This is where the old wall used to exist, so the entire section had to be rebuilt.
Staggered boards in place, glued and screwed from below.
Finn says, “It’s LOUD, Daddy!”
And now there’s a coat of primer on everything.
This was the day the door went in.
As noted in the picture from Saturday, Finn had a blast at the playdate. That place is pretty amazing—imagine a space the size of an aircraft carrier’s hangar filled with thirty different themed areas: dinosaurs, space, a pond, a post office, a beach (with real sand), and a real fire truck, among other things. She wasn’t afraid of anything, either; when faced with a gaggle of kids, she walked right over and got in on the action, whether it was dancing, climbing, or exploring. I was happy to shadow her around until our stomachs started audibly growling, and even then she didn’t want to leave. For $15, it’s a ridiculous bargain and something that I will surely be taking advantage of on rainy days when Finn and I are looking for something to do. Gold stars, Mama.
Finn did great as my co-pilot all weekend while we let Mama catch up on her paying work. We hit the bank for cash, got breakfast, did the week’s grocery shopping, picked up primer for the porch (more on that later), and played together while I also tried to help straighten up the house and fix an ailing laptop for a friend. By 9PM, I was exhausted and couldn’t face any other physical activity. I don’t know how Jen does it every day.
As promised, the drywall guy stopped by on Friday and sanded the entire den, so it’s out there waiting for me to get started. The tentative list goes as follows:
- Repair the floors with the boards Mr. Scout saved for us (thanks!)
- Have Mr. C come by and help wire up all the outlets
- Prime the walls
- Sand the floor
- Find some tile for the bathroom
- Pull the sink and toilet and lay the tile down
- Find the right beadboard and install that in the bathroom
- Choose a vanity mirror and lighting for over the sink and the center of the room (I’m leaning towards one of these)
- Start milling and installing finish molding
- Pick a paint color
- Choose a ceiling fan and install it
- Paint the trim and doors
I also have to block out some time in the spring or early summer to buy and shoot more Tigerfoam up into the sill plates in the coal room, as well as install some simple stud walls and R-19 insulation to keep the chill from coming up through the floor, but that’s not immediately critical.
Just standing out there with the girls this morning was a revelation; the walls are clean, the floor is mopped (mostly), and I tore the plastic off the walls on Sunday, so the full amount of light can shine in. Even on an overcast day, it’s the brightest room in the house. It’s really exciting.
Presumably, our drywall guy is right on schedule, which means that when he says “5:30 tomorrow night,” he actually means “6:00 the day after tomorrow.” Which means he will most likely show up tonight to sand the den when he said he would be there last night. Either way it sounds like I won’t have a whole lot of time to spend out there this weekend, because Mama has a ton of work to get done and needs me to take over childcare. I have a bunch of errands to run—food, supplies, and tools—so my shopping buddy and I will have plenty to do.
Also on Saturday Mama has us signed up for a big play date in Columbia, which sounds like a blast. Best of all, I got in touch with my old college friend Tim and asked if he’d meet us there with his daughter (who’s just a little younger than Finn). They live 10 minutes away but inexcusably we haven’t seen them since last year, so we’re going to be making some firm plans to get together in the coming months.
Depending on how scheduling goes (and how many empty bottles I’ve got socked away), I may also try to fit in brewing the Hefeweizen kit I’ve got stored this weekend. The American Amber has been going down right smoothly over the last week (one an evening is plenty) but it would be nice to have a lighter beer on tap for lighter weather.
Last night our drywall guy laid down the final skim coat in the den, which means that if he actually intends to be on time, the room will be sanded this evening. If that comes to pass, I could be priming the walls and/or sanding the floor this weekend, depending on how much childcare Jen needs me to take on. I pulled some of the plastic off the windows this morning because I couldn’t help myself, and the difference in the amount of light getting in there is amazing.
I’m planning on a dump run tomorrow morning to get rid of construction debris and free up two of our three garbage cans, which is also the perfect opportunity to get the Scout on the road in time for 70° weather. Finn and Mama are going with the co-op to the Science Center, so I will hustle to meet them downtown for a snack at the Harborplace, which will be awesome.
I took some time last night to add August of 2003 from the old log into WordPress. At this rate, I won’t have it all integrated for the 10th anniversary, but over time I’ll get it all in once and for all.
There’s some talk of colder temperatures, rain and snow next week, but I’m going to avoid thinking about that and soak up as much sun as I can. I think a trip to the playground across the street will definitely be in order this weekend.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
So between three guys, two days, and twenty sheets of drywall, there are still gaps in the walls in the bathroom. I knew I wasn’t hiring the A-Team here, but the lackadaisical approach to, um, completing the job has been a bit frustrating. They’ve got the majority of it hung, and there’s tape on half of it so far, but I had to have them remove one panel because they screwed it in over an outlet box. As long as I stay on top of them, things should turn out alright.
In the meantime, I’m waffling about what I should do with my old MacBook Pro. Originally I was going to sell it, but the pictures I took for Craigslist disappeared off my camera. At that point I thought about installing Plex and making it into a media server, but talking it over with a friend made me realize I couldn’t hook it up to our shitty TV if I wanted to. So now I may go back to Craigslist and see if I can get $500 for it.
Saturday morning, we drove over a very foggy Bay Bridge to Easton to visit the Morrises and celebrate a first birthday. We all had an excellent time catching up and watching the kids play, and it was with sadness that we loaded up and headed home well beyond Finn’s naptime.
On Sunday, the house was filled with the sound of clomping boots as three talkative men began hanging drywall in the den. The majority of the ceiling is done, and they’re working their way around to the bathroom. I’m hoping that by the time I get home tonight everything will be hung and the first coat of tape and mud will be in place.
I did some sleuthing and found a tile manufacturer who makes hexagonal tile with no bullnose (the tile is completely flat, like it would have been 100 years ago). Their closest distributor is down in Federal Hill, so I’m going to see what 30 sq. feet of it would cost. Jen is seeing beadboard in that bathroom, which would go very well with old-style tile. The big question will be whether 1″ or 2″ tile is the right size and scale for the space.
Bright and early Saturday morning, I had 15 sheets of 1/2″ delivered by a nice guy with a forklift, and managed to hump all of them inside to the front porch before the snow really started falling. There was, however, no word from the drywall guy, who didn’t return a phone message on Saturday and never showed Sunday; such is the way of discount contractors. And thus, the drywall sits. The side room is ready for him whenever he wakes up, though—the insulation is cleaned up and debris cleared out, awaiting the clomp-clomp of drywall stilts. On Friday, Mr. Scout worked upstairs tacking in ceiling insulation to try and retain some of the heat, which seems to have made a difference throughout both floors. I’m going to tuck more in between the sash pockets and small cracks to see if that does anything else when I get a little time this week.
Back to Saturday. Mama is fighting a case of strep throat, so I wrangled Finn as much as I could over the weekend to let her rest up. Before lunch, Finn and I took a trip up to Lakeshore Learning, which is sort of a Target for teachers, to buy birthday presents for some friends. This was my first time there but she’s been before, and made an immediate beeline to the squishy erasers, amid an entire store full of sensory overload. After tearing her away and browsing the aisles a few times, we joined a group of kids doing crafts at a table up front and made a snow igloo (which, strangely, includes googly eyes, sparkly red stripes, and fuzzy pop-poms). Here is where I brag on my daughter, who walked up to the table and asked the woman in a confident sing-song voice if she could play too, then politely shared with the other children and said thank you when we were done. (She bent down, picked up a stray googly eye, and handed it to the boy next to her, with a cheerful “here you go, guys!”) Other parents sort of stared at us as we walked away, which made me wonder if they taught their kids manners too. From what I saw, not so much.
Sunday afternoon I chaperoned her to our neighbor’s second birthday party. She dove right in to the fray (about 15 kids of varying ages, from 1.5 to about 7) and did really well on her own with one early exception: Wading into the chaotic living room while I was caught in the middle of a conversation, she suddenly realized she didn’t know where her daddy was and had a slight freakout. I heard the timbre of her voice rising and zoomed in, scooped her up, and talked her down off the ledge. Once she understood I would stay in visual range, I set her down to explore on her own for the rest of the party, making sure she knew where I was. About two hours after cupcakes we finally hit sweaty meltdown, but a two-house walk home on my shoulders was gravy compared to Saturday’s car ride, when I pushed her right up against the edge of naptime and paid the price the whole car ride home.
There are days when I feel like I’m just making this up as I go along, but the days like Sunday, when I can walk into a party full of kids and candy and noise and people and still read her face from across the room and know when she needs a hug or a juice or when it’s time to bail—those are the days that I feel like I’m doing OK.
And there is no better sound in the world than the sound of her laughter.
Mr. Scout stopped by on Friday and, among other things, got the upstairs bathroom ready for lights, cooked us a delicious dinner of coq au vin, and helped me bottle the american amber that’s been bubbling in the basement. The gravity reading we took was a lot higher than we’d been expecting, so it may be that the beer got infected, which would suck.
Pressing on, we added sugar and bottled two full cases, figuring it will be extra-sweet when it’s ready.
Saturday, our electrician neighbor knocked at 9 and we got started working on the remainder of the electrical projects both upstairs and down. There’s a newer, larger subpanel on the first floor with correct breakers for the office, working cans in the ceiling, a heater mounted in the bathroom, outlets on the chimney wall, and 3-way wiring at each end of the room. I also added insulation in the wall gaps and down under the threshold of the outside door. Upstairs, we got the wiring run to the bathroom, cans in the ceiling, a run for the 3-way switches, holes cut for the sink outlets, and runs for the floor heater and bathroom fan. This evening he’s going to stop back out to fish a wire through the living room ceiling for a fan before we close everything off. Once I know that’s going in, I’m scheduling the drywall delivery and installation.
Update: All of September and October 2003 is entered into WordPress. Next up is August.