The Attic as a 4th Bedroom

We started this Thanksgiving on finishing the attic. My Dad came down and Father-in-Law worked on framing the attic. Using a framing nailer we were able to put up kneewalls and a ceiling in 2 days. Images will be forthcoming.

A hole in the wall

A tiny hole in the plaster of the wall due to a dining room chair becomes a Maine shaped catastrophe.

I tore away the loose plaster that had come unkeyed from the lathe and secured the remainder with plaster repair washers bought from Amazon.com.

Two coats of plaster patch filled in the majority and the finish was a skim coat or 4 of drywall compound.

The Attic

Had a contractor over to look at the attic. I fear cutting soffit vents and the like is outside my pay grade. The bill looks to be insane. So I might just have to do some serious research and hack it myself.

Ugh.

Completed the Fence

Well I had left a small hole in the fence where our rosebush was. But when we cut it back for the winter we now had a Lucas sized hole through which he could escape. So today I finally added a 15 inch extension to close that off. Flimsier than I would normally like but, hey it got the job done. I also replaced a section of fence that was warped due to the bowed 2X4's the pickets were attached to. Replaced 2X4's and presto! Straight fence. Next up..staining!

Alive!

After switching to FIOS for everything communicative our phone lines went down. Wasn't sure why, I swapped out the old phone line and jack and replaced it with new CAT-5. Still dead. Went out to the ONT box where the fiber optics plugs into the house. The CAT-5 had come loose from it's connecting port in the ONT. Closed the latch (which crimped the CAT-5 wires and completed the connection. 10 minutes later during dinner, Sir Francis Drake called. The phones were fixed.

Border Fence

The first gate will go here
The fence was free from my brother-in-law.
The soil is nearly 100% clay, we have about 3 inches of topsoil. Absolutely brutal to dig through.
The large double gate, with removable post.

We had to hand dig most of the post holes since the 2 man auger couldn't hack the clay.

Check off second major project of the summer.

I wish I had a before photo. The only way my garage could have looked worse is if I had 300 cats living in it, 50 of them dead and the rest living in a massive heap of their filth. The garage was nearly that bad, just without the cats and mound of filth. So we had to clean it, and build shelves, and cabinets (well I just hung the cabinets).





























Take a guess what next weeks project will be. I'm renting the two man post digger for Friday. Whoopee!














Oh and even more amazing news, I got my Grandfather's table saw assembled and used it to build the shelves. It's a beaut! 1950 something or other Craftsman. Took the index and thumb off my left hand first try! Boy can that thing rip a plank! Still need to get the rip fence on though.