![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Okay, not so much 'windows' as 'spots where windows will be,' but we made them!
This is the row of north facing windows in the studio. The open space is where I removed the old junky window; you can see the delightful view of the crappy neighbor's crappy fence and crappy ivy. The glow to the right is the great big eastern window. (The little piece of 1x is just a ledger board I put up to support a piece of plywood over the gaping hole).
Here's the same thing from the other side! EXCITMENT.
In this picture you can clearly see the gas line and why it has to move. Also the chalk picture of Grog dad drew on my wall.
Speaking of dad, here's my dad, taking apart my house:
Dad is much, much faster at taking apart my house than I am. The combination of girth, strength, experience, and sheer willingness to risk my house make a huge difference. Or as he put it, "You're worried? I've broken WAY bigger houses than this!"* I'm really trying not to call for help too often, but sometimes the extra muscle and/or weight makes the difference between actually doing the thing and just straining pathetically. In such instances I pitifully yell "Brute squad?" and dad yells "I AM the brute squad!" in an Andre-the-Giant voice and comes and is big at the recalcitrant thing.
Still, I made big strides in my demolition abilities on Saturday -- I used my circular saw unsupervised for the first time -- and while making plunge cuts, no less! GO ME!
I really need to work on my grip strength -- holding the guard back and holding the safety button while holding the 'on' enough to get it to actually work was hard. I have really long fingers for a lady, too -- it'd be extra punishing with smaller hands. I did it, though, and feel much more comfortable working the saw than I did last week. YAY!
I also used the giant framing nail gun without instruction and supervision. It's also intimidating (and HEAVY), but not nearly as difficult (I've used nail guns before, just not great big framing guns).
Between those two things, and watching the layout of the first window, actively helping measure and cut lumber
on the second, and self-directedly measuring/cutting on the thirdwhile dad fixed a mistake he made oops I'm confident that I could frame the last window -- the laundry room one, which'll be in the same wall, but lower -- by myself. It'd be faster with dad's help (and I can't get the lumber on my bike), but I COULD do it, and that's very encouraging.
It's also encouraging to write this out, because between cats, foot pain, house/housemate noises, and a random ten minutes of dread about the inherently temporary nature of the universe, I didn't sleep well last night at all. Woke up this morning feeling pretty damn depressed, worrying (again) whether I made the right decisions on those windows we just framed, bemoaning the messy house... all that.
But, hey, I accomplished things this weekend! And that was only Saturday -- on Sunday I cleaned the garage to make a better working space and moved five loads of mulch, on the theory that I'd be less stiff Monday if I kept my ass moving (which seems to have worked).
This is the row of north facing windows in the studio. The open space is where I removed the old junky window; you can see the delightful view of the crappy neighbor's crappy fence and crappy ivy. The glow to the right is the great big eastern window. (The little piece of 1x is just a ledger board I put up to support a piece of plywood over the gaping hole).
Here's the same thing from the other side! EXCITMENT.
In this picture you can clearly see the gas line and why it has to move. Also the chalk picture of Grog dad drew on my wall.
Speaking of dad, here's my dad, taking apart my house:
Dad is much, much faster at taking apart my house than I am. The combination of girth, strength, experience, and sheer willingness to risk my house make a huge difference. Or as he put it, "You're worried? I've broken WAY bigger houses than this!"* I'm really trying not to call for help too often, but sometimes the extra muscle and/or weight makes the difference between actually doing the thing and just straining pathetically. In such instances I pitifully yell "Brute squad?" and dad yells "I AM the brute squad!" in an Andre-the-Giant voice and comes and is big at the recalcitrant thing.
Still, I made big strides in my demolition abilities on Saturday -- I used my circular saw unsupervised for the first time -- and while making plunge cuts, no less! GO ME!
I really need to work on my grip strength -- holding the guard back and holding the safety button while holding the 'on' enough to get it to actually work was hard. I have really long fingers for a lady, too -- it'd be extra punishing with smaller hands. I did it, though, and feel much more comfortable working the saw than I did last week. YAY!
I also used the giant framing nail gun without instruction and supervision. It's also intimidating (and HEAVY), but not nearly as difficult (I've used nail guns before, just not great big framing guns).
Between those two things, and watching the layout of the first window, actively helping measure and cut lumber
on the second, and self-directedly measuring/cutting on the third
It's also encouraging to write this out, because between cats, foot pain, house/housemate noises, and a random ten minutes of dread about the inherently temporary nature of the universe, I didn't sleep well last night at all. Woke up this morning feeling pretty damn depressed, worrying (again) whether I made the right decisions on those windows we just framed, bemoaning the messy house... all that.
But, hey, I accomplished things this weekend! And that was only Saturday -- on Sunday I cleaned the garage to make a better working space and moved five loads of mulch, on the theory that I'd be less stiff Monday if I kept my ass moving (which seems to have worked).
Re: *applause off*
Date: 2013-08-16 06:29 pm (UTC)From:I like the idea of a place to repair/make/fix and learn stuff! Obviously not so keen, personally, on the gender restriction, but it's a marvelous idea.
I shall sit here and be appropriately, youthfully boggled by your description of the computer.
reminiscence time...
Date: 2013-08-17 12:08 am (UTC)From:This was the first computer system I worked on way back in 1968-71 which filled one floor of the building, did the computing for four government departments (Statistics, Treasury, Tax, Health) and the computing grunt of a Commodore C64 which these days doesn't even rate as a toy. The CDC 3200 cost about AUD1.25million in 1964, and the 2Gb microSD card in my cellphone which cost $10 five years ago has 87,000 times the memory capacity of the CDC 3200.
Yeah, computers have come a little way since I first started working with them...
and the world around here is still rattling away...