A busy night working past my bedtime

I got stuck at work a little later then I would like last night so jumped into my outdoor projects right away to take advantage of the daylight. First off I took a hay bail down to Berry’s house and pulled off a bunch of it and put it on his floor. I’ve read that it’s the best thing to put in a dog house to keep him warm and not be affected by the weather.

Once all the hay was down I got back to work on his new doggy door. It is nothing special and I imagine I will take it down when it’s warm and stick it up when it’s cold.

I used really thin light wood then a layer of foam to insulate and then another layer of thin light wood. My hope was that it would be easy for Berry to get in and out of. However I have not been able to get him to use it yet. He watched me put it up and saw me climb into the house to put it up and I have called him over and showed him as best I can what to do but I worry he does not get it.

This morning I crept outside to his house in the morning and did not see him anywhere in the yard I hoped he was in there but no he was curled up next to the house on the hay bail.

Previous mornings I usually see him in the house when it is cold or rainy and it was somewhat cold last night so maybe my door is keeping him out when he would normally go in. He obviously has no problem with the Hay and finds it warm. So I’m looking for ideas if anyone can think of what to do? I will probably take down the door and put up a cloth until he tears it down if I can’t get him to use his door. I did put a bone and snack in the house the morning and he stuck his head in just far enough to get it then got out real fast.

After the dog house was warm and cozy and uninhabited I moved to the front yard and stacked and piled wood and then split for a bit. I got lucky and found a couple of decent  logs to split real quick then got back to the gnarly hard to split junk I have been working with most of the time lately.

I did not split long before the sun was getting too low to see well. I really like splitting with the wedges at dusk because it tosses sparks anytime you don’t hit it square and I often don’t hit it square and get to watch the sparks.

Then I moved inside and got started on my missing wall. It is getting so close and we are ready to be done, have our new living room and move on. First I mixed up the last of the drywall mud with some primer paint and some texture powder stuff. I tested it on some drywall and it looked about right so I coated my ceiling patch with it.

As it dried I got together all the trim that had been taken down or would replace what was up there. I could not just put up the existing trim because it would have a gap where the wall was. Also I didn’t want my seam at the spot where the wall was because it would draw attention to it.

So I got 2 really long pieces and did some measuring and figuring and then cutting.

I cut them at angles with a hand saw and laid them out on chairs and it seemed like my cut would be close. I was by myself and had a lot of wall to deal with but it went easier then I expected.

Actually I put a nail in each end on each board and they squeezed together perfectly without much tweaking at all and no extra cuts needed.

I was not as worried about the floor. I expect to redo all the floors someday and it is likely to be covered with a couch or table so as long as it was close I was happy. I cut it strait and stuck it into place. By now the ceiling had begun to dry and I discovered my texture did not match at all.

My texture was way too smooth once it dried and I was out of drywall mud. I got dressed and headed to Home Depot. I got a bucket of mud then picked up a couple of McRibs and headed to work. I had about 2 hours of work to do while people were not using the computers and servers and I wanted to get an early start.

Once at work I realized my 2 hours was likely to be a lot shorter. I had made some mistakes in my planning and would not need to do much of what I was expecting to do. I ate my dinner and adjusted my plans then got busy. Things went well and I was done very quickly. Then I headed home and found Heath was back. Remember Heath? She was at a meeting then out for drinks with friends then stopped by Jon and Amanda’s project for a bit. She did a beautifull job painting the back wall and covering up the primer yesterday so I could focus on ceiling and trim when I got home.

She agreed the texture was way to smooth so we mixed up another batch of mud primer and powder stuff. It ended up needing more mud. The test looked good so I got started on the ceiling.

I had a small area to cover so in no time we had wet nicely textured paint covering our smooth patch.

Heath got busy folding laundry as I finished up then cleaned up after myself and we really wanted to move some TV’s around but had left my dolly at Stooks house so we decided to retrieve it. We quickly got it then came home and found the ceiling getting dry and looking good. The primer mud mix is a bit darker then the ceiling paint and we hope that once it is covered with ceiling paint there will be no telling where the wall used to be attached.

So there are only 3 things left to do now. Paint the ceiling, get the rest of the dust out of there and put the room back together and then we can officially close the wall removal project.

Updated pictures at http://prewitt.smugmug.com/gallery/6179105_nadDQ#389662079_qiWYe