I may have mentioned that with the weather cooling that I'm getting a lot more work done on my house. I haven't used the AC all summer partially to see if that would work in this climate and partially because my house leaks. It's mostly there to remove the humidity anyway. But this did mean it was too miserable to do any work upstairs. The temperature is artificially enhanced by the dust mask which keeps me from venting body heat through my mouth. So even in 70 degree weather I'm sweating.
But I'm making great progress. Last Friday and Saturday I got about 10 troughs of mortar pushed. I've had to do some mortar work with bare hands before, but not in this quantity. I got two holes worn in the tip of the middle finger of my left hand. I cleaned it with a toothbrush (oh yeah, ow!), disinfected it (more ow), and wrapped it up.
Not being able to scoop mortar I had to find other things to do. I tore down the rest of the ceiling and then last night I cleaned and vacuumed the room with a shovel and a wet/dry vac. The carpet is still filthy, but it's visibly carpet instead of just sandbox.
So tonight when I went to push more mortar (there were still marks on my finger but it seemed safe) I got a real impression of what the finished room is gonna be like. I REALLY like it. It's warm. It's friendly. It's cozy. There's a wall of exposed brick and a ceiling of exposed wood. I'm gonna want to spend a lot of time in there.
This is in stark contrast to two days before when I was tearing down the ceiling and finding unpleasant forms of dust that made me want to just burn the house for the safety of the planet.
Oh, about 1/2 way through the second trough my finger reopened. Wanna see?
1 comment:
Doug, mortar's caustic. Use gloves.
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