So... What are YOU doing? - Part 5

[Lamb]

Getting in the last of my 10,000 steps for the day. I might have to set my goal a little higher once the weather gets warmer and I walk more

 

[tango]

You are Mr.Tool time. We picked out some tile to replace our kitchen floor with this last weekend. I think we both agreed on which one we like and now have to go back and buy the tile and mortar. I'm not actually doing the work though because we want it done right.

Laying a floor is easy. Laying a floor that's straight and level is something else entirely. I never tried that before, in theory at least if the underlying floor is sound it should be easy enough.

 

[tango]

Yesterday I filled a few of the larger spaces. I wasn't sure if my early efforts at cutting concrete strips would yield anything useful, as the primary purpose was to get to grips with what the angle grinder does and how it operates. But a couple of the strips fit neatly into the larger gaps, so I got them supported and then cemented around them. The first one wasn't very pretty but the second one was nicer, and the third one nicer still. Not that it matters whether it's pretty, they are going to be concealed behind insulation panels and drywall by the time I'm done.

I think I got 18 gaps in the wall filled by the time I decided to call it a day. There are still a few more in that wall, including a couple I left because I couldn't reach them easily and decided to leave all the high ones to do them all at once when I get the ladder in there. There are plenty of big gaps right behind one of the studs, that may end up getting filled with builders foam because it's impossible to get much else in there. And now I've figured how to cement in a strip of concrete I've got a bunch more in another wall to fix before putting in the panels.

I think I confused the cashier at the hardware store, because I bought a 20lb bag of cement and one single concrete block. The block is going to get cut into strips. It's a nice new block so everything is even, and I can mark it with a Sharpie or similar so I know where I need to cut it. Then I can get busy mending walls again.

 

[~Jo~]

just posting and listening to you tube music.. about to go to bed now its 2.30am so night

 

[tango]

Just been arranging collection of my insulation panels. Depending on when they arrive at the store I may have them in my house as early as tomorrow. Then it's full speed ahead on patching walls and fitting insulation. Hopefully my heating bills will come way down once the panels start to go in.

I'm going to need to move radiators before I can finish, and that has to wait until it's warmer, but once that's done I can fill the rest of the gaps, patch the rest of the walls, and put drywall over the top of it all.

 

[Stravinsk]

Cutting up my tree into pieces I can actually lift into a bin. I asked 2 people I knew and they didn't know anyone wanting to trade labor for wood. Oh well, it's good exercise.

 

[Imalive]

We had a storm last week and my sister's tree fell on her roof. The neighbour did it for her, she paid him some, but he didn't ask much and he could keep the wood. Lol she has put a part of that tree in her house now as decoration.

 

[Stravinsk]

We had a storm last week and my sister's tree fell on her roof. The neighbour did it for her, she paid him some, but he didn't ask much and he could keep the wood. Lol she has put a part of that tree in her house now as decoration.

I spent a good part of the day cutting up the tree - when I started to do so, I was like "oh man...this is going to take ages" and I actually went and looked at some tree removal services. But, I have the time, so I figured it's just being super lazy to do that. Besides the exercise would do me good. After huffing and puffing all day, I can see that it did. I used a simple hand saw to cut everything and I haven't taken in this much oxygen in the same time period for some time now. It feels good.

 

[Lamb]

We have a small oak tree that needs to go. It's too close to the well and our back deck and once it grows larger it will be dangerous in storms to have so close to the house. We have a chain saw though which means it will be down in moments and in pieces within the hour. It's just a matter of cutting it which I hate to do because it's pretty and the birds love it.

 

[Imalive]

We have a small oak tree that needs to go. It's too close to the well and our back deck and once it grows larger it will be dangerous in storms to have so close to the house. We have a chain saw though which means it will be down in moments and in pieces within the hour. It's just a matter of cutting it which I hate to do because it's pretty and the birds love it.

Lol you can do that yourself? We once had bushes in the garden that were all over the place and I got so frustrated, oh and a grape tree that went all over the place too. Ex didnt want to do anything about it, so I thought I'd do it myself. I went outside w scissors. LOL scissors. Hey this don't work.

 

[Lamb]

Lol you can do that yourself? We once had bushes in the garden that were all over the place and I got so frustrated, oh and a grape tree that went all over the place too. Ex didnt want to do anything about it, so I thought I'd do it myself. I went outside w scissors. LOL scissors. Hey this don't work.

LOL That's so cute! I have pruners but they only cut the vines or thin branches. We had a tree fall a few months ago from heavy winds and our old chain saw had a broken part so we got a new one and hacked the tree up. It's waiting in the garden now to become a fire once the weather warms up. We had been using the garden as a fire pit but I want to use it as a garden now that I'm home all the time and can work it so that wood has to be burned.

 

[tango]

Our neighbor has a line of trees that are very close to the boundary line. In many ways I like them because they provide a bit of privacy but in other ways they are a little too close. One of them was completely dead and he was talking about getting rid of it, but never actually did it.

Then one day I saw him and another guy I didn't recognise outside - they had felled it and were cutting it up with a chainsaw. I don't know what they did with it in the end, but the crucial thing is that it is gone. I'd still like the others gone but we can figure that out later.

 

[tango]

Woot! My insulation panels arrived today, so made a trip to go and fetch them. The package of panels was 24 boards, each 8x4 and 2" thick. I was wondering if my friend and I would be strong enough to lift the entire thing into the house but soon realised it was academic because the door isn't wide enough to take something four feet wide. So when we got them home I cut the plastic wrapping off and we carried them into the house one at a time.

Now I've got a stack of 24 insulation boards in the room I'm working on, so I can pull down the last few laths and bits of trim, make any last patches to the walls, and start putting insulation into the walls. From there my heating bills should start to drop very significantly.

 

[ImaginaryDay2]

Time for Microsoft solitaire challenges. I think I'm a few days behind

 

[NewCreation435]

Looking through my notes getting ready to go make some school visits. I really should stop and take some pictures of some of the mountains I drive by.

 

[tango]

Lazy morning... entertaining a friend for brunch in a couple of hours so that should be good. Then I need to get busy juggling numbers for tax returns.

Hopefully I'll also have time to figure the best way to cut up my insulation panels and fit at least some of them over the course of the afternoon. Now I've got the boards it makes sense to systematically go across my walls, section by section, and make sure as much as possible is fixed and insulated. There are a few bits I can't do until it's warm enough to disconnect the radiators, but in the meantime I can be getting on with a lot of it.

 

[Lamb]

Waiting for the weather to warm up so I can go to the park!

 

[Stravinsk]

It's amazing what one can get done in the hours when power is out. I see that my area has over 100 affected customers, and other areas much more. This is a frequent occurrence on very hot days in Aus.

Managed to set up another terrarium, experiment with a homemade battery and start some sauerkraut (my first) all because I was bored and without power.

 

[tango]

It's amazing what one can get done in the hours when power is out. I see that my area has over 100 affected customers, and other areas much more. This is a frequent occurrence on very hot days in Aus.

Managed to set up another terrarium, experiment with a homemade battery and start some sauerkraut (my first) all because I was bored and without power.

I found it remarkable how much we rely on the internet and what can be done when the internet is out, when I stayed at a B&B that didn't have internet access. It really was eye-opening to realise just how many times I naturally wanted to reach to check email etc. Sometimes I think I should set my home internet router to shut down completely between certain times.

 

[tango]

Nice mild day today so debating whether to go for a walk in the park or take the opportunity to spray some builders foam into the outside part of the big gap in my wall (not visible from the outside, thankfully) and cut up a concrete block.

I think the block will probably wait, given I got cleaned up for church and would rather not get covered in concrete dust. Maybe I'll do the foam and the walk... seems like a good compromise. Then I can put my working clothes back on and cut up one of my insulation panels. I think I'll cut a few smaller pieces first, maybe fill the areas over window frames, to get the feel of what it's like to cut it before I have to cut an 8-foot straight line through it. When it arrived it had a couple of offcuts used to support it so I could verify that a regular kitchen knife will cut it, but there's obviously a difference between "I can cut it with this" and "I can cut a straight line end-to-end across this". Of course there's only so much scope to cut a wavy line before the insulation is compromised, which rather defeats the point of having it at all.