My contribution to society: illustrious and learned tidbits in (moderated) comments sections of e-magazines & newspaper columns They usually just let me rattle on.
My working room has steadfastly refused to drop below 54 degrees. When it went below freezing for 36 hours it dropped to 54 degrees. Later in the afternoon it had gone back up to 55 degrees, despite still being barely above freezing outside and there being no heating in the room. Here's hoping my heating bills can drop a bit further going forward. That would be nice.
For now we use oil. As part of the renovation I'm looking at adding some kind of heat pump, partly because it will offer cooling as well as heating and partly because it seems easier to put a vent in a ceiling in a currently unheated room than to buy a cast iron radiator and lug it up the stairs. The big benefit is cooling without needing window units. Once I've got the place better fixed up to keep sound out the last thing I want is to have to open the windows during the summer months and trade a triple-glazed window for a thin piece of plastic fin.
Recovering from playing Santa for the Christmas Party for a local homeless ministry. This is my 3rd year as their Santa.
Trying to figure out how to cut some featherboards off my wall. The tops of the featherboards tuck behind the drywall ceiling, and I really don't want to have to pull down and redo the ceiling if there's any sensible way to avoid it. The trouble is the boards are nailed to the stone wall. I can pry them off with a wrecking bar but that risks damaging the ceiling meaning I may have to redo that, and trying to cut them flush with the ceiling is tricky to say the least. I want to cut them off because I'm probably going to need to do some wall repair behind them. Cutting anything flush is tricky - I have a blade for my oscillating tool but they don't seem to last very long before they are blunt. When they are blunt they cut slowly and generate a lot of heat and smoke, which doesn't seem ideal when cutting wood. Maybe I'll pay a visit to Lowe's and see what blades they have. I considered putting a wheel on my angle grinder and cutting them at a slight angle but fear for the potential consequences of trying to do precision work with a tool as crude as an angle grinder, especially since I'm going to have to do it while standing on a ladder. If I'm off to Lowe's I might as well measure up the room ahead of time and figure how much wood I need to reframe/restud the entire room.
If you first deeply score the board, using a straight- edge, like a steel yardstick, and a razor utility knife, you can then safely pry the board loose and continue to score a straight line until it all comes off. Using fresh blades to cut the board and maybe even a good scraper to pry. Unless your featherboard is thick, in which case I would resort to using and oscillating cutter-tool. I use a FEIN, but there are others and cheaper.
It's too thick for scoring it - maybe 3/4" thick, give or take. I got myself some new cutter blades this afternoon. For good measure it's probably about 80-90 years old so it's pretty tough. I think some of it is cedar but it's not in good shape, so I don't think it's worth even trying to salvage anything much out if it. I've already got a big pile of cedar strips in the basement that came from a ceiling I took down, and most of it survived.
76 degrees, windchill ~ 74 degrees. Got down to about 65 last night. Bringing out the extra blankets.
My working room finally dropped below 54 degrees. It hasn't gone above freezing all day and it's now about 15 degrees outside. The room dropped to 52 degrees. I can live with that....
Finished ripping featherboards out of the second room I'm working on. I had planned to have started drywalling the first room by now but held off while I investigate a vinyl sheeting product that is supposed to hugely improve soundproofing. I'm thinking that since this room is ultimately going to end up being either a bedroom or some kind of study space it would be nice to reduce a lot of the noise from the road. It kicks finishing the room out until after Christmas but I can live with that. Now the second room I"m working in has everything ripped off the walls. I need to do some brickwork to fix horribly shoddy mortar, fill some gaps and pockmarks in the bricks, fill the holes from where I pulled out the nails that held the featherboards in place, and then I can start reframing it. There's a chance that this room might actually turn out to be an easy one to get fixed up. That would make a nice change from everything else in the house. I still need to figure out how to turn what was once a doorway back into a doorway and hang a door in it. The long term plan is that there won't be a door in it, but for now I need one to keep the cat out while I finish working in there. Don't really want the cat getting into bits of fiberglass, insulation, loose nails and the like.
Firewood is on bro Stephen this year. About 4 households - everybody working debilitating hours, mostly mining. New chainsaw and pending new log splitter will help to facilitate - large, dry, fir pulp logs aplenty. If the bod holds out