I slept until 8 am! Ahhhhh. When I got up, the kids had just started playing a card game with Eric (Skull King). I got dressed in my usual renovating outfit--so stylish!--and headed downstairs to clean and organize. Eric came next and, one by one, the rest of the kids showed up. It's like we are magnets and they just can't resist being away from us!
We spent about 3 hours sweeping, organizing, sweeping, pulling nails, and sweeping. Just with the leftover bits of plaster and wood and dust, we filled over 14 bags!
Now we have our own personal lumberyard, with everything stacked by type and length.
After a shower and lunch, I video conferenced with my dad about some engineering ideas in the back room. He can build just about anything, but he was stumped when it came to my questions because the construction methods are so different over here. For example, how do you properly anchor something into a thin interior wall (cloison) that is less than 4" or 10 cm thick, given that there are no interior structural elements, just plaster and earth and whatever else was added into the mortar, with a few random pieces of wood here and there?
In the US, our walls are built with wood framing (ossature bois), covered either by plaster and lath (in old houses) or drywall (in houses dating from the mid-20th century and newer). There are almost always structural 2x4s, spaced in predicable widths, to which you can attach things securely. Some houses might have solid exterior walls (an older brick house, for example). But we have nothing comparable to these interior walls that are mostly just...earthy-y mortar covered by a thin layer of plaster. I'm not even sure what they are made out of.
Eric, Zari, and Dio went to an activity in the afternoon, taking their bikes. It was a good ride: 3 km each way but very hilly. Inga and Ivy did coloring pages. I couldn't convince them to go outside and I was feeling too tired to herd them out the door.
Finally, with less than a half hour left before curfew, Inga wanted to go out. We hauled 14 bags of trash to the garbage depot and then went for a fun walk in the rain. She was hoping to find some money but we didn't luck out this evening.
We finished the first season of Blown Away. We would watch one episode, and the kids would say, "Just one more...please?" We ended up watching four!
After a shower and lunch, I video conferenced with my dad about some engineering ideas in the back room. He can build just about anything, but he was stumped when it came to my questions because the construction methods are so different over here. For example, how do you properly anchor something into a thin interior wall (cloison) that is less than 4" or 10 cm thick, given that there are no interior structural elements, just plaster and earth and whatever else was added into the mortar, with a few random pieces of wood here and there?
In the US, our walls are built with wood framing (ossature bois), covered either by plaster and lath (in old houses) or drywall (in houses dating from the mid-20th century and newer). There are almost always structural 2x4s, spaced in predicable widths, to which you can attach things securely. Some houses might have solid exterior walls (an older brick house, for example). But we have nothing comparable to these interior walls that are mostly just...earthy-y mortar covered by a thin layer of plaster. I'm not even sure what they are made out of.
Eric, Zari, and Dio went to an activity in the afternoon, taking their bikes. It was a good ride: 3 km each way but very hilly. Inga and Ivy did coloring pages. I couldn't convince them to go outside and I was feeling too tired to herd them out the door.
Finally, with less than a half hour left before curfew, Inga wanted to go out. We hauled 14 bags of trash to the garbage depot and then went for a fun walk in the rain. She was hoping to find some money but we didn't luck out this evening.
We finished the first season of Blown Away. We would watch one episode, and the kids would say, "Just one more...please?" We ended up watching four!
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