A Day of Prep
A bit of Visqueen, blocking off the living room. We’ve put up and taken down so much Visqueen in this spot, we’re old hands at it.
A bit of Visqueen, blocking off the living room. We’ve put up and taken down so much Visqueen in this spot, we’re old hands at it.
More demo in the office today, though the actual demo portion was less. It was more about the joist spaces, and cleaning things up.
Suited up after work, to do a bit of office demo. Not really something I wanted to do, but my hope is to make more progress in this room (which will make way for, and make it easier for, electrical work to happen).
Only got about an hour in, but was surprised at how much I could do in that time.
At one point, Liz stopped in and said “I want you to keep a positive attitude.” At first, I thought she just wanted to keep my spirits up. But what she meant was that: we’d taken up almost all of the floors in the house, at this point. And this last section was probably the last “unknown” part of the house that was left.
She said “If we have a chance of finding some hidden treasure worth a million dollars… it’s going to be here.” Wishful thinking, but it’s true – this is our last chance.
A view of what we call “the wagon wheel,” the decorative joists that make up the base of the turret.
After a demo session a long while back – Bob noticed that the ceiling joists were sagging considerably. And so we put up a set of supports to brace the ceiling, temporarily.
I’ve been stressing a bit about this cleanup. The drywall we need to move is 10′ long, 5/8″ thick, and is markedly heavier than your typically drywall (because it’s soundproof drywall).
At some earlier point, I had moved a lot of things we had upstairs down to the basement. Space is a premium at our house, and we’re constantly moving things from one place to another – to make temporary room.
Spent a little time today, reorganizing the basement area.
For most of last week, Liz and I were both mostly just recuperating from Covid. Not much of anything, other than a lot of coughing and a lot of sitting in bed, resting.
This week, we started to get a bit more energy. We’re still coughing more than makes sense, but have been going about doing a little house work over the holidays.
An old light, where the electrical had been disconnected long ago. Of note: that middle pipe is a gas line, a throwback to some earlier time when this light was likely powered by gas.
Adding in the insulation to the lower half. Mostly an easy process, but one thing to note about the soundproof insulation: it doesn’t separate/split well. This was a bit of a challenge, when trying to install it around conduit and outlets.
If you futz too much with it, the insulation tends to crumble like week-old cake.
The space on the other side of our bedroom. We got some loose insulation placed back in the floor, and got another plywood board down. Our goal is to clear this area so we can work on putting up my drywall on the other side of the bedroom wall.
I shoud say: I’m less certain when it comes to electrical, and have the most hesitation towards any electrical work. I need to study up more. For most things, I feel like if you make a mistake… there are ways to workaround and patch. With electrical, it feels like you get… one mistake.
Liz, braving the space beneath the front porch to retrieve some gardening supplies. Given how much she dislikes scampers, this really was a bold move for her.
A few more tools in the mix. I now have a standard kit for pulling up floorboards. The sawzall keeps the pieces a certain length. The crowbar is for popping up each piece. The hammer is to pull out the nails. And the Channellocks are for when the nail heads pop off, and I need to try to pry the nail out manually.