Watcha doing?

[tango]

The room that has been my primary focus is now fully connected up and live. The adjacent room is mostly connected. I took a detour via wire tracing thanks to a light that wasn't working as I expected, and along the way fried my continuity tester thanks to a live wire I wasn't expecting to be there. I knew something was wrong when I was trying to trace cables and flicking a switch popped two breakers at the same time. But now I know how it's wired and even though it's a nasty botch it's a known botch and I can work with it until I can open up some walls and do it properly. Crucially, one specific light that's difficult to live without is now working again, which is always a good thing.

Today's job is to connect up the straggling parts of the wiring, get some cleaning done to clear out the patches of drywall dust, odd fragments of cable sheathing that didn't make it into my bucket of trash etc and hopefully get some painting done. I'm hoping to get my daughter moved in over the weekend.

[tango]

I didn't get to painting, I ran out of time.

I did get a bunch of straggling wiring things connected and tested, got a basic sweep of cleaning done so now there aren't piles of drywall dust and bits, I got the walls and ceilings wiped with a cloth so they are ready to be painted. Along the way I discovered another job that I needed to do - the tank on one of the toilets needed some work because the bolts holding it to the bowl were broken off. So I bought a set of bolts and washers to fix that, but didn't have a wrench with me to hold the nuts while I tightened everything so just got them to more or less finger tight. Tomorrow I can go back with a wrench and finish that job.

I got a load of stuff moved out of the way ready to paint, and screwed a board in place behind a section of drywall that had a small hole in it. I don't have time to fix it properly so I'll fill it with some cement for now, I'm painting over the entire wall so it should be OK.

The lock on the back door was old and nasty. It worked, but locking and unlocking it was stiff and it wouldn't open from the inside if it was locked. So I took that out and replaced it with a new lock that works smoothly and cleanly.

Then there was an outlet that was loose in the wall. It turned out the back box was the kind with wings that grips the drywall, and one of the wings had snapped off. So I took that apart and replaced the back box. It looked like the socket was wired by an ape so, since I had to take it all apart to fix it, figured I'd do a better job of putting it all back together again.

And now I'm gradually bringing stuff back home. I took my shop vac over for the day, I've brought two rolls of cable and some shorter sections home and a few tools. I've still got a few tools there because I'll need them, but I think what's left over there can come home in a single trip when needed. All being well that will be tomorrow.

[Athanasius]

I once had a college professor, way back when, insist that we all use our computers without touching the mouse. So there we were on Windows 2000 navigating the OS with a keyboard only.

He'll be so happy to know that 20 years later and with a split keyboard and vim(ium), I've mastered what he could have only dreamed was possible. So that's how nicely little is going on right now.

[teddyv]

I once had a college professor, way back when, insist that we all use our computers without touching the mouse. So there we were on Windows 2000 navigating the OS with a keyboard only.

He'll be so happy to know that 20 years later and with a split keyboard and vim(ium), I've mastered what he could have only dreamed was possible. So that's how nicely little is going on right now.

My first PC was a DOS only machine. A great way to learn keyboard shortcuts.

[Athanasius]

I once had a college professor, way back when, insist that we all use our computers without touching the mouse. So there we were on Windows 2000 navigating the OS with a keyboard only.

He'll be so happy to know that 20 years later and with a split keyboard and vim(ium), I've mastered what he could have only dreamed was possible. So that's how nicely little is going on right now.

My first PC was a DOS only machine. A great way to learn keyboard shortcuts.

My first was DOS booted Windows 3.1! But right now I'm in macOS 95% of the time, and so that's a lot of macOS shortcuts + VIM, VIMium, etc., everywhere else. I think the only time I reach for a mouse now is if I use the Slack standalone app, since it's trash.

[IMINXTC]

I hate meeses to pieces!

[tango]

The last couple of days have included electrical work, painting, and exploring some plumbing. I got the toilet tank secured but the fill valve and the flapper valve need to be replaced. I found a nasty crack in the sewer pipe, so I've cleaned the outside of the pipe and wrapped it in lots of duck tape pending getting someone in to replace the cracked section. That job is way above my pay grade.

Then some painting, which caused wallpaper to bubble and peel, so I tried to strip the wallpaper and got nowhere fast, largely because it was so hot the sweat was pouring off me and blowing steam into the mix really didn't help. But I got the adjacent room painted, the hole in the wall repaired, and a load of electrical tidying up. Most of the electrical work was just putting stuff back so lights aren't hanging on their wires, sockets have covers etc. I needed to replace a couple of breakers - I put 20A breakers on when I set up the circuit to test that they work but replaced with with 15A breakers because some of the older cable looks like 14ga rather than 12ga.

And after bringing all my tools home I noticed a slow drip from the main water shutoff valve, which I couldn't fix because I didn't have my wrench with me. I'll fix that tomorrow, I didn't feel like going back out. To stop the drip I just turned off the water completely.

[RabbiKnife]

Oh now I’m confused…

Now you’re remodeling 2 houses at once….

Are you still in your meds??😳

[IMINXTC]

Laptop just conked out. Likely go for one that can take punishment.


(MS Surface Ultra looks awesone until price tag)


ADDED: Don't know what an "AI" chip entails - just surprsed there even is one.

[tango]

Oh now I’m confused…

Now you’re remodeling 2 houses at once….

Are you still in your meds??😳

Yes, I decided I didn't have enough to do so acquired another house to fix up.

Seriously, my wife and I wanted our daughter to be able to live closer. She wanted to live in our town but can't source the funding to buy and it's almost impossible to find anything suitable to rent, so we bought a place that she can rent from us. It keeps the rental income within the family, gets her closer to us, which also means we can see the grandchildren more often, and also gets her out of the situation where she's at a landlord's mercy. Well, technically she's at our mercy now but we're far less likely to throw her out than an unrelated landlord. Her previous landlord really didn't care about the property, was very slow to fix things etc.

The house needed a bit of work done to it, so I've been doing that before she moves in. There's more work that I want to do but a lot of it can wait until she's in and settled.

Today I took the day off aside from a couple of really minor things, and spent some time playing with my lathe. I had a small piece of a maple branch I very nearly threw in the burn pile but decided to experiment with it, and got two nice small bowls out of it. One of them is likely to end up as a jewelry bowl for a granddaughter who is soon to turn 16. I don't yet know what I'll do with the other one - I now have four bowls turned from the same piece of wood. My wife claimed one, I've earmarked one for my granddaughter, which leaves two that will be looking for homes. I suspect my daughter will take one of them. Maybe I'll keep one for myself, I don't know yet.

[teddyv]

Laptop just conked out. Likely go for one that can take punishment.


(MS Surface Ultra looks awesone until price tag)


ADDED: Don't know what an "AI" chip entails - just surprsed there even is one.

I assumed an AI chip is just a GPU along with a CPU.

[Cloudwalker]

Oh now I’m confused…

Now you’re remodeling 2 houses at once….

Are you still in your meds??😳

Yes, I decided I didn't have enough to do so acquired another house to fix up.

Seriously, my wife and I wanted our daughter to be able to live closer. She wanted to live in our town but can't source the funding to buy and it's almost impossible to find anything suitable to rent, so we bought a place that she can rent from us. It keeps the rental income within the family, gets her closer to us, which also means we can see the grandchildren more often, and also gets her out of the situation where she's at a landlord's mercy. Well, technically she's at our mercy now but we're far less likely to throw her out than an unrelated landlord. Her previous landlord really didn't care about the property, was very slow to fix things etc.

The house needed a bit of work done to it, so I've been doing that before she moves in. There's more work that I want to do but a lot of it can wait until she's in and settled.

Today I took the day off aside from a couple of really minor things, and spent some time playing with my lathe. I had a small piece of a maple branch I very nearly threw in the burn pile but decided to experiment with it, and got two nice small bowls out of it. One of them is likely to end up as a jewelry bowl for a granddaughter who is soon to turn 16. I don't yet know what I'll do with the other one - I now have four bowls turned from the same piece of wood. My wife claimed one, I've earmarked one for my granddaughter, which leaves two that will be looking for homes. I suspect my daughter will take one of them. Maybe I'll keep one for myself, I don't know yet.

How close is the New place from yours?  Just wondering if it's clise enough for the grandkids to possibly pop over from time to time, say after school.

[tango]

Oh now I’m confused…

Now you’re remodeling 2 houses at once….

Are you still in your meds??😳

Yes, I decided I didn't have enough to do so acquired another house to fix up.

Seriously, my wife and I wanted our daughter to be able to live closer. She wanted to live in our town but can't source the funding to buy and it's almost impossible to find anything suitable to rent, so we bought a place that she can rent from us. It keeps the rental income within the family, gets her closer to us, which also means we can see the grandchildren more often, and also gets her out of the situation where she's at a landlord's mercy. Well, technically she's at our mercy now but we're far less likely to throw her out than an unrelated landlord. Her previous landlord really didn't care about the property, was very slow to fix things etc.

The house needed a bit of work done to it, so I've been doing that before she moves in. There's more work that I want to do but a lot of it can wait until she's in and settled.

Today I took the day off aside from a couple of really minor things, and spent some time playing with my lathe. I had a small piece of a maple branch I very nearly threw in the burn pile but decided to experiment with it, and got two nice small bowls out of it. One of them is likely to end up as a jewelry bowl for a granddaughter who is soon to turn 16. I don't yet know what I'll do with the other one - I now have four bowls turned from the same piece of wood. My wife claimed one, I've earmarked one for my granddaughter, which leaves two that will be looking for homes. I suspect my daughter will take one of them. Maybe I'll keep one for myself, I don't know yet.

How close is the New place from yours?  Just wondering if it's clise enough for the grandkids to possibly pop over from time to time, say after school.

It's just under half a mile away. It's easily walkable - it's just off the route I regularly walk or run virtually every day. I'm hesitant to let the youngest granddaughters cross the main road unsupervised - it's a residential area with a 35mph speed limit but some of the traffic comes flying through town.

We're looking forward to seeing a lot more of the grands over the summer holidays when they are off school.

[tango]

A much easier day today. I got to supervise the plumbers fixing the sewage pipe. They also did a bit of work to the toilet valves - it's work I could have done myself but since I had plumbers in anyway I figured they could do it. Calling them out would mean a minimum charge that's not worth paying but since I was well over the minimum charge for the other work the extra few minutes is trivial.

So now the new house has a fully working bathroom, which is nice. Then I did a few tidying up things, I put the handle back on the bathroom because it's safe for the girls to be in there again. Previously I took the handle off because I didn't want them to try and flush, or use the taps, or anything that would send water through the broken pipe. And then I took four bags of trash away, so my daughter now has a little more space to work.

And then, having got to a point where I can take a break from the new house, I spent some time with my lathe. I found half a log and wasn't sure what it was so I made a bowl out of it, and part way through I remembered it's a piece of somewhat punky basswood. It looks nice when it's turned but it's fibrous and keeps snagging on my cutting tools. But now it's turned and I won't keep looking at it wondering what it is. It's drying now, in a couple of weeks I'll remount it and sand it.

[tango]

Today was the first day in a while I didn't need to be in the new house. Tomorrow morning I'm there again to supervise technicians installing the internet. Then hopefully by tomorrow night my daughter will be fully moved in. She's hoping to be sleeping there tomorrow night.