When we bought our house, it was only 1200 square feet. A bit small for 4 people. It does have a decent size walk up attic we’ve been talking about finishing for years and turning into a master bedroom. It’s about 600 square feet, so it’d add 50% to our square footage right there.
Well, we had a good tax return this year, so we decided to dig in and get it done. Here are a few pictures of the progress.
Ty helping with the framing
Closet framed in
You can see where there’s nothing between the joists, and you can see the tar paper of the roof deck between the slats. Because of that, it gets to about 125 up there during the summer, and about 40 in the winter. Insulation was next.
Expanding Foam to the rescue
More Foam
They went really heavy with the foam in the places that were behind the plaster (upcoming), and that’s a good thing.
Then there was plaster.
Blue board covering up the ugly (ha, they missed me though)
Plaster team hard at work.
All better now.
Closet all done (and already full)
Overall view of the room
I have to say, Evergreen Insulation did a good job, and Roger Thomas Plasterdid an amazing job. There wasn’t a single straight joist or bean in that attic. 47 years of 125 degree summers up there took it’s toll, but they managed to get the walls, and especially the ceiling, way straighter than I could have ever hoped for. I can’t recommend them enough based on the job they did.
It’s amazing how different the room is. Tomorrow, I’ll get the lights up, a few other things straightened up, then start looking for primer/paint. It’ll be interesting to see how this turns out once it’s completely done.
I’ve recently gotten back into mountain biking big time after taking a couple years off. I still have a long ways to go, but I’m doing much better than I expected to at this point.
We live at the base of Read Mountain. I use the term ‘mountain’ loosely because it’s only about 2900 feet at the top. And the base is at 1250, so it’s a 1650 foot climb from my house. Of course, a large part of that is at a 20% plus grade, with one long stretch at 27%, so it’s not easy by any means.
I rode from my house up to my friend Ken’s house (he lives 1/2 way up the ‘mountain’), met up with him, then we rode the rest of the way to the top. There’s about a 1/4 mile section that has to be walked because it’s very steep and covered in a 3″ thick layer of leaves and is just way too slippery to ride. Other than that section, we rode to the top, across the ridge line, then down the long technical single track. It’s a killer technical downhill, but a blast to ride. I had hoped to be able to ride the entire mountain in one day by the end of summer. The fact that I’ve been riding for less than 2 months and I can already do it makes me very happy.
We’ve also managed to get the boys into mountain biking. They went to the local beginner single track called ‘Easy Street’ on their walmart bikes last month. They did very well on the trail, but there were a couple slight hills that their bikes just didn’t have the gearing to handle. We got them new bikes a few weeks ago. Real decent mountain bikes. Ty got a 20″ wheel bike, and Dane is on a full 26″ wheel bike, but with a 12″ frame. They fit them perfectly now, but have plenty of room to grow too.
I took them out to Easy Street again last weekend. They were blowing through the easy trail, so I took them down a ‘new trail’ called Ridgeline. It’s rated as an intermediate trail, but they did great on it. There were a few places that they got kind of sketchy on and walked through, but all in all they did great. Once they got a little confidence, it really helped them. They did just under 4 miles if fairly difficult terrain. All in all I’m very proud of them. They were riding stuff that I can barely imagine a 12 year old riding, let alone an 8 and 9 year old. They’ve already asked to go again.
I’m looking forward to doing some harder trails in the future. I’ve already lost a little of my gut, and hope to lose more. If I can keep up my 2-3 times a week rides, I’ll be in pretty damn good shape by my 40th.
There was a PTA Meeting tonight, where the 4th graders put on a play. Naturally, Dane took the opportunity to ham it up a bit. Unfortunately, all I had was my cell phone video camera, so the quality is meh at best.
The first one is him acting as an ‘MC’. The second is him dancing during the song. He’s wearing a red hawaiian shirt, but he can be a little hard to spot.
It’s best to watch the next one in full screen. It’s a bit fuzzy, but easier to make out Dane. He had the audience laughing…
There’s another, better, view of him dancing here:
Even though we’ve been in Virginia for 3 years, this is our first ‘real’ Winter. The first two winters, we had one storm that left about 4″ of snow on the ground then entire season each year. A few dustings here and there, but only one real ‘storm’. This year we got 14″ over night the Friday before Christmas, for my first ‘White Christmas’. We are going through a big storm right now too. Last week we got about 6″, but that melted down to about an inch left before this current storm hit.
With this current storm, we got about 5″ of snow yesterday, then a layer of ice and sleet, then another 6″ today (so far). It’s still snowing pretty good and I figure we’ll get at least another inch or two before tonight. I actually like the snow. Despite taking literally 30 minutes to get T out of her parking space and into the driveway this morning, it’s fun. This is what I think winter should be like. Everything is white and beautiful. I’d rather have 6″ of snow than have it be 35 degrees and raining.
The boys had 4 ‘snow days’ from school last week and only went to school on Thursday. They could have gone on Wednesday, but the school closed for some inane reason. Roads were clear, wasn’t raining or snowing, but bureaucracy has it’s way.
In the clear weather between the Christmas storm and this one, I picked up a Minibike for the boys. They were a bit “What the hell is that” at first, but they love it now.
Zoom Zoom Zoom
We tried pulling it out in the snow so they could pull each other on sleds, but it doesn’t have enough power or traction to get through the snow.
Here are a few more pictures of our current ‘storm’.
The snow is sticking well.
Time to dig out.
Bo doesn't seem to mind the snow at all.
Our eggs come refridgerated
We are supposed to get another wave coming through on Tuesday, but it’ll mostly be raid with a few flurries.
The Swine Flu isn’t nearly as fun as the media makes it out to be. So far Dane and I have both had full on cases of it, Ty had a very light case of it, and T has been untouched. Usually, she’s the first one to get sick, and gets it the worst, and I’m barely touched by it. Luckily, we all seem to be past it now. Dane missed 2 days of school, Ty only missed one.
Other than feeling like crap, typical of any flu, there’s really nothing special about this one. Most seasonal flus are slight variations of the same flu strain, so you have a immunity of some sort if you’ve had it before, or have had the shot. H1N1 is a completely new strain, so no one has an immunity to it. That’s what makes it so contagious. It’s no more deadly than any other strain, just a new one that everyone has the potential to get.
Ah well, it’s all just a flu. I just hope no one molests a platypus next year and starts another new strain.
Both boys are playing soccer again this year. They are having fun with it, and Ty is little Mr. Aggresive on the field, which is good. Dane on the other hand, is just there to have fun. He has no concept of ‘the team is relying on you’ at all. He just wants to dance, sing, and play. He doesn’t have any aggression in him at all (unless I’m telling him what to do). At least he’s having fun. That’s the point, right?
Tonight at Dane’s practice, it was kids vs. parents. Ty took a pretty good shot to the crotch, but shrugged it off and kept playing. Later in the game, I took a very similar shot. I wasn’t able to shrug it off quite so well (larger target and all (I tell myself that, it helps me sleep… )). Ty comes running up to me and says “Daddy, you need a cup!”. After the game was over, Ty comes up to me, looks around and whispers “Daddy, what’s a cup?”. Apparently, he was parroting what someone told him after he got hit. Trying to explain what a cup is while trying not to laugh was interesting.
We are getting new windows put in the attic next week in anticipation of finishing it and turning it into a Master Bedroom. It’s about 640 square feet, so should be plenty of room once it’s done. It’ll be nice to have some privacy again and not be looking directly into the boys room every night. Plus, they are getting to an age where they need their own room. Putting in all new windows and new doors on the first floor cut our furnace time by at least 1/2, so the new attic windows should help a bit. Eventually, we’ll finish the basement too. But that means having to clean it first, and that may never happen.
I’ll try to update more often. It’s only been 8 or so months since the last one
Had an issue where our website got hacked. It’s fixed, but we lost a lot of content. Now that it’s working again, I’ll see if I can find something interesting to post.
Teresa and Dane were having a conversation about the reporter that threw his shoes at President Tardly, uh, I mean Bush. She was explaining that in Iraq, throwing your shoes at someone is a great insult, but insults are different here. She said that ‘flipping the bird’ is a great insult here, but there it wouldn’t mean anything. So Dane says “So if I took a Cardinal and flipped it upside down at someone, that’d be a big insult to them?”
I laughed so hard I almost shot milk out of my nose, and I wasn’t even drinking milk. I can’t even begin to keep up with posting the stuff they say that cracks me up. The sheer honesty and innocence of being a child is awesome.
I’ll try to post some more ‘current events’ more often.
