radiate THIS

radiant heat? yes. that's what's happening here. molten lava, gin gimlets and warm urine will alternately will flow through the red, seemingly inflexible tubing joren is so lovingly laying. thousands of screws hold the boards in place. now we're using a roofing nail gun, because it's much louder and requires hundreds of thousands of nails. you do the math. or don't. in any event it makes sense. and more noise.

some of the boards are black. some are board color. forget that. they're just black and board color. mind your own business. it has nothing to do with the heating tubes. 

phase one of tube city happened this winter. hence, the fire. also, pre-insulation. joren's currently finishing up the laying of the tube right this second, not 10 noisy feet above my fragile cranium. what's not sound proofed? the basement apartment or my skull that's as thin as an eggshell. 

Let's all just pause for a moment

Is that too much to ask? No, it is not. It's not like I'm not asking anyone to bring me a burrito, or a lemonade which both sound tremendous right now, but no one seems to be doing that, so give me the moment. Ok. I'm going to backtrack because there are some not so interesting chapters I've apparently skipped in this missive. 

Like... insulation! So quiet. Me. I'm still noisy, but the walls are very quiet.

we're taking it to the next level here, people

my contractor assures me we want a level 5 finish on these walls, and dammit, if the baby's not going to pitch in, someone's got to get moving.

i call this phase: level 3.5, although they all pretty much look the same to me.

we're MOMENTS away from level 5. can you feel it? at the very least, can you smell it? or maybe it's just the pregnancy stench. hard to tell.

master bedroom. windows to the right, at the top, peek out onto the rooftop deck where i will in no time at all be sipping gin and eating li'l smokies. window at the end of the hall looks over the shed (remember how dubious i was about the shed, and damn if that didn't turn out nicely) and our neighbor nick. 

joren after dark

he gets crazy after 8 pm: late night mudding.

the baby's room. joren's next project: a scaffold-style crib.

it might not look fancy

probably because it isn't. but it's the coziest basement i will ever inhabit. with any luck, the only basement i will ever inhabit. this is the living room. it's where we do most of our living (aka watching battlestar galactica) when we're not hanging drywall. also, see the blue surgical drop cloth? you wouldn't know it to see it, but it blocks about .01% of the bathroom stink wafting from the other side of the wall.

we're kind of like mole people. you can mostly tell by my mole eyes. also, we're underground. below: kitchen/bathroom/laundry. i haven't experienced a toilet so close to a cooking facility since rural myanmar. also, hello, coconut! can you see coconut? open your eye holes. coconut!

boudoir. and the headboard? plywood storage!

a snow day in portland, oregon

the dusting that brings our lovely city to a screeching halt.

drywall fun

step right up and grab a knife. whoa. careful now. knives are SHARP! and pointy! not just for fun and throwing and juggling.

and i know it's a little blurry, but aren't these tulips gorgeous? also, the stitches. i'm happy to say joren did not execute this batch himself. although i hate to admit his self-ministered ones looked a little better. a little. the black thumbnail is unrelated.