The City of Dis

I'm pretty sure Dante was a time-traveller, and somehow wound up in our master bedroom during an Inland Empire heat wave, and was thereafter inspired to put quill to paper and pen one of written language's greatest tomes.

Our house is on the slopes of a rather large hill, with somewhat spectacular panoramic views around the neighbourhood below. Our master bedroom is southfacing and is saturated with direct sunlight all day. And while that placement means I can potentially grow some mean orchids in the house and Echinacea in the yard, it also means that the upstairs gets EXTREMELY hot.

I'm an obsessive and methodical sort of person, so when something bothers me, I analyze it to death. The thermostat for the house is in the walk-through bedroom/office upstairs, so I glance at it every day when I turn on the AC when we get home from work. I also have a temperture gauge in our master bedroom, and check that every day, as well. On average, the master bedroom is 7 degrees hotter than the room right next door. And a full 15 degrees hotter than any room downstairs.

Now with the 15' vaulted ceilings and the single AC vent about 11' up, the cold air from the AC unit doesn't really circulate too well throughout the room, so I always have a tower fan below the vent in a pathetic attempt to spread the joy. Given these circumstances, if I turn the AC on at 5:30, we're lucky if the master bedroom is down to a balmy 79 degrees by the time we go to bed at midnight. And I'm a freakishly finicky sleeper in that I require total darkness (I wear an eye mask), total silence (I wear earplugs) and total cold (windows open in the winter!), so 79 degrees just ain't cutting it.

View into the master bedroom from the doorway; taken during our first visit to the property.

I made a deal with John where if he bought the screen doors and materials to make screens for the windows, I would buy a portable AC unit. And people, I did just that! I don't trust my own judgement in purchasing large ticket items like that, so I deferred to John for making the make/model decision. He found what seemed like a smoking deal at Costco for a 13,500 BTU dual-hose system, and I shelled out the buckeroos for the shiney bad-boy (including $40 to have to have it shipped to the house). And it was delivered yesterday. Giddy, we unpackaged it on our lunch and John hefted it upstairs (the thing is freaking heavy!!). Before getting ready for bed last night, I put the thing together (piece of cake!) and got it set up in the middle dormer window. This was all at 11PM, and within 50minutes, the temperature on the other side of the room had dropped three full degrees.

"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship..."