Monday, May 29, 2017

Long update for a long weekend.

I thought I was going to have good weather two of the three days, though that didn't turn out to be the case.  I did get some stuff done though.

Saturday I wasn't feeling too good, but I went up anyways.  I finished the metal, cutting it and painting it.  It took forever to cut through thick steel supports with the hack saw, and it turns out I cut it too long.  I wanted it to be snug across the whole frame, but I made it a little too snug.


Saddened by that, I decided to break out the weedwacker and chop down all the bamboo I have.  It grows quite fast, and is rather obnoxious.  I didn't recall running the weedwacker out of gas when I was testing it, but I know I didn't put much in it, so it didn't strike me as odd that it was empty.  Went to fill it up, and this happened, and not because of my bad accuracy.

I guess the primer bulb that I thought was too stiff for its own good was legitimately a problem...

I also propped up the truck cover so that I can use it as a shelter and as a platform.  Thankfully this didn't go ill like the rest of the day did.


One other piece of good news, the meeting with the zoning board is scheduled for Thursday.  While I am a little concerned that it is technically sooner than it ought to be (the regulations say 10 days after notifications are sent out, which was Friday), earlier is better for me.  Just to keep my good news tempered though, it came in with the first property tax bill.  NH sends out two a year.  My tax rate for the year doesn't look to have changed ($31.58 per thousand), though I think it changed on the second bill last year.  Sullivan's taxes are quite high, but the property values are lower, so it evens out.

Sunday seemed like a nice day, until I got rained out.  I got my barbeque in and as I went to work, it started to rain on me.  So I spent most of Sunday cleaning and doing chores, some of which had been neglected.  I also found out that apparently I can't shower and run the dishwasher at the same time in my apartment, and had to clean up a bunch of water off my counters and floors.  Seems to me like someone didn't do the plumbing right...

Today, I managed to poach a few light fixtures off the freebie section of Craigslist.


This leaves me one fixture short of all that I need.  I will put one of the strips in the bathroom, the other probably in the kitchen (personally I am not a big fan of the huge fluorescent fixtures and almost never use the one in my kitchen).  I have the ceiling fan which will cover the "dining room" aka the tiny space between the kitchen and living room, and this fixture will cover the living room.  I just need one for the laundry room and I am all set.

I also did some detailed wall designs today in case the zoning board asks for them.  These actually show where the windows are, expected window sizes (I haven't picked out windows yet.  They will likely end up being whatever is on sale when I am ready to install them)  and the door framing.  I intentionally didn't dimension the drawing because those sizes are unknown, but wanted to show where I will have the windows, approximate sizes, and show that I am intending to install headers and whatnot for them.  The door gives me a little pause, since I am not sure I have enough space for a header, but that is something I will deal with when the time comes.  I might just use a 4x4 trimmed to fit for the header.  It isn't ideal, but may be the best I can make fit with my 7' wall.  The windows will probably use a double 2x4 header.  It is a bit lightly built (2x6 is standard for windows, and 2x8 for the door), but should be fine.  The drawing was fairly quick with my new drawing board setup.

Note that the left, and whatnot is what wall it refers to on the floorplan, since North/south isn't meaningful to most people.

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