Laura and I had the pleasure of working in the house on another snowy Sunday here in Seattle. To say that we are looking forward to having insulation and a working furnace in the house is a bit of an understatement. The fact that our fireplace is now out of commission due to the gas piping that has been roughed in there leaves us with very few options. Our borrowed electric heater stands no chance against the icy grasp on our house. Based on the no parking signs on our street it appears that the public utility may actually get around to replacing our gas meter this week which is the lynch pin to our temperature woes. Then there will be heat...lots of heat.
We each spent yesterday not working on the bungalow, but still performing manual labor. Laura spent the day cleaning up the yard at the West Seattle house and shampooing the carpets. I worked with my family at clearing out my great uncle's barn in Issaquah from its collection of 80+ years worth of junk. My mom thought I was crazy for ordering three 20 yard dumpsters for trash, metal and wood debris. We quit working around 3:00 when they were all full. I also returned my dad's truck to him after I picked up the plywood that we needed, and we talked about the medicine cabinet that he is going to build for our main floor bathroom. We are fitting this new cabinet into a void space that we built out for ductwork and plumbing which is going to give us a lot of depth for this cabinet. It will be a great period feature to the house.
Today was a day of miscellaneous tasks, only a few of which were critical path items. We started out with a trip to Lynnwood (north of Seattle about 20 miles) to buy an electric hand planer I located on Craigslist. The original window frames in the house were installed somewhat haphazardly and the plaster installers made whatever was there work. Drywall will not be so forgiving so the plan is to plane the window frames down to be flush or lower than the drywall. Laura took a crack at it today and it seems that this method will work. As long as it is done by next Sunday night we will be ahead of the drywallers.
While Laura worked on the window frames, pulled some staples in the flooring and squirted expanding foam insulation around a few floor penetrations, I poured the concrete in the two holes in the basement which will take care of that tripping hazard and open up a little more floor space. I also got started on fixing some of the holes in the first floor that are not needed any longer, as well as fixing up the main floor bathroom walls. Laura and I finished up the day by installing the backing in the upstairs bathroom and pulling the old hardwood floor out of the shower in preparation for a new subfloor. A full weekend!
Me floating the floor back in where the old furnace chimney used to be.
A very small representation of the foam job Laura worked on.
A fine example of some of our scrap wood backing. Think towel bar.
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