Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
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M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
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Saturday, October 28, 2006 Getting Warmer Thanks to all of you who made donations to our Donors Choose challenge. We couldn't have done it without you. Seriously, we couldn't. We've got this big home project going on, so we really couldn't have afforded to pick up the slack ourselves. Trash and I are grateful, and so are the kids and teachers for whom you helped get books. * * * We have this bad habit of sleeping a bit later than we're strictly supposed to. We're supposed to get up at 7:00 a.m. on weekdays. But whether we set the alarms (yes, that's a plural) for 7:00, 6:55, 6:30, or 5:15, it's a very good chance that we'll still be in bed at 7:20. This wasn't so bad when we only had to get ourselves ready, but now that there's a third person in the house who can't even dress himself, things go a little bit slower when we're trying to get out of here. Fortunately, the construction guys working on our home remodeling project aren't nearly the sluggards we are. They're not only up and ready to go before we are, they're here before we're even awake, more often than not. Nothing makes you feel guiltier about being white-collar than answering the door, bleary-eyed and in your bathrobe, for the skilled laborers who are here to make your house better today. Things have been going slow on the project for the past couple of weeks, but that's not the crew's fault. It's the inspection requirements. Minneapolis is notorious for making people wait on all the various inspections that had to be gotten out of the way before our guys could proceed with all the post-framing stuff. Wiring inspections, plumbing inspections, HVAC inspections, framing inspections, and I think an inspection of all the inspections. Things moved a little faster this week. How fast? We let the crew in when we got up on Monday morning, and twenty minutes later, the ceiling in M. Small's bedroom was already insulated. Interesting thing about insulation. While we were waiting for these visits by certain individuals whose salaries are paid by our taxes, we began to get a bit concerned. It's been getting colder outside, and not a lot of heat had been making its way up the stairs. Was the new ductwork going to cut it? Would it be warm enough for all of us to sleep up there, as is the current plan? Sure, the insulation wasn't in yet, but how much difference could it possibly make? We found out when we got home that evening. The first thing we did was go upstairs. I left my coat on, because it's been pretty chilly up there as of late. Not that day. The entire upper floor was swaddled in a layer of fiberglass and plastic, which functioned like a stack of warm blankets. Except blankets that would make you really itchy if you actually tried to sleep under them. It was so warm up there it was stifling. After we went downstairs, we discovered that the guys had somehow bumped the thermostat while schlepping sheets of drywall up the stairs. It was 84 degrees in our house. But clearly the insulation really works, because it stayed that temperature all evening. Not much else happened this week with the project. Except, of course for an unrelated, spur-of the moment thing we had them do, which was to punch a hole from the living room to M. Small's current room and install a pair of French doors. That's an entirely different thing, though. Anyway, pictures.  The aforementioned ceiling. Doesn't it look warm and cozy, in a totally toxic way?  M. Small's future playroom looks like a plastic-and-fiberglass womb. Which makes me glad they used yellow insulation instead of pink. That would have been too weird.  The only interior walls currently in place are the shower surround. You want privacy up there, that's where you go. By the way, this was taken through our bedroom wall.  And that's what our interior walls look like now. We're told the sheetrock going to be put up next week, which is good because our friends BuenaOnda and English are coming up for a short visit this coming week, and we don't have anywhere else to put them up for the night except the construction zone. Perhaps walls, even unpainted ones, will make things a little more homey for them as they sleep on an air mattress. At least they'll be warm now. posted by M. Giant 8:00 PM 2 comments 2 Comments:
M. Small's room looks like the inside of the ship from 2001: A Space Odyssey. If you leave it that way, maybe he'll grow up to be an astronaut :P
By Heidi - are you nuts? DOn't tempt him, or M. Giant will do just that, and then I will have this strange, plastic-bubble room in my house.
By 
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