speaking the truth

[The top part of the eastern wall of my room, above the newish window, is now (mostly) covered by two pieces of plywood, cut to more-or-less follow the shape of the ceiling, and painted pale turquoise. There’s about an inch vertical gap between them, right above the middle of the window.]

The space issue in my room had finally gotten to the point where I really needed to do something about it, right when I had an iota or two of spare energy. so I did something about it.

It was kind of a process.

I am honestly pretty impressed by how close I got the shape of that plywood — yes, that’s pretty damn GOOD for me, I am NOT good at this stuff. It covers the insulation! & mostly stops the drafts! Kind of!

I knew I wasn’t going to have any luck filling that narrow space without making it worse, so instead of that I wound up cutting a wider piece & putting that over the gap. Successfully!

The next two pieces were much easier to cut, but much harder to install, since I had no plans to move either the bed or the black shelves out of the way. But I managed it, after several attempts.

[The same wall, now with painted plywood on either side of the window. A couple of boxes and a basket are visible on the left side.]

& then I took no pictures at all. because I have gotten out of the habit of chronicling projects the way I used to, but there was a lot of measuring, cutting plywood & 2x4s, painting the cut plywood & 2x4s, & then a long afternoon of installing the lot of them.

Then I got to put things on the shelves, which is absolutely, entirely the best part.

[There’s a long shelf, spanning the width of the room, just above the window; on the left side, above the head of the bed, is another shelf that runs from that side of the window to the edge of the wall. The other side, where the matching shelf would be, has a set of black shelves taking up that space. Every inch of both shelves is covered in semi-organized stuff, but the top of the headboard is empty save for a towel at the right edge, where the sun will hit it in the mornings.]

… what a RELIEF. It’s so much easier to keep the floor cleared off, now, & my shelves are all much less cluttered. There’s even more room under the bed, though I’m contemplating ways to make that space easier to use, too. & I can GET to stuff, which is kind of new. I’m really enjoying it.

& of course SOMEONE had to be the first to explore.

[Seen from immediately below, Major Tom, a big grey tabby, is sitting on the headboard, hunkered down a bit so his head doesn’t hit the shelf above him. His ears and whiskers are perked forward; he is curious and alert.]

… well. He explored the parts he could get to, anyway, which didn’t involve the new shelves at all, but at least there was space on the headboard for him.

[He’s hunkered down on the headboard, facing towards the lamp, eyes squinched about halfway closed.]

& then? He took a nap.

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[ The side of the room occupied by my bed. Instead of a hunk of plywood screwed directly to the wall, there’s now a window. The window itself is solid white, much of the arched ceiling’s insulation is still uncovered, and my room is a mess, but it’s a mess with light on it now. ]

Something like two & a half years ago, while in the process of building the loft I was going to be living in, I made the mistake of leaning a bit of my weight against one of the windows I’d planned to put in as it lay on the floor. The glass, of course, cracked.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, when I FINALLY managed to take it to a glass place to get it fixed.

& then, not a week after I’d brought it back, PUT IT IN THE WINDOW FRAME.

(it doesn’t QUITE fit. I’ll need to do some stuff before it, you know, OPENS. I had to mildly threaten it with a hammer. BUT it’s in the frame & hasn’t fallen out, so for now, it’ll do.)

I now have TWO windows with flat spaces under them to hold plants!

[ Beneath the window is a low set of drawers. On top of that are a whole bunch of smallish aloe plants, planted in a variety of soda & bean cans. A bit of Mount Blanca, overexposed and yellowish, can be seen through the window. ]

I haven’t moved the big hanging aloe over yet, but I need to do that. & I’m gonna stop in at the local gas station cafe/convenience store & see if they’ll let me have a baby or two off of their big-ass spider plant. More light means more plants!

… also more energy. It took me about a week to get used to it but this is my third ‘I got SO MUCH STUFF DONE’ day in a row. I’m extremely solar powered, is what.

Plus the VIEW.

[ A view out a window: the walls around it are black, the tops of a few aloe plants are barely visible below, and part of the headboard blocks part of the window; but out the window is a sea of low, brown plant life, leading up to Mount Blanca, a many-peaked, snowcapped mountain. Above that is that deep blue Colorado sky. ]

All I gotta do when I’m sitting at my desk is turn left, & I get to see THAT.

It’s SO good.

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[ A view of the corner of my room; one wall is vertical, the other slants in as it goes up, following the roof line. Three pieces of plywood, each painted medium lavender, cover part of the slanted wall. Much of the rest of the photo is taken up by the mess that is my room. ]

Y’ALL IT LOOKS SO GOOD

I can lay in bed & look across the room at A WALL. That is PAINTED A PRETTY COLOR. Instead of plain OSB, or insulation. This is INCREDIBLY pleasing to me.

I mean I’m ALSO all about covering that fecking insulation, DO NOT WANT, I am SO tired of random hunks of it showing up basically everywhere, because the cats have pulled some off or just because of entropy. It’s also blocking a few tiny drafts, which is very good.

But mostly it LOOKS NICE & it’s a very good reminder that even though I’m poor AF I deserve nice things.

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[ A corner of the first floor of the house. It’s kind of a mess. Remy’s crate takes up a lot of the shot & there’s a bunch of stuff piled on it. The corner behind it is empty of furniture, but there’s a bucket of firewood, and most of the walls are either bare insulation or cardboard over insulation. One section of the wall, though, is now covered by a full sheet of plywood that’s been painted a lovely medium teal. ]

We are, and have been, kinda struggling here. I burnt out HARD last year around this time, pushing to get the house done enough that we had somewhere WARM to live, & then I couldn’t rest over the winter, between giftmas, trying to get stock made, chopping wood, & just surviving. I wound up in no shape to build over the summer, except for a few bits here & there to make life a little more bearable, & round about August I spent most of three weeks in bed.

But! Rest, it turns out, can, eventually, cause one to be rested. & over the last month or so I’ve been cautiously (& sometimes not-so-cautiously) starting to DO things again. & this is probably the most visibly pleasing result.

It’s not much. It’s OSB plywood, the cheap & rough stuff, & that’s pretty visible when you look at it. There’s a LOT more wall to cover. & there’s a lot of OTHER things that need to get done.

But it’s a step. & not just a practical one — yes, covering the insulation is good, it’ll reduce drafts, all that happy stuff. But we could have stuck up a sheet of plain plywood for that. What’s really important to me is that we had the time, energy, & money to make it PRETTY.

It’s a good reminder that it isn’t just about struggling to survive. We can build something here that’s not just a place to live, it’s a place to THRIVE. We can build something beautiful.

What are you working on that’s practical AND beautiful?

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[ Frank, a big black pickup, seen from behind and to the side; there’s a whole tall stack of styrofoam insulation taking up most of the bed and sticking several feet off the tailgate. ]

What with one thing & another (& with MANY thanks to y’all for continuing to support us, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) I managed to order almost everything we need for this summer’s construction plans in one shot, & a week or so later, me & Morgyn drove down to Canon City again to pick it all up.

Getting it all loaded didn’t go near so smoothly as last time, mostly because the hardware store employees in question didn’t have a lot of confidence in our ability to make everything fit. (As it happened we COULD have fit everything in & on the van; it wouldn’t have been a good idea, but it would have been POSSIBLE. HA.)

But eventually we got it all more-or-less stuck more-or-less where we wanted it, used every strap & bungee cord we had, & drove home.

… to be fair, the van looked like this, & that’s AFTER I’d unloaded a bunch of it. Remy for scale:

[ Remy, a big black puppy with a white streak on his chest and white toes, sits proudly in the back of the van, tongue hanging out. He’s guarding a stack of plywood taller than he is, with three sheets of styrofoam insulation in top of that; lumber sits on top of the plywood, and in the gap between the stack and the right side of the van, and there’s a small pile on the ground. That’s a LOT of sticks, is what. ]

One of the people who helped us out (I suspect she had grandchildren) advised us about eight times not to stop too fast. I explained to her that I was pretty sure we weren’t doing ANYTHING fast, because: no. & then we drove home REAL SLOW.

Unloading all that took time — we haven’t even touched the plywood yet, I want a couple pallets in place to stack it on before we start, but at least I got all the lumber out over a couple days. By which I mean ‘out’, no more than that.

[ A big pile of lumber in various sizes, lengths, and treatments. It’s sitting on the ground anyhow, like a pile of pick up sticks. Or like it was flung out of the van one stick at a time, with no regard to where it landed other than ‘out’, which is in fact what happened. ]

But! It’s getting sorted! Little by little! One step at a time!

[ There are three small neat piles of lumber on the ground. One holds two boards, one holds six, and the third and largest, a stack of two by fours on a long pallet, holds eleven. Look, it’s a work in progress. ]

VERY small steps.

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[ A big grey van, parked inside a Lowe’s lumberyard; there’s a sign that says ‘Pro Parking’ just to her left, and behind her are shelves filled with insulation. ]

My insulation finally came in! Bet it’s one of those stacks behind the van! Right? Right?

AHAHAHAHAHA no, they hadda look for it for, like, twenty minutes.

I didn’t mind, I’d brought Loiosh, so we explored the lumberyard — they have one of those AWESOME DRIVETHROUGH lumberyards — until they found it. Well, for a bit, anyways, it was kinda chilly, even though it was technically inside, so Loiosh climbed back in the van to warm up & I climbed back in to share the picture of the van all over Discord.

I mean, apparently buying a thousand bucks’ worth of insulation makes one a pro? I guess? (A couple gnomes noted that I hadda be careful about this whole ‘pro’ thing, might disqualify me for the contractor olympics, which, tbh, I’d rather skip anyways, I got shit to do.)

[ Loiosh, an orange tabby wearing a black step-in harness, stands precariously on a pile of stuff that’s been stacked on the box between the van’s front seats. He’s kinda blurry. ]

EVENTUALLY they found it (it had been tucked into A Place) & then we shoved twelve BIG bags of insulation into the van! It barely fit! More-or-less! But all the doors closed, which is the important part.

Loiosh was, of course, curious.

[ He’s standing on the box again, this time facing the back of the van; in front of him are a couple red plastic bags of insulation. He’s blurry again. ]

& then we drove home! But not before acquiring a large pizza & a really big thing of hot chocolate, because yeah, I hadda drive like three more hours.

How much insulation is that? A Lot:

[ The view in the side door of the van. Sunlight shines on everything; the picture was obviously taken the next day. The van is EXTREMELY full. A lot. ]

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[ The side of my house. The second floor window has not yet been boarded shut. A metal ladder sticks out of it by about a foot. ]

Remember that ladder? The one I left upstairs because I needed it to get up on the roof so I could put up the last of the plywood? There’s a thing I forgot to tell you: I left it upstairs because I needed it to get up on the roof, but also, because there wasn’t room to get it down through the one hole in the floor that has the ship’s ladder in it.

So how to get it out?

[ The ladder’s up on its side, maybe a foot and a half out now. ]

My roommates all wanted me to do things like ‘hand it to me out the window’ & ‘are you SURE it won’t fit down the stairs’, but I was undeterred.

[ The ladder’s at an angle now, and my face is just visible above it. ]

‘No, no, I’m gonna do it,’ I said. ‘Oh hey CJ, can you take pictures?’

Reluctantly, he took the camera and picked a spot. I waved him a bit further away.

[ There’s the side of my house, with the second floor window. There’s my hands, just visible in the window, caught just after the chucking. And silhouetted against the sky, nearly horizontal, actually higher than the window, flying gracefully through that blue Colorado sky, is the ladder. ]

Yep.

I did it.

I yote the ladder.

…

oh come ON. was there any reality in which I would NOT have not only thrown the ladder out the window, but gotten someone to take pictures of it.

anyway it survived AND didn’t even hit CJ

[ The ladder’s laying on the ground. It’s just fine. ]

See? It’s just fine.

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[ A double bed, piled with blankets, sits in the corner of a room. The wall next to it is slanted, and bare to the outside sheathing of plywood. The wall behind it at least has insulation. Next to it is a set of shelves filled with boxes of soap. ]

When we finally got the place to the point of being able to start the fire & move in, we moved in REAL FAST. It was getting dark, it was getting cold, we just wanted to be WARM.

… there was still a stack of insulation in the corner for at least three days. It was kinda messy.

But we got ourselves in, & we got ourselves settled, & we started moving busuiness stuff in because the BIG SALE was coming, & that took up a BUNCH of the first floor, but that was fine, CJ was good with being upstairs, & none of us had the energy to haul anything heavy up there.

It worked for a little while.

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[ Loiosh, an orange tabby, is meatloafed up, looking straight towards the camera, face framed between two vertical two by fours. A pair of fingers obscure the shot to the top left and to the right. ]

I was doing so well with blogging! & then we got enough money to buy the last of what I needed to finish up building, & then it started getting cold, & then it was REALLY cold, & for a couple weeks I was either frantically building or in bed … because it was too cold to be anywhere else. I don’t think it got above freezing in Tyrava for those couple weeks, even when it was a bit warmer outsite. Thank the GODS for that bright Colorado sun, because it woulda been too cold to build at all otherwise.

But it was warm enough, if barely; & the cold was STRONG motivation to keep going; & just before we were all about to give up & … I don’t know, it’s not like any of us really have other options anyway, but, well. Just then, I got the roof sufficiently finished up, & got the wood stove installed, & Morgyn started the fire, & then we spent the next hour frantically hauling just enough stuff in to survive the night & went to bed.

& we’re all still living in here now, because there’s no WAY, even with the other wood stove installed, that Borgia can be kept warm enough to live in.

Gonna be a long winter.

But in the meantime? Cat pictures.

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[ A plywood-covered wood foundation, covered in turn with an outdoor carpet in cream and green, holds up two walls, one to the left, one on the far side of the floor. Each wall bears a single window. A pair of matching doors leans against the side wall. ]

I’ve been posting about stuff I did months ago, trying to catch up while I couldn’t do any building for a while, BUT the money has finally come in for the last of what I need to finish my cabin, so here is the State of Things.

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!