Whatcha doin????

Just got a Santa gig. And I'm going to get paid for this one. She asked how much I charged. All my previous onrs were gratis so I told her to pay me what she thought was fair. It's just come in dressed up as Santa, doing the Ho, Ho, Ho bit, help give out presents and pose for pictures. It's fot a local ladies club Breakfast With Santa in December. Have the date and an idea of the time but will get more specifics when we get closer.

 

I think I've got the section of floor figures out. I've cut the edges of one set of floorboards to a nice straight edge and cut another piece ready to sit in the gap, perpendicular to them. It needs to be that way because the joists below switch directions, which makes life more interesting. So now I've got a piece cut to almost the perfect shape - it needs a little minor trimming - to fit into the gap. I can also salvage some floorboards I lifted elsewhere to combine with what I'm lifting from the space, and I think they match closely enough it won't be too obvious that they didn't all come from the same place.

Once I've got a little more of the flooring down I can put the last pieces of the bottom beam in place and finish framing the walls. Then I'll have the entire room framed, and it will just need cabling (easy), new windows (outsourced) and drywalling (also outsourced). Then I can look at stripping and sanding the floor, painting the room and getting baseboards cut and installed.

 

Appreciate your prayers this week, gents.

starting a week long jury trial in 3 hours and I need grace, peace, wisdom, and mental and physical strength

it’s going to be a war

 

You got it brother. Praying

 

I'm assuming you're the lawyer for one of the parties, rather than a juror?

Hoping the first day has gone as well as can be expected.

 

Thanks for the prayers

jury trial is over

we won, thank God

verdict in favor of my client for $264,000

long hard trial
Really glad it is over

 

I needed to revisit a section of wall I framed. Thankfully it turned out to be a fairly easy matter of removing the screws that held the bottom bar to the floor and then gently tapping it across a fraction of an inch and screwing it down again. Normally I wouldn't have bothered for such a small error but if I'd left it the way it was I'd have had some really funky corrections to do around a doorframe, and it seemed easier to just tap a wall across slightly. The wall studs were so close to perfectly vertical I didn't think it mattered since they all matched, but when trying to match up with the perpendicular wall they didn't match well enough to make it work. Once that was done I got the rest of it finished and the doorframe studded.

For good measure I need to move another stud, because I slipped a measurement somewhere when positioning a door into a closet. This one will involve taking down a stud, cutting maybe a couple of inches off the bottom bar, then putting the stud back into place. Easy enough to do, just frustrating that I fumbled some numbers somewhere.

Once that's done I can think about moving on to the next room. That will require some stuff to be moved first - I've got a lot of old wall studs and trim stacked up in there, and I can only work around so much of it.

 

You know that we are going to want pictures when you are all finished!

 

It turned out I didn't miscalculate, I just didn't consider the implications of having exactly 3.5" either side of a closet door. Building a stud wall 3.5" long seems like an exercise in futility, it's little more than two 2x4s with half an inch between them, which isn't even enough to put a piece of door trim on to match the other doors in the house.

So it looks like I'm going to move the stud an inch or two, accept the door won't be entirely central to the closet, and also accept that the door will be a slightly narrow door. As long as it's not so narrow I find myself forced into making a custom door I can live with that. Truth be told I'm starting to wonder whether making a custom door would make life easier overall, even if it would be something of a headache in the immediate term.

ETA: It might be easier to take standard 3/4" trim wood and run it through a planer to get it down to more like 1/2", which will give me a little more space to shim the frame if I find I need it. I'm hoping everything is going to be sufficiently square that I won't need much trimming - I certainly won't need to shim a large space to fit a small door...

 

That's assuming I ever do actually finish it all

 

I moved the offending stud two inches, and cut a corresponding amount off the floor bar. Then I got the rest of that all framed and ready to go.

Moving a big stack of wood trim into the attic wasn't a lot of fun but it was easier than hauling it down to the basement. I also replaced a couple of sections of attic flooring that I'd needed to lift to provide access for another job. Having that floor back in place gives me a bit more space to store stuff.

Among the piles of removed wood are some pieces I plan to strip and reuse, and quite a lot of pieces that I suspect are going to end up getting chopped into little pieces and burned. I had considered trying to salvage a lot of the baseboard but it doesn't look like it's anything special and stripping the rather nasty (probably lead-based) paint from it seems like more trouble than it's worth. So that will almost certainly mean a couple of pieces of wood about 14 feet long get cut into 2-foot lengths so they will fit in my burn barrel. The next room is slowly getting closer to a state where I can start work, so during the week I may pay a visit to the lumber mill and buy a bunch of material to make wall studs. Now I've got some experience of studding walls I'm hoping it will be an easy job. The hardest part is likely to be trying to get the walls square and perpendicular.

 

Waiting for a long enough period of dry weather so I can go and get another stack of lumber. Also debating whether to stack it on the roof of my car or borrow a friend's truck. The truck would mean I could get more of it in a single trip, but obviously leaves me dependant on when/whether I can borrow a truck.

 

A couple of really good friends suggested we join them for an evening at a local(ish) brewery that we had on our list to visit. It was a really good evening. We always have a good time with this particular couple.

Good food, good beer, good company. Hard to ask for much more.

 

Was there meant to be a message there, Rabbi?

 

Taking antibiotics. My favourite tooth, which was root canaled, may have a recurring infection. Would prefer to avoid another root canal. ;\

 

I'm wondering where all the packages that someone allegedly failed to deliver to me have ended up. There must be an enormous pile of them by now, it seems every day I have at least half a dozen failed deliveries. I hope whoever is allegedly sending these mystery packages has a nice big warehouse to store them all.

 

If you will just click on that link, I'm sure you'll get instructions on how to get them all delivered to you...they will just need to confirm your social security number, your birth date, your mother's maiden name, your first pet's name, your childhood friend from elementary school, and your bank account number...

 

The trouble is that there are so many of them I'm afraid I'd need to build a bigger house to store them all. I think I'll hold off on clicking the link until I've figured out what to do with so many parcels.

Maybe I'll find a charity with a very large warehouse that needs unknown parcels to give out to people in need and they can click the link instead...