Today was just one of those days. Not actually a bad day, but I just felt a bit grouchy all day. It didn’t help that my tea ended up on the floor early in proceedings; although at least it landed next to the box of potatoes, not in the box of potatoes.
But that wasn’t the ideal start to the day. Then I realised that my plan of action – to just empty the first of the two shelves, swap it to the other side, and then fill it again; and then rinse and repeat with the second shelf – would not, in fact, work. It couldn’t work because the drywall was behind it. Which needed to be on the other side of the garage.
Indeed, really, the thing that made the most sense to do was to actually insulate and drywall that section… only; part way through that process I realised that because of the way the building’s framed I had to finish the window wall first – then do the last side wall. That meant that both shelves had to be cleared and moved.
I did manage to get them moved to a position where, with some difficulty I could negotiate both myself and the relevant chunks of drywall (in the case of the south wall – two full sheets, in the case of the other wall about 1.6m of drywall twice) into the space. And with my usual trick (attaching a small block to the wall) I could hoick the drywall up on to the wall, rest it on the block and – using some shims – I then get it fairly snug against the ceiling and screw it in place. And Bob’s your uncle. Or my uncle. Or at least someone’s uncle.
But the whole process is hideously unwieldy and awkward. Made extra super fun by the fact that a couple of the earthquake bolts had been installed with their plates overhanging the soleplate and sticking out well past where the plasterboard would sit. So I needed to rectify that.
But really the vast majority of the day has just been loading and unloading shelves. Dragging shelves around. Swearing at stuff. And some of it is my own fault. Selling things is hassle; and so I procrastinate and eventually it falls off my list of things to do. There’s stuff there that I should have sold years ago. There’s stuff that needs to be sold now.
There’s also stuff which was expensive to buy and so we don’t hugely want to just get rid of it – but it’s also not… stuff we need. Like, we have an extra box of the bird spikes (got to stop them trying to get into our roof vents, and also because the woodpecker had decided to try and work its way through our roof from the underside). We have no use for them, but they seem like something that we could sell at a garage sale. Only… COVID.
There’s also a ton of tools which while useful are not required at the moment because they’re mainly useful for – say – building a house. I mean, I don’t need the framing gun in an easily accessible location. But I also don’t really want to get rid of our framing gun. It was expensive. And it’s handy for framing.
And there’s the tiles. The bathroom tiles have now been moved countless f’kin times. Not just from the garage at our apartment to here – but I think they went into the house first, then out to the garage. Then they’ve been in various locations as the shelving’s been in various locations. Good lord am I sick of moving those bloody tiles. But until COVID’s done and dealt with (ha. Ha ha ha) then there’s little hope of us finishing the second bathroom.
Ah well.
Thankfully, as I was starting to consider spiraling into being thoroughly moody – and grouching about the fact that I’d misidentified our shelving as 4′ units when they’re actually 5′ units* – Kathryn came in and offered her after work help.
Which meant that we could talk about where to put things a bit and she could reassure me that it did – in fact – look much better than it has. She also, handily reminded me that the bedframe that’s currently occupying the garage could, in fact, go down to the storage unit we have at the moment. And while there’s still a ton to do to organise the stuff that is currently just kinda heaped at the east end of the garage… there’s an end in sight. And it’s an end where the garage should be a lot more functional.
I need to run the excess insulation and drywall back to Home Depot if it’s dry tomorrow…. Assuming I can extract the board without damaging it. It’s currently stacked behind what I’m intending to be the desk surface and the material for the raised floor… and the table saw….and the chop saw… and the surface that’s holding everything that was on my temporary workbench in the garage… and, and, and…. :-/ But after that there’s a bit over a meter (but full height) of wall to drywall – and it needs one section insulating. And that job will be done.
Anyway. Despite me being super grouchy, we are much further forward. I still need to mud / tape / insulate the ceiling. But. I’m going to take today as a win.
* Which totally screwed up my planned arrangement for hanging the bikes (thankfully I’d not built it yet – although I’d thought about putting up the hooks quite a few times)
