Power tools

A very quick one, it is almost bed time. There is loads of interesting stuff going on at work these days, both positive and negative. Things become clear.

At home we are making steady progress. I spent the last two evenings opening up a chimney hole in between the first floor and attic. As it turns out, having seen the attic floor beams up close, they are not as bad as I thought. Meaning we will not have to replace them in the time we plan to stay in this house.

The roof though is another issue, let's hope we don't get any decent winter storms. We have a good insurance, that's no problem, but I'd rather not resort to that.

Back to the chimney hole: on Friday our fireplace will be installed, the real thing straight from Denmark or so. Since construction labor seems to be ever more expensive here in this banana republic I decided to cut the holes for our in-house chimney myself. Ground floor ceiling/first floor was no problem. We ran out of luck while going through the attic floor though: the hole was nicely blocked by a heavy wooden support beam. Real pine wood I'd say, it smelled nice when I cut it.

Anyway - the wooden beam was no match for some carefully planned non-standard use of power tools. I managed to even almost not damage the ceiling below.
If it were a DIY show on television they'd probably show "Don't try this at home".

Pictures will follow, once we have the fireplace.

bookcases

I'm waiting in front of a black TV screen, the new Top Gear season will be on in a few minutes. Accidentally, I'm also waiting for Dana to come out of the shower. Hopefully on time for Top Gear. There must be priorities after all.

Our priority the last month, as you could have guessed from the lack of activity here, definitively was not blogging, not even Top Gear.
No. We finished (or nearly, some small corners are left to do) our living room floor. And placed a new basement entry hatch, all finished in ridiculously expensive plywood and stainless steel. And painted the entire room. Placed the lights (stainless steel, of course!).

And, ultimately, most gratifying of all things up till now: filled the first half of our new book cases! Yesterday afternoon, in fact, was spent bying books.

Unfortunately I will not have time to read anything the coming week; I'm scheduled to take my IPRC exam on Friday. Late October I'll also have an official career review. Need I say more?

I did get promoted by the way - very nice, and completely out of the blue. Or not: rumour has it that IT companies do all they can to keep their staff from leaving. More on that after my review - if the rumours are correct, my salary raise (if any..) should reflect them.

You might have noticed I did not place any pictures of our almost finished living room: I'd rather people come and see for themselves :)