Last week definitely took its toll on me in terms of the heat. While at the paint store yesterday, they mentioned that they had a serious drop off in sales due to the heat. They said that it was just too hot for painters to do much work. Well, that wasn't the case for me. Despite the heat and humidity, it was sunny out with very little threat of rain, and as such, I decided to take advantage of it and work even harder to get as much as possible done. Its questionable how much extra work I got done due to the extra breaks I needed to take in order to stay hydrated, but I did actually get a significant amount of work accomplished. Then came this past weekend with the completion of my pavilion in Vermont. Two long days of work after a week of working outside, and yesterday it was back to work again, no break in between. As I was thinking about when I was going to get a break (forgetting about my upcoming vacation), I realized that I am not going to get one anytime soon. This upcoming weekend will be another work weekend at home, so again, no break. It will be three full, solid weeks of work before I get one week off. So what is this coming weekend that is so pressing that I won't get a break? Well, this weekend starts the necessary project of gutting our guest room and re-making it into our son's new room so that our new child can have his old room which has the crib and everything all set. Most people would question the necessity of gutting a room down to studs, ripping out the sub floor, raising the ceiling, and all that fun stuff. But let me explain exactly why all that needs to be done, and done in a very careful manner during which my wife and son will be staying over at my parents house. You see, our house, as I have mentioned before, was originally built in the 1850's. Our guest room, which will become our son's room, has plaster walls with multiple layers of wallpaper coated with multiple layers of paint, all of which are peeling. Yep, you guessed it, there is most likely lead somewhere in that mix. The ceiling is a crumbling plaster that was covered with sheet rock at some point and is probably an inch taller than I am, hence the need to raise the ceiling about 6 inches.
Continuing on, for the whole room which is about 14'x14', there is one plug, hardly enough to do much with. Making it worse, there are no lights. Lets move to the floor. I am a little concerned with the floor as when I was re-doing the floor in the hallway this past winter, I noticed a distinct curve to the joists holding the floor up in the guest room. As the joists that hold up the living room floor are tree trunks that were carved to size, I am guessing that the guest room contains the same. On top of that, there is a lot of bounce in the floor which doesn't make me overly comfortable. Take it one step further, while we had insulation blown into the walls, there is none in the ceiling which doesn't really make for an energy efficient room. So that, in a nutshell is why this weekend I will be ripping everything out of there, completely, down to the studs, ceiling, and floor joists, and putting it all back together. This weekend will solely be dedicated to demo, nothing more. While I am hoping to get it all done on Saturday, I know how I am with estimates on time and am guessing that it will probably take longer than just one day. And once I am done with the demo, it will be back to work next week. Again, without a break. I will be taking a week off with my family the first week of August to spend on the beach on Cape Cod, but despite that, my weeks and weekends will be blending into one both before and after that for the foreseeable future. Hence, the beginning of the long burn out. I felt the effects already on Sunday after I got home. I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep, which I did, however, my body doesn't like to get too much sleep I have found and even with all the work I did, the lack of energy I had, with going to bed at 8, I woke up at 2 ready to go. I did manage to sleep on and off for the next 2 hours till my alarm went off at 4, but I was tossing and turning the whole time. I guess after about 6 hours my body starts the whole wake up process. I just love it (sarcasm). So for now, I will keep trucking, working days and weekends, getting paid only for the weeks, and hope that I can take some extra time off this fall or winter. Probably not, but the hope is there. The one week vacation will definitely be a great help and probably give me the energy I need for another 6 months or so. Only time will tell. But for now, at least, seeing as it is a rainy day, work will be a little bit lighter and less strenuous, hopefully. Till tomorrow, when the sun should be shining and providing me with more tanning ability, be well.
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