Busy but Fantastic Weekend

You know that it was a good weekend when you don't actually have time to blog about it until several days later.

I'll admit that I'm an odd duck for thinking that a fun weekend involves doing work on friends' houses. But there you go. The project this time was Bird & Jen's crawl space, which is under their sun porch and master bathroom.


Right now, that space is pretty much outside year round--a dirt floor, and windows to the outside. This means that it gets really cold in the winter--cold enough that they need to leave the windows from the crawl space to the basement open during the winter, to keep the pipes from freezing. Basically, throwing heat away into an uninsulated space.


Current practice recommends building crawl spaces like "short basements"--with insulation on the walls, and a plastic film vapor barrier on the floor. So that was the project Bird & I did--from the inside. Yeah, it's the whole building-a-ship-in-the-bottle problem.

One reason I really wanted to do this project is that this has been our company's standard recommendation for years, but I had never done this job myself. I really prefer to be able to tell clients, "No, this works, and this is how you do it. Or specifically, how I did it. It's not that hard to do. Or do you just suck?"


We accomplished a Home Depot run in the morning for materials; after cleaning up the crawl space of debris, we put down a layer of Tu-Tuf Vapor Barrier on the floor, and attached it to the wall with RCD Duct Mastic and a powder actuated tool (basically, a nailgun that uses gunpowder charges--.22 blanks). I'm always worried when using these that somebody's going to call the cops on us. We used the same tool to attach the foam board insulation to the walls of the crawl space.


A whole lot of crawling around on hands and knees. Incidentally, I read that an ideal way to apply mastic is a plastic glove followed by a cheap cotton glove, and just slathering it on the wall. It works really well, and feels rather primal and theraputic. Hell--who needs a spa day when you have duct mastic?!


As tempting as it was, though, I didn't taste the mastic. But I'd bet it probably tastes like latex paint (thick, and really bitter, in case you were wondering).


This was followed by Jen making a fabulous fancy dinner for her, Bird, me, and JMD. Mashed sweet potatoes, asparagus, and an 8-rib pork roast. And a fantastic pear tart for dessert. A celebration of the new silverware and china. The meal was seriously yummy.


Bird and I had a bourbon tasting afterwards (Michter's--as used at Pegu Club, Vintage 17 Year Old, and Jim Beam Black). Bird and I both liked the Michter's the best--great vanilla notes, and wonderful smoothness. The Jim Beam was included because it received a New York Times "best value" ranking. To be honest, I thought that it had the faintest of mold/mustiness notes. Then again, maybe that was left over from crap packed into my sinuses from the crawl space work.

The following day, I went out on a bike ride from Arlington out to U5 & Rebecca's in Hopkinton. Perfect weather for the first really long ride of the season.


The ride itself kicked my ass--my legs were totally wrecked by the end. A matinee of Iron Man (very fun) and dinner followed. JMD gave me (and my bike) a ride back home. All good.