I drilled a hole in the stud and shone a light through it. It turns out my brickwork isn't in the bad shape I expected, and the cavity I need to get at is accessible from the other side of the wall. So that can wait until it's time to pull down the adjacent room. Which in turn means I can proceed, so I've started cutting offcuts of insulation panels to fit into the awkward shape that remains. Once that's done I can cut and fit the final stud, and then the wall project will be complete. And then I can start work on the next wall project, although at least this one isn't a supporting wall....
Day off from building, so I went for a run in the morning and then my wife and I went out to check out a new brewery nearby. While we were there we visited a coffee shop we both really like. It's a bit far to go just for a coffee but when we're in the area we like to stop there.
Gender dysphoria is covered by disability law, federal court rules https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out...-disability-law-federal-court-rules-rcna44781
My wall is finished - the insulation panels are cut and fitted and the last stud is cut and secured in place. Next up I need to replace an adjacent wall and shim out the door frame ready for drywall to fit across everything.
Minor fiddling work with the wall - primarily tweaking the way the studs are secured at the bottom. Then a cleanup to cut off the nasty ends of the old studs, cut away the bits with big nails I can't remove, and shift all the surplus wood to the basement for possible later use. I won't use it as studs but since it's 100 years old and has a very tight grain I may be able to use it for something else. Along the way I shuffled a load of other stored wood around so I can get at the long 2x4s I took down from a drop ceiling. They will become wall studs in the fairly near future, I just need to take down the wall studs that are already there and mount these perpendicular to the way the old ones were installed. Then I'll have some more 100 year old wood in the basement. Maybe this coming week I can order the soundproofing I need for the next part of my project. Once I can get some of that fitted I can schedule a drywall installer. I'm going to want the heaviest drywall sheets I can find for the outside wall, to aid the soundproofing rubber sheeting in blocking as much noise as humanly possible.
There is nothing in the old house. My wife even cleaned the baseboards and windows yesterday... Remember the old game show where you picked a box for your prize? Yeah, well, they only had 30 boxes or so...
That's the theory at least. You'd be surprised how often things can appear in places where there was nothing. Don't ask how I know this.... Did you find your shoes in the end?
A trip to the big box hardware store ended in multiple failure. I had hoped to get some vented concrete blocks and a fixed window fan. My basement gets very humid in the summertime and I'd like to be able to vent it, but want to vent it to the back of the house so I don't get any more noise from the road than is necessary. The plan is to remove the existing window and much of the frame, fill the outer part with vented concrete blocks (ideally with an angled vent, to keep rain out and maintain privacy), put a bug screen inside the blocks to make sure nothing gets in, then have replaceable panels in the inner part of the windowframe. In the winter that would look like some kind of double glazed panel. In the summer it might be a window panel and a fan, or maybe two fans side by side. Then perhaps I can open the window at the side of the house away from the driveway and pull air through the basement. Failing that it can suck air through the house and out. Sadly the big box hardware store didn't have the concrete blocks I wanted and didn't have a suitable fan. Aside from that they did just fine....
Work is commencing on removing and replacing the next wall. Much of it is removed, but I'm going to need to lay a piece of 2x4 across a section of floor that currently has a power cable coming out of it. Not a big deal, I can kill the circuit and remove the cable while I drill a hole through the new piece of wood. Then I need to figure out how to position a comparable piece of wood across the ceiling joists, directly above the piece on the floor. Once that's done it should be easy enough to cut studs and rebuild that wall the way I want it.
I had so much fun rebuilding my wall I decided to do another one. This is a partition between two walls with an archway in the middle. So far one side of it is rebuilt and the section over the top of the archway is removed.