Time to get on my bike and work

Again, not a long update this week as neither of us has had a moment to gather ourselves or our thoughts. Some days it feels like we’ve accomplished nothing on the house. Which is not true, it’s just that there’s a long list of things to sort out. We really needed a day to relax though, and we took that day on Saturday. We did set up our lucky find – a mid-century modern dining room table and six chairs – on our relax day though. They look amazing and we’re so happy we were able to find them.

Reno updates

Yesterday was all about work though. First order of business – repairing the drywall around the shower fitting in the main bath so we can use that again. And yes, it was drywall and not cement board, which is a bit of an odd choice for a bath/shower… The plumber had to rip it out to access a valve. It was a pretty straightforward fix at least:

• Take a 2’ x 2’ drywall board from Home Depot, and cut it to 17” wide and tall enough to cover the damaged section (in this case, 8”).
• Find the studs in the wall either side of the damage using a studfinder, and mark them.
• Place the board over those marks and cut the drywall along the new piece, using a utility knife.
• Then knock out the old drywall with a hammer – and enjoy how it breaks along the cut lines.
• Fit the new drywall over the half-exposed studs and mark where the shower head fitting hits the drywall.
• Drill and cut a hole for the shower fitting in the drywall.
• Screw the drywall in using four screws – and a depth setter to ensure you don’t drive them too deep.
• Tape the seams, then mud them. Then sand and mud them a second time, because I’m not good at mudding.
• Then prime the new drywall so it can be painted.

We also spent a good few hours priming the walls in the downstairs hall and living room. Even though our current couch can’t fit downstairs, we can still make it look nice for the day we own a couch that does. Fixing the oopsies on the ceiling from the previous paint job, where the cut lines ran onto the ceilings, was also deeply satisfying.

Today is more work. Our fibre line is getting installed (yay! 1gbps!), we need to put a first (and maybe second) coat of paint on the repaired shower drywall and also finish the touch-ups on the completed paintwork in the bedroom, bathroom and hall. Maybe we’ll even get onto painting some of the downstairs. But if not, that’s okay. CF is working night shift, so I don’t want her to put in a full shift of work before actual work.

NBD (new bike day)

It’s not even slightly house-renovation related, but it is something I’m pretty happy about. I got a new bicycle. I haven’t had a bike for literal decades, even though I absolutely adored cycling around when I was younger. Guess it was just a sign of the times in Joburg that I didn’t feel comfortable buying a bike and cycling around. Anyway. I bought a Trek Roscoe 7 mountain bike in Satin Black Olive. It’s definitely the fanciest bike I’ve ever owned, and I’m really excited to spend time on it when the weather warms up. True to form, the bike was, oh, about four days old before I decided to change some parts. The stock pedals and grips are a bit meh, so I changed them out for some decent aftermarket ones. I’ll also change out the dropper post lever, which feels like it’s going to snap the next time I press it.

On those days (and months) when it’s too cold to be outside on my bike, I’ll put the bike on an indoor trainer, a Garmin TacX Neo 2T (catchy name there Garmin, keep up the good work…). Unfortunately I can’t do that yet because even though I bought a spare 12-speed cassette – the thing with the cogs at the back of the bike – I can’t mount it to the trainer because my bike has a ‘microspline freehub body’ and not the standard Shimano one that comes with the trainer. I can already tell I’m going to have so much fun learning bike terminology.

Next week should bring a more interesting Canada-related post. Or maybe an infosec post, just to spice things up.

PS. Here’s a bonus picture of Toddles contemplating the tough life she leads as the queen of this house, delegating renovation work to her willing serfs.