I've apparently taken just a bit of a break from blogging. The reason is simple enough: I've been doing real work.
We left off just before the much anticipated opening of Home Depot. We went, we saw, we spent $2.36 for a bathtub drain stopper. I did not buy any heater stuff. In truth, while the prices on some items are slightly below our other retailers, the new store hasn't got a monopoly on quality, selection, qualified assistance, or price.
One of the things we investigated at Home Depot was our replacement heating system for the house. Despite the fact that Home Depot is the distributor for Trane [heating and air conditioning] products, they apparently believe that people in Alaska don't need central heat, because there weren't any central heating units available in the store, and they have no plans to have a Trane representative in their store.
They did have some built-in electric heaters that caught my attention. I went home and ran some calculations, then went on the internet and found a host of products (most of which are not carried by Home Depot) that will probably suit our needs. The heaters we're currently investigating are relatively small and easy to install (they are designed to go into a wall cavity and look just like a heater vent). Individually, these heaters are capable of warming small areas, but several of them will heat the whole house.
There are several advantages in using these small electric heaters. For one thing, we can add heat to the areas of the house we're using and let the vacant areas be a little cooler. There is the redundancy factor of having several heaters, which means being able to keep the house warm even if one of the units quits working for whatever reason. There is also a potential for some energy savings versus the hot water baseboard heat, because we won't have any heat loss in the 120' of piping that connects the baseboards in the otherwise unheated crawlspace. Lastly, putting these heaters in does not rule out an additional heat source (such as the heat pump) at a later date if the economics justify it.
But we don't need very much heat in the house in July, so it is time to visit the other home improvement projects on the docket.
Home Depot has a decent selection of lumber, but it is not the widest selection in town, and it isn't even the best price (unless you count their guarantee to undercut the competition by 10% if confronted by lower prices). We wanted a woodshed in which to dry our firewood. While we were at it, we wanted a storage/work area for gardening projects and yard tools. I drew up a set of plans, came up with a list of materials, and went on a little tour. When I discovered that the cost was essentially the same between Home Depot and Don Abel, I went with the local outfit.
So here are a few pictures of the project. I realized almost immediately that moving a large quantity of lumber any distance is much easier with a set of wheels, and it so happened that we had a set of wheels on hand, which really made the moving easy.
There were no glitches in the construction, but there were some design changes as I went along. The sheathing, for instance, was originally intended to be mounted on the outside of the posts, but I liked the look of the posts so much that I didn't want to hide them behind a monolithic wall, so the sheathing wound up behind the posts. The 2x4's placed on edge for wood storage were in the original plan (to keep the wood off the floor and ventilated), but the additional planks in between weren't contemplated until later, and weren't installed until after I inadvertently stepped in-between the edge-placed planks (looking up when I should have been looking down).
There is still more to do. A wall belongs between the wood storage area and the rest of the shed. We are still discussing how we want to use the work area, so we haven't decided for sure what kind of shelving and/or counter space we want to put in. We also want a ramp to get from the shed to the yard, assuming we store our lawnmower in the new space. At any rate, the bulk of the work is complete, or at least far enough along to send out these pictures.
Becky and Michael Robert are both enjoying their summer. Becky is speaking in sentences more and more, and her comprehension is good, but she has a stubborn streak that requires an occasional swat on the rear to overcome. Michael is also talking, mostly in single words, and he's picking up new words daily. He also likes to mimic others, and it was really impressive to watch him parrot the sounds and actions of a somewhat older boy he met at a birthday party, right down to saying "whew" and wiping his hand across his forehead in imitation of his friend. Besides birthday parties, we've had a few other things going on with the kids, including taking them to see the parade on the fourth, which they both enjoyed a lot.
Ah, the joys of summer.