Construction Journal Entry Week of 10/10/21

10/11-15/21 I went up to Camp Serendipity for five days: Monday through Friday.

There was snow in the mountains above 4000 feet, but the roadway was bare and dry. The weather was beautiful and sunny when I arrived at 11:30. I had enough gear that it took two trips, the second one with the wheelbarrow. The cabin was warm enough, so I didn't start a fire. After hoisting the flag, I had my lunch and a nap and then practiced the piano.

I looked through the old albums and found pictures of Doctor Lebit. I am trying to reestablish contact with him, and I will bring the album home with me.

I had bought some drywall equipment including a mud tray and I tried it out. It worked wonderfully and made my homemade mud tray seem ridiculous. In the late afternoon I intended to walk to the school bus turn around, but I discovered I got cell service on the road right in front of the driveway. That was a nice surprise.

On Tuesday the temperature outside was 22 degrees. I built a fire in the stove and then went down and switched the ventilation fan to winter mode. After practicing the piano, I mudded half of the seam in the utility room. After lunch and a nap, I did the other half. Depending on how it looks after it dries, the seam might be ready for paint.

On Wednesday morning I built another fire, practiced the piano, and listened to the radio for a while. Then I mudded some small holes in the walls in the bedroom and the living room. After lunch and a nap, Robert called and caught me up on his activities.

Next, I used a three-quarter inch sharp chisel to cut the mud in the plane of the drywall and perpendicular to the logs in order to make the masking tape removal cleaner. That took a while and I needed to wear hearing protection while I did the pounding. The mud job looked pretty good and after doing a little sanding it was ready. I vacuumed up the mess and cleaned things up in preparation for painting. At the end of the day, I went down to the road and checked my messages again. I've been called for jury duty, and I need to get any messages they send to me.

On Thursday morning I built another fire, practiced the piano, and then painted the utility room joint and the touch ups in the bedroom and the living room.

Since it might snow soon, I decided to move the stuff back into the crawl space that I had temporarily taken out while the floor was being insulated. I figured this was the time to put it back. Everything went back in a reasonable place except for the long stock. There were a bunch of 10-foot pipes, conduits, rebar, and such that are awkward to store, and I wasn't sure where they should go in the crawl space. After thinking about it I decided to make 4 hangers using number 3 rebar and hang the hangers from the joists to provide a rack that would hold that long stock. I found four pieces of rebar and bent them into the brackets.

After lunch and a nap, I realized that I had made them wrong and they needed to be bent 90 degrees. After re-bending them, I drilled the holes in the joists, hung the brackets and then loaded them with all the pipes etc. It worked very well. I took a picture of the rack.

By that time the paint was dry enough to remove the masking. First, I used a utility knife to cut into the joint to make it separate as cleanly as possible. The tape came off nicely, I was super happy with the results, and took some picture s.

On Friday morning I started another fire, practiced the piano, and then put a bunch of tools away that were still on the front porch and in the utility room. I also covered some good lumber on the porch with a tarp so it wouldn't deteriorate. I left for home at 12:30 happy with the week's work.



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