This really is an amazing thing, and a tremendous milestone for me and Liz. We’ve been working for a long, long time on the house and so much of that work has been subtractive in nature: demo and removal.
To be at a point where we are adding new things, shaping the house anew, is incredibly exciting. Every time I come down and stand in these rooms, it just takes my breath away.
Liz reminded me that we were not going for distance here, which took some adjusting for me, mentally. Ultimately, the snag made the candy delivery easier for the children. And I guess this whole thing is about them. I guess.
A lot of planning today, with a majority of the time spent figuring out what needed to be done, measurements for the fireplace tile frame, and framing up all the floor vents.
I also took the shop vac and went over every inch of the floor. This was pretty time-consuming, but ended up taking less time than I figured. In a lot of spots, the plywood had more dirt and grime than I realized, and lightened up considerably with each pass.
After work tonight, Liz and I relocated a lot of material… elsewhere. We’ve got the flooring guys coming in a matter of days, and we needed to remove as much excess material (leftover drywall, plywood, wood) as possible.
Bob found a “MultiLite Polycarbonate” sheet, which was similar to plexiglass… but thermal-insulated (and about half the price). One downfall with this sheet: it was composed of small-ish boxes, resulting in a kind of gauzy appearance (though it was technically clear).
We ended up going with Plexiglass, which was more expensive but more clear. Part of our desire for the window (at least for now) is to be able to have more natural light in the main hall. We’ll be deciding on a floor stain very soon, and the more natural light we can get, the better.
This series of animated graphics was a nice way to learn a bit more about the vaccine process, and how the next few months might look in terms of a Coronavirus cure.
Bob was over today, framing out the south side hall window. The sashes will likely need to get re-built, and Liz wants to re-use the glass from the old windows. This is a longer-term project, so in the meanwhile we’ll likely have something temporary here.
The jeans I had on had a slight rip to them. And that rip got a little bit worse, every time I stopped down. Eventually, it got so bad that I was concerned about going outside (for fear I’d get some kind of indecent exposure fine).
I asked Liz for a safety pin, but she ended up going all MacGyver on me with some duct tape. Which, to my surprise, held up pretty well.
“And I have this dream where I’m screaming underwater
While my friends are all waving from the shore
And I don’t need you to tell me what that means
I don’t believe in that stuff anymore”
It’s been a busy time for both me and Liz with work work (though I’d argue she’s been markedly busier than me). As a result, Liz hasn’t done much additional house work beyond the critical stuff we need to get done.
She’s been working long hours, extra hours, evenings and weekends. There’s been a little bit of free time here and there, but it’s not been much.
“Prior to CDPH, she worked for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer. In that role, she focused on outbreak response, including international work on Ebola and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. While based at the Illinois Department of Public Health, she responded to disease outbreaks across the state.
She has a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, a master’s degree in public health from Columbia University, and completed medical school and clinical training at Yale University.”
“So here’s the question. You don’t want your planes to get shot down by enemy fighters, so you armor them. But armor makes the plane heavier, and heavier planes are less maneuverable and use more fuel. Armoring the planes too much is a problem; armoring the planes too little is a problem. Somewhere in between there’s an optimum. The reason you have a team of mathematicians socked away in an apartment in New York City is to figure out where that optimum is.”
Weirdly, the first song I had ever heard from Bridgers was a Christmas song. It was “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. And there was such a melancholic twinge to it (a twinge that seems to lurk just underneath almost every popular Christmas song).
The taper has two more trips over, to sand and smooth things down. In the meanwhile, we’re aiming to get what we can done in the first floor bathroom and stairs. It would be nice to get the rockers and tapers to handle those areas as well, but timing-wise we’ll see.