Home supplies

I did some shopping late last week. Then some more material for the house came in Monday. Repairs are back in full swing.

I've been mudding some dinks in the sheetrock and covering some big holes. Experience has shown me to be very bad at this. But after considering all the other options I realized there really are no other options worth considering. I've had the opportunity to watch some professionals so I'm hoping this will go better than previous efforts. So far so good. The first coat was horribly cracked since I had to fill large holes and the plaster contracted as it dried. The second coat is looking pretty good but not perfect. I think after a third pass I'll be able to resort to a wet sponge and sandpaper.

The delivery was a hatch with a fold down ladder and some platforms for making a walk area in attics. I have no kitchen left. It's all cardboard.

The hatch promises to be harder to install than I thought. I hoped to be able to fit it between ceiling joists. I was a fool. I'm gonna have to order some lumber and really do some damage up there before I can put this in. Being resigned to that means I am have more options in where I install this thing.

To open up some room in my living room I emptied one of the boxes of attic panels and pushed them through the gap into the area I'll call an attic from now on. Then I followed them through. Even my scrawny self barely fit. These are designed for use in places where there's consistently 16" (center to center) between ceiling joists instead of just 16" average between joists. Why do I keep forgetting that this place was built by primitive knuckle draggers? I can still make them work, but I'll need to take a Dremel or something to cut a few tabs off the bottom.

And I still have flooring so I'm still putting down more of that.

Mostly I'm finding excuses to spend time upstairs since it's so bloody cold down stairs.


That post was written Monday. Since then I moved two more boxes flooring panels up into the attic. I crawled up there yesterday with a hand saw, a clip on light, a tape measure, and a parrot. A "Foundation" book was playing in the library while I worked.

Gandolf was very uncertain about being up there. It's kinda dark and cramped and dusty. I hoped to drag the wet/dry vac up there to deal with the dust but it wouldn't fit through the gap. Gandolf got spooked as I shuffled around flooring. She started to fly around which kicked up dust which spooked her more. She went through the gap into the library. After a bit she came back and sat on the ladder. Every so often she'd hoot and I'd hoot back. She just wanted to know that I was still there.

The hand saw was the one I was using with the miter box to cut the bamboo flooring. I was using it to cut off some of the tabs on the bottom of the attic panels. Not all. Just enough so they all fit. I didn't screw them into place yet. I still intend to get the vacuum up there and clean up the dust. If there's gonna be dust up there it's gonna be MY dust. With all this cardboard lying around maybe I can put some of it under the panels to make it easier to vacuum in the future. Maybe not.

Getting up and down is great fun. I climb up and work my torso through the gap. Then I bring my legs up above the ceiling joists in the library. Then I'm flat enough that I can pull myself through while sliding along the panels. Getting down is just the reverse. Legs go first and get above the ceiling joists. Once I'm mostly out then I can start looking for the ladder.

The tape measure was to get some real world measurements of the space between the joists. My proper construction numbers mesh up close enough to the real world numbers that the boards I planned for will still work. In both cases I left an inch or two more than I need so I can cut them to the proper fit. I'll have to cut them close and then whittle them to the proper form.