out of our living room window.  What the #### were they thinking?!!!!!!!!