Blitzkrieg Bop

So on Saturday, around noonish, an army of good friends descended upon what used to be a dated basement room, which until about a month ago or so was just storage for Sukie’s excess fish junk. She has been working up to this remodel, first by reorganizing the garage, then by moving all her fish junk to the garage (which she then sold at huge losses), and then we ripped the room down to the studs, which was laborious, involved a trip to the dump to dispose of the waste, and finally we did some wiring and drywall hanging (last weekend)

So this weekend was *more* drywall hanging madness, window replacing, vent-box-cover-building, furring strip hanging, in a 12+ hour blitz that wouldn’t have happened at all without the help of really great friends. Oh yeah, we also replaced a basement window, which is just about the craziest thing I have EVER replaced in a house (well, the guts of the water heater was a pretty insane job, too.) Oh, and at like 1am I also got wireless working on Striker’s laptop.

I have been dreading a lot of the stuff that we got done yesterday, as I dread many things that seem beyond my capability or understanding. I’m not a handy guy, damnit. Take furring strips – I’d just write some code to handle it:

for xpos < ceiling_width: tack_strip(xpos) xpos += 16

But actually fastening a board to the ceiling is an insane task, hammering through a 2x2 and then in to a joist, potentially through a knot in the wood (note: breed trees without knots), is just asking for issues. Did I mention we got the kind of nails that have a friction-activated glue on them, so when you are driving one in you can't stop half-ways? We did get it and now everything from here on in gets attached with screws - well, except for the closet overhang thing.

We're still at <$1000 for the project, however, having just bought wood, drywall, screws, nails, a window, and the flooring (and Sukie bought mud and tape and stuff yesterday), so the room coming together like it has is starting to have it's benefits, chiefly being the sense of accomplishment, and knowing that it's shaping up to be a great room that the family can utilize for it's PC and study needs. I even ran power to the 'closet' because that's where I'll stick the router and wireless gateway. CRAZY, right? It won't just be in a pile next to my PC? It really wouldn't be happening so quickly without great friends, and my beautiful wife of over 10 years.

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1 Response to Blitzkrieg Bop

  1. Sarah says:

    Awww that’s tender. We’ll be there next weekend to do the ceiling, mud and tape and maybe paint? 🙂 Look at all that positivity you’re exuding!!! Room of positivity.

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