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.
A stained glass window, which will reside at the top of our stairs. While a lot of our work this years has been focused on the first floor, we’re trying to push that work up into the second floor. Getting this up there will really make it feel like we’ve turned a corner, progressing the work on the house up another level. Literally.
I’m not sure if it’s got anything to do with the fact that I inhabit essentially the same two rooms for 90% of my days. But I’ll wake up some mornings, and this song is instantly playing in my head. AS in: I barely have both feet on the ground and this song is already starting up.
The rockers came during the week, while Liz and I both were upstairs working. I got to see some of the early work, but on walking down as they were packing up… the whole area looked completely different.
The main hall felt like a room again, and not a bunch of exposed studs. It was a very shocking thing to see.
Rockers are coming tomorrow, and tonight we had some last-minute prep work to do. Put up the remaining backer boards, and move all the drywall so it’s accessible (the ceiling drywall is tucked away in the kitchen).
I’d seen a similar machine a few times along 53rd street (but that one was almost customized with White Sox branding), also filling up at a fire hydrant. I walked by, but after a few feet… turned around. I missed my chance to ask questions with the White Sox sweeper, and didn’t want to pass up this opportunity.
But those stressors aside, the fact that we have our flooring physically here? The fact that we’re at this phase in the process, aiming to get actual new floors down… it’s really remarkable. It’s a tremendous milestone for us. And amidst the whirl and bustle of everything that has happened (and has yet to happen), it’s easy to lose track of that.
One of the strong arguments against renovating your home while living inside it: the lack of available space. We’ve gotten used to shuffling things around, but things on the first floor are starting to get a bit cramped.