Pictures of Stuff...

[liralen]

This is Harold and his hat. *laughs*

He looks so happy.

The hat was made from Blue Faced Leicester wool dyed by Crown Mountain Farm in their "Cold as Ice" colorway. I love BFL more and more and more as I work with it. It's soft to the touch, strong enough for a lot of wear, and it's just so much fun to work with. I have mittens made from the stuff that are faintly fuzzy, warm as anything, and even in a single-ply it's strong enough to just last and last.

I spun it fine and Navajo plied it so that it would be smooth and strong, as Harold wears his hat every day. So we'll see how many months it actually gets through.

This is Christy, in front. She's a single mom, a substitute teacher, a piano player (her brother's a concert pianist so she says she doesn't play well, but... whew... she plays really well), and owner of two loveable dogs. Her house was at the low point for her whole neighborhood, and when she was sitting in her breakfast nook on the day of the flood, she saw the feet of water rolling toward their neighborhood. She got up, got her dogs, got what stuff she could, and had to back her truck out in the rush of water.

She just went half a block up the street to get out of the water, but then watched it knock her garage off its foundation, and fill the ground floor of her house. This house is the biggest project of all the houses. Most of the houses have been just a basement remodel, mostly, or an entry way and stairs. We started with her just a day or two after the flood, with the cleaning up and mucking out, and tearing out of the drywall that was destroyed. The crawlspace was filled with flood mud, and we had days and days of digging it out and hauling it away in five gallon buckets. We've had to pretty much redo most of the first floor, and she's been working as hard or harder than anyone. We ripped a lot of the drywall out, pulled all the flooring to the joists, and had to yank all the wiring that got wet. It was down to nothing but the framing.

She and I used .22 rounds to fire nails into the concrete to hang her insulation in the crawlspace under the house. Since it was all concrete, that was the only way to get it to stay. I've also done some of the conventional insulation, the wiring, the drywall, the floors, and the vacuuming. *laughs* There's a ton of cleanup with every construction job. It was an amazing day when the Christian Aid Ministeries guys came in and did all the drywall, the tape, and mudding all in like two days. It was insane what a difference it made, as the house went from studs to actual walls again.

This is John with the boxes of flooring pieces. In the foreground is the chop saw. We laid the tongue and groove flooring piece by piece, fitting each one in place, and then nailing it in. It's a wood, finished and polished.

Still, we had to cut the far ends to fit, and I pretty much had the job of figuring out how long the piece had to be and cutting it to that specification, including two sections with forty-five degree angles that went into and out of her breakfast nook. It was a lot of fun, and I got to be pretty accurate with the chop saw, as the finishing gap by the wall should be somewhere between 1/8 of an inch and 1/4 of an inch at the most so that the trim can cover it. 1/8th of an inch is about the width of the chop saw blade, so I got really good at sawing on one side or the other of the mark and making sure that it was within an 1/8th of an inch of where I wanted the cut.

Of course, that meant that I pretty much had to make the last piece of each row. This is everyone standing around after the morning's work. *laughs* Watching me fit the last piece in for the morning.

That was fun.

John had to buy some stuff for Dale to finish installing the back three windows, so I went off and got sandwiches for the two of us at a local sub shop. Then while we were waiting for the times when Dale needed a helper, John and I finished the rest of the flooring in the front room, piece by piece. It is a lot like a giant jigsaw puzzle, but most of the pieces fit all right.

And the results are amazing.

John pointed out, while he was working on this, that this is one of the few jobs in the reconstruction where once you're done with it you're done. With drywall, you have to still tape and mud. With electronics, you have to get the inspection and then finish all the plating parts. With tile there's the laying of the tile and then grouting it all and then trimming it. Windows and doors have to be framed, set, and then finished all around them. When you do the walls you still have to do the trim, and then you have to putty all the nail holes, caulk the crack, and paint it properly. It's all got several steps that have to go a few days. Painting is the other one where it's just done when it's done.

And wow, it looked beautiful.

It's also pretty satisfying to do and see the results.

Today was mostly meetings, but they were good productive ones where agreements were reached, understandings exchanged, and action items handed out to those interested in doing them. I also called a whole list of people and got yes from most of them.

Busy, but good.

Comments

[2metaldog.livejournal.com]

You guys are allowed to install rigid insulation in a crawlspace without putting gypsum board over it?

I'm just curious because building code here in Ontario doesn't allow you to have rigid insulation exposed in a crawlspace (heated or unheated). It has to be covered with 1/2" gypsum board, which is why we try and avoid insulating crawlspaces (total pain in the ass to do with already built structures). You also need to lay 6mil poly over the dirt (lapping the joints by 6") and covering that with 4" of granular material.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

It wasn't rigid insulation. It's actually paper covered fiberglass.

[incandescens]

Quick note, though somewhat tangential - Fairy Tail's returning to anime.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQJ34jAQKrI&feature=youtu.be - new season trailer. :)

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Oooooooo.... beautiful! The animation's only getting better!

Of course, following that link I ran into the live-action Black Butler trailer, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZwkyBv8TMU

Jet and I are now watching Naruto, and Jet keeps calling Naruto "Natsu." Good thing Fairy Tail is returning!

[incandescens]

I think the animation has definitely had an upgrade for the better, yes!

Ooh. I have no idea which canon arc from the manga that's supposed to be (if at all), but that's a hell of a trailer. :)

I did try Naruto, but I couldn't quite get into it. I think I prefer the Fairy Tail background cast to the Naruto background cast, even if both have shounen heroes.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

*nodnods* I think everyone has their biases and tastes, even when it's all "Shonen". Naruto's background is all so dark and death focused, Jet's mildly uncertain of it. He loved Fairy Tail unreservedly. Fairy Tail is really fun and the dips into darkness that really isn't the "kids need to kill people" kind that Naruto gets into all the time. And in Fairy Tail, most of the antagonists turn good once they see the error of their ways. *laughs* I know a lot of people who can't stand One Piece, as being 'over the top', but I kind of l0ve the over the top aspect of it. It's all different...

And, yes, that's quite a trailer, especially the action sequences.

[incandescens]

Right. Fairy Tail is occasionally the "people need to get whacked over the head and sent off to think about things" sort of fight, but it's not the "we must make the hard decisions and kill people".

In fact, when one character in the manga (I don't think that part's been animated yet) _does_ seriously consider making the "hard decision" to kill someone in order to prevent a thing he will do in the future, they end up having unpleasant realisations about themself and about how far their "reformation" has actually gone. (I'm using gender-indefinite pronouns here so as not to give stuff away.)

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Mmm... Yes!

Exactly that.

The moral bias of Fairy Tail fits Jet perfectly.

And I have to say that my moral biases fit the BBC's Sherlock rather more completely than was entirely comfortable through season 3. I've finally seen all three episodes and in the last ten minutes of the last episode it became very very clear that I'm rather more like Sherlock than is comfortable and just as clearly it turned out that myJohn shares John Watson's morals and assumptions. *laughs* Wow. What a series.

[incandescens]

The BBC Sherlock series is a lovely bit of fanfiction. ;)

I have seen some discussions that suggested Sherlock held off on shooting Magnusson until other people (Mycroft, the soldiers) were in view and could _see_ that it was him pulling the trigger. Otherwise everyone would be certain that John had done it - ex-army, motive, and so on.

And yes, one hell of a series. :) If only we didn't now have to wait another year or two till the next chunk...

[liralen.livejournal.com]

It is!! It is!! With all the same utter devotion to the original and the creative "what's next?" that takes it just that much further.

Yes.

I do like that reasoning a great deal. And, the anticipation will only grow all the more.

It's really rather fascinating that I can buy the blu-ray of the series only a mere month or two after it's completed broadcasting, and I do love studying each of the episodes.