Whatcha doin????

I've seen This Old House do similar things. Sometimes a table, other times using it to make a pantry door. Various things.

 

Yeah, I saw that one too.

 

I would not make that assumption.

 

A Freudian slip - when you say one thing but mean your mother.

 

Sick kid and sick dog.

 

Still not sure about the dog. We suspect a possible blockage. X-ray inconclusive. Will try a few more tests tomorrow.

 

Are you sure about the kid?

 

Yep. Some sort of virus.

 

I got to spend a couple of hours this morning cleaning up a carpet of fine dust. I ran an angle grinder to cut my concrete blocks back so they are level enough to fit my insulation panels between the studs. I positioned everything so that dust was thrown downwards, but enough of it went upwards to get into the room above and coat everything in fine dust. Which was annoying, given it took nearly two hours to clean it all up and would have taken more like 10 minutes to stuff fiberglass into the gaps to stop it getting there at all.

I still need more time with the angle grinder, and this time I'm going to stuff fiberglass into spaces to make sure dust doesn't travel any further than is necessary.

I also finally nailed the cold spot that has been bothering me for a long time. Having found a space from the basement and filled it with foam things were better but still not what they should have been. Today I took a close look outside and found that the basement window had perished sealant above it. So I scraped away the old sealant, filled the space with nice new sealant, and a few hours later the temperature difference on the wall had dropped from about 15 degrees to about 3 degrees. I'll check again tomorrow but think I finally nailed the problem.

 

The vet was pretty sure he located an obstruction but it turned out to not be anything which had him a bit mystified. So ee're still not sure what is going on. Hopefully something that just passes by. Its a good thing our dog is cute because she's getting expensive.

 

A break from getting covered in dust.

I've been trying to cut back some of my concrete blocks. The quality of the construction in that corner isn't as good as the rest of the house, which means my insulation panels won't fit flush against the concrete, which in turn means they are sufficiently proud of the wall studs that putting drywall across the top isn't going to work. To fix the problem I've been taking my angle grinder to the concrete to trim it back to a point where I can fit a panel into the space. It's hideously dusty work, the dust gets absolutely everywhere and when I'm done it takes an age in the shower to get the dust out of my hair.

A friend at church has experience working in construction so I'm going to ask him if there's a better way of doing this. It's not a huge area that needs this attention but it's such a messy job it would be nice if there is a cleaner way. I considered shimming out all the wall studs but I'd also have to shim the window and door frames, and getting something to match 100-year-old stained wood seems like an exercise in frustration in its own right.

Assuming the job does end up taking the angle grinder to finish it off I hope to be able to finish it in a day or two, then I can really press on with the panels. The trouble is I have to keep taking breaks to let the angle grinder cool down and/or recharge the battery, and while I'm waiting there's not much I can do because I'm covered in dust and can't really go and sit in the part of the house we're using.

 

Man, the porn-bots have been hitting BF hard the last month or so. I never recall seeing them make it onto the board in the 12 years I've been a member like in the last month.

 

I know. I noticed as well. They pick a time when not many or any mods are on.

 

When I was a lowly purple (I think they were called facilitators back in the day) it was frustrating to be the first one on the board during the day and unable to do anything to clean up the mess left by the porn bots.

Now I figure if a board that size can't have a few mods in multiple time zones they shouldn't be surprised if spammers hit them at the times they are most vulnerable. I wouldn't wish it on them - I remember clearing out some porn that made me feel physically sick - but I'm sure they can find at least a couple of mods in the US, in Europe, in Australia etc. That's assuming they haven't banned everybody by now.

 

More fun with my angle grinder. Today's task was to try and grind out a piece of a concrete block that goes behind a beam, in a space between two wall studs barely 8" apart. Of course I couldn't get the grinding wheel right into where I needed it to be, so ended up using a chisel to get into the corners. That was fun.

Now I think I've got enough grinding done that I can put panels in the rest of one wall, and tomorrow I get to start on the adjacent wall. I am SOOOOOO looking forward to this stage being done. This corner of the house has been nothing but trouble.

 

Good luck Tango. You need it.