I finally started working on the walls. The idea is to screw plywood to the furring strips to make them sturdier…then drywall, then cabinets. Cutting the plywood and screwing it to the wall took all day, even with help. This is more work than I thought it would be. 
But I didn’t cut off any fingers with the circular saw. I call that a sucessful day.
So at least the plywood is up. The drywall will probably have to wait until next weekend. That means the cabinets won’t start going up for another two weeks or so. Criminy!
Here’s what it looks like now:
I left the bottom open for future electrical access and stuff. It will be covered with drywall.
I didn’t get the walls up in the kitchen yesterday as I had planned. Before they go up, all the wall-work needs to be done. I want to vent the range hood to the outside. That means the vent duct has to go through the wall. That means the wall needs a hole in it. This was the scariest thing for me. All the other things I’m doing can be patched or re-done. For this, I would need to chop a hole through a brick wall. My friend Denis was going to help me with this project. The hole part was a one-person job, so I had him do it. I cut some plywood for the floor in the meantime. I used a circular saw. This was also very scary. I haven’t used one before. I’m happy to say I did NOT cut off any digits.
Anyway, the hole in the wall was hard to do. It meant drilling through two layers of bricks and mortar. It took Denis a couple hours to get it. Once we got the vent in place, bricks needed to be put back. I got some mortar and we took a stab at re-mortaring. It will be interesting to see if our mortar job holds up. You can see the new mortar areas in the pictures below.
This job ended up taking almost the whole day, and four trips to Home Depot. I got the end pieces of the duct work, then new drill bits, then mortar, then an extension ladder. I think the end product looks pretty good. Today maybe I’ll finally get to putting up the walls…
I hope to get the walls done in the kitchen today. While working on that, the new stove is supposed to arrive. My old one is on my back porch. I’ve been wondering if I should just leave it there. I could grill on it. Or I could toast marshmallows. I mean, how many people have a stove on their back porch? I could be living like the rich folk do. Whatever I decide, I’ll have to do it soon. The stove deliverers will take my old one away if I want them to. Here’s what my back porch looks like now. Pretty fancy, huh?
Further developments from my Crime Scene Investigation. At my house last night around 9:00pm, I heard a loud, sharp sound. It sounded like something hard hitting something hard. I got up and looked for the source of the sound, but couldn’t locate anything. Then several minutes later I heard a low thump sound. Was somebody next door? I couldn’t see anything when I looked out the window. The truck was still in place. There were no new vehicles parked out front. I simply couldn’t tell.
I will continue my surveillance. Was there someone next door last night, or was the sharp sound something sliding off the top of my over-stuffed trash and hitting the tile floor? And was the thump the sound of someone next door, or the sound of someone slamming their car door as they got money from the ATM next door? The investigation will continue…
THE EVIDENCE:
My Overflowing Trash
So here’s something I can’t figure out: Why does it take me so many hours to grade a simple stack of papers? I have a stack from Monday, right when I started to get sick. I couldn’t grade them right away because all I did when I got home was lie down, get up to eat something a little while later, lie down again, then get up to go to bed. I’m better now. My sense of taste came back Tuesday around 11:00am. My energy has returned (mostly). I’m still coughing, but if I’m honest, I’d have to say I am well enough to do my homework. So why can’t I finish it? I worked for an hour last night and didn’t finish one stack. What the heck is going on?
