Lordy, lordy. How time flies when fascists are trying to destroy democracy.
So on we trundle, with the ‘president’ ranting incoherently on facebook (“something something whine whine unfair whine whine I won whine whine I’m not a loser, how dare you say that *pathetic noises*”, or words to that effect), and we wait with bated breath for the centrist inadequacy to begin. I’d hoped that Biden would be dragged to the left by the progressive wing of the party. That hope is somewhat fading.
I suspect our current timeline for USexit is not unreasonable, but hey; we’ll see how much he gives in to the fascist-criminals, and how the election goes in two years, I guess. Still assuming a year 4 departure unless things improve markedly.
I’ve been taking a bit of a breather from the house. Not stopping entirely, because that way lies a house that’s unfinished years later. No. But I have been more…
…relaxed about it.
I mean, I did finish tiling the floor first.
There was some ‘excitement’ during that process when I discovered a very slow leak from the heating system (actually from the expansion vessel joint).
While I was tiling I made it into the boiler ‘cupboard’ (it has no doors yet); and realised that one of the valves looked like some kind of unfortunate cookie monster incident had occurred:
It turned out that it was dripping down – hitting the circulation pump, running across and off that, then dropping onto that valve. It wasn’t actually making it to the floor.
This was – as you’d imagine – quite annoying. Not least because it waited months to start doing this by which time I’d stopped angsting about it leaking. And now I’ll have to have a whole new period of angsting about my plumbing. Feh.
Still, we’ve only had a few minor issues – the radiator in the bathroom needed tightening up (which we spotted pretty much as soon as it was filled), one of the fresh water manifolds needed a bit of tighten (that I think worked loose over time, so I’m going to keep an eye on that. Flipping “apollo” brand pex shite); and the temporary sink – the tap joint leaked a little – but that I think again worked loose from the tap only being loosely attached.
Other than that, I’ve been pretty pleased with the plumbing so far. Hopefully it’ll stay okay.
Anyhow, so, we did finally finish the floor.
It’s all sealed and we actually have a floor we can clean and wash. It’s a vast improvement. So now we’re onto trim. Again.
Whiiiiich I’ve been taking somewhat of a slow approach to.
Part of that is simply the weather. It’s flipping chilly, and our garage is neither insulated nor drywalled. I realise now that we should have done that – wired it, insulated it and drywalled it – while it wasn’t useable during the seemingly endless wait for the door to be installed. We could probably have done it in a week or so of work; now it’s going to be a pain in the arse to move stuff, strip shelves off the wall, and then put it all back. Unfortunately, looking back at the period of time when it was mostly empty – we were pushing hard to get the house finished enough to be livable. So… perhaps I should let that one go :)
Buuuut. If we want it to be a more useable space, it’s going to need to be sorted.
Anyway, because it’s cold and the oil we use for the trim needs to stay at “70-80F” while it is applied and for the first few hours of drying, that means making a heatable space. So we’ve splashed out on a bunch of clips and about $60 in canvas dust-sheets. One of these has made a very lovely ceiling for a section of the garage…
I’ve got some bits and pieces to cut that need the ends oiling; and I’ve cut the bits of wood for the pantry. Also the house numbers and some light brackets. I’m pondering whether to do the dining area bookshelf, too. So… next week or the week after I’ll hang the other dust cloths up and create a very inefficiently warm area to heat. If that works then I’ll rinse-and-repeat for some more bits of trim and the doors to the attic which should improve our heat efficiency in the house.
Buuuut. I’m actually planning to spend some time on Rebecca this coming week. All being well she’ll be going up on axle stands and I’ll change the flange on the differential. That being well I’ll put the prop-shaft back on and… she’ll actually be mobile. Still petrol drinking, but mobile. Which should allow me to demonstrate that the engine and gearbox work, thus hopefully making them saleable.
I’m also thinking I might spend some time on my CD player. Who knows.
It’s wild this ‘not working on the house 100% of the time’ m’larkey. Sometimes I just sit and listen to music. I might even splash out and get a teeny bit of walnut to fix the piano’s music stand and… (dun dun dun) try and get back into playing again.
I know.
Calm down.
Yesterday I spent a chunk of time upgrading the firmware in my SJCAM Go-Pro clone. I actually upgraded it, then applied some dubiously hacked Russian firmware to it. For those of you with an SJ8Pro I highly recommend it, the quality increase is quite astonishing.
Apparently I have hobbies and interests. Who knew?
