Thanksgiving remodeling

[mapsedge]

As mljm posted, "It's Thanksgiving Day today and some things never change. Somebody is sick."

That's her post. My post starts like this:

It's a four day weekend, and I am once again in the middle of a home improvement project.

Those of you who have been to Osage Acres know that the place is in need of a lot of improvement. Mostly, that involves un-doing (or re-doing according to municipal code) what my uncle did in 1956 to 1958 and what my dad did from 1970 to 1984. Because we can only do this work as we have money and I have time, there are several areas in the house that were Done To A Certain Point.

In other, more blunt language: unfinished. The weekend, I'm finishing the family room. The kids are spending the day with M's grandparents.

Started With:

1. New windows in the west wall, half-mudded drywall


2. Closed off the door in the east wall, drywall completed

Done:

• Shimming on the new windows (which for some stupid reason aren't the full thickness of a standard wall)


• Finishing the new windows. May sand and put one more coat of straight poly if there's time, as the windows tend to "raise grain" quite a lot


• Majority of the mudding around the new windows


• Washed the dog. I know, doesn't have anything to do with the room, except make it smell better when the dog's around.
  

Left to complete:

• Final coat of mud in the trouble spots around the new windows


• Unload the tall bookcases and take them down to the garage to be cut down


• Move the aquarium to its new home in the living room


• Move the TV and the box it sits on to the dining room


• move remaining furniture to the center of the room and cover


• prime


• Go, drink something strong, wait


• paint


• trim out the new windows


• return the room to its former, livable state

Casualties So Far:

• My left thumb. Using a trim plane to thin the end of a shim, one must be careful to keep one's thumb on top of the plane so as not to pick up large, barbed, splinters from the work surface below.


• My left hand. Lifting eight pound cans of paint from the underside of a shopping cart, one must be careful to not strike the fleshy part between the thumb and forefinger on the back of the hand against the hard metal undercarriage.