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Wednesday, April 27, 2022

French apartment renovations, Day 491: Building walls and using math

7,277 steps

You know how you studied things back in high school or college and wondered, "When am I EVER going to use this in real life?!?"

Well, I am pleased to announce that the Pythagorean Theorem came in very handy when I needed to make two walls meet at exactly 90° in an imperfectly crooked 15th century apartment.

How I did it: I marked the starting spot of the 90° angle and measured 250 cm down one wall (the long, straight one!) and marked a line. Then I measured 250 cm down the other wall and marked another line. Then I did a² + b² = c² and determined that c should be 353.5 cm. So then I measured until the hypotenuse (the distance bewteen the 2 lines that I had marked) was exactly 353.5 cm and I knew we had a right angle!

Today was dedicated to framing that new wall. But of course it wasn't so simple because I ran out of lumber. So I had to take some old salvaged beams from our demolition 16 months ago and rip them into boards roughly 2x4" and then plane them (because the wood was warped in spots). Voila! Lumber! It just took a while.



Oh, here are pictures of the new secrétaire for Le Catamaran. I love how it has the exact same pattern of inlaid wood. The middle door folds down to make a desk and will be the perfect spot to stow away a TV.





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