French apartment renovations, Day 211: Mortgages and more power tools

10,149 steps This morning we tackled the ceiling again. Zari helped me rip shims on the table saw. She does not like the table saw--it scares her! I agreed, "Yes, you need to have a healthy respect for tools like that."

We still had several joists that were sticking out beyond their neighbors. I had tried chiseling one of them down and it took hours and hours of work with a horribly uneven result. I tried cross-cutting shallow hatch lines with various tools. Nothing really helped. After that one joist, I decided that chiseling was just a bad idea.

I suggested borrowing a planer from a friend, but Eric didn't want to wait. So he went to a few home improvement stores and came home with the right tool. I have to admit, it's great having the right tool and being able to get it done straight away.

Both Zari and Dio helped me plaster more of the electrical cables. Both the upper and lower hallways are now done. We have decided to smooth the walls with "enduit de lissage" before installing the boxes in case the smoothing compound adds a bit of thickness.



We had an appointment with our bank to look at refinancing the mortgage on our apartment. Interest rates are great right now (1.23% for a 15-year refinance) so we are going to go for it. We won't save as much as we'd hoped originally due to more expensive (but better) life insurance tied to the mortgage, but we'll still save a good amount over the life of the loan. And we'll be able to consolidate everything into one bank account. Right now we have 2 French bank accounts and they cost about $15/month each just to use.

In the morning, Zari sent Inga and Dio outside. They chose to go to the splash pad (miroir d'eau). I finally got Zari to exercise in the afternoon. And then I couldn't convince any of the kids to go swimming with me in the late afternoon! Their loss. I had a nice 20-minute swim and came back considerably cooler.

Eric went spearfishing in the evening. He didn't catch anything, though.

Ivy came back in the late afternoon from her sleepover. She was very happy and also very cranky. Apparently they got to sleep well after midnight and then woke up at 6 am ready to play again. She fell asleep on the couch while we were watching an episode of "Les Jeromes." I woke her up to get her out of her swimming suit. "I wasn't sleeping! I was just thinking!" She got really grouchy at just about everyone and was convinced everyone was being mean to her.