Yesterday I revealed my affliction. I am in quarantine until Sunday by request of the county. I definitely have stuff that I want to get done and not over do it at the same time. So, I will keep going on my office project.
I have three walls up and I don’t have enough lumber to finish the fourth wall. As much as I want to finish the framing, I can’t leave to get what I need. Fortunately, I can shift gears and work on other aspects. To wait it out, I am going do the following things.
Box in the HVAC duct with rigid insulation
Start the rough wiring, High and Low voltage
Cobble leftover rigid insulation into the bays that are less than 14 1/2″ in width, but after the wiring
Start working on the door. Remove door from the jamb and all hardware. Clean-up loose and flaking stain. Sand and prime door. Cut to height.
I am going to keep it short today for a number of reasons. But there are some pictures of my progress so far.
End Your Programming Routine: Always have contingency plans in your back pocket because you never know when your circumstances will change. As I have been trying to cashflow this project, I had already had thoughts about overrunning my current material stock until the next payday. My real surprise is that I have moved much quicker through the framing than I estimated. I am going about twice as fast as I projected.
I am not going to go on about the cost of materials. I will say that plywood has gone up 20% in the last month; other building materials as well. I found a good deal at the local ‘discount’ building materials location. This is 3/4″ MDO overlay plywood. It couldn’t be more perfect for my application since I am not planning on putting a finished floor, I am running out of headroom.
I have a few things I can do before buying materials again but my next major move is to buy framing lumber. I can start prepping my door for painting and cutting to size. I am also planning on removing the insulation around the duct work in favor of a more attractive solution like rigid foam. I can also start working on the rough wiring as well.
Today is going to be quick with some pictures of progress. I am moving slowly because I am trying to buy materials as I need them. I am also spending one to two hours a day working on the project, as soon as work ends usually.
One thing that people who don’t run a website might not know is that it actually requires active effort. Everyday when I login to the dashboard to begin writing, there is a Health summary on issues that are outstanding. Some are warnings and some are actual issues.
Today, I wasn’t able to login to the dashboard to write. I had some issues with the SSL certificate. It seems like every two months, there is some kind of problem with SSL. I suspect that if I ponied up some money, that I wouldn’t have this problem and probably wouldn’t have to make changes.
I bumbled my way through fixing the problem. I also found some suggested improvements, which I also made. One nice thing is that even though I know very little about Linux, I can usually search and find some answers on the internet. Even platform and provider issues there is usually some help.
Since I dont have time to generate a more material today, you will have to settle for a picture of my progress on the office project. It is slow, but moving one small piece at a time.
The next step is to remove the drywall to the right of the desk. I am going to frame around the block so that I can insulate properly because believe me, it is cold down here. More on that later.
If anything is constant, it is change. My routine is going to get more consistent in the next week. That is because my schedule is going to be predictable; Monday-Friday. It is going to be a little unique in that I will be working Central Time. But that is OK because I will be working 6AM-3PM, I have always preferred to start and finish early.
It also means that I will be shifting my writing time from the morning to the evening because I doubt that I am going to want to do too much that early in the morning. But, in the mean time, I am going to launch into another project. This project will be to build an office.
When I was last employed, I always worked at the dining table. I worked infrequently from home, it was the couple of snow days a year, the days when the car was in the shop or there was some kind of appointment mid-day and it didn’t make sense to do a lot of driving back and forth. My new job is 100% remote (for the foreseeable future) and everyone is home, it makes sense to have a dedicated space.
The location is less than ideal. It will be in my sometimes wet basement and is superseding the space that holds my fishing rods, firearms, shooting supplies, tackle boxes, frame packs etc. Which means that stuff needs to find a new home. On the bright side, I hope that I can make a podcasting setup, integrate some more secure storage and will be comfortable with heat and adequate lighting.
This is also a priority for me. It means that I am going to put dedicated effort and time into finishing it as soon as possible. Reading between the lines, it means that I am going to prioritize that work over writing for the duration of the project. My guess is that it is going to take at least a month to finish on nights and weekends.
Since this is ‘Tacticool’ Thursday, lets take a minute and fanaticize that I am building a “safe room” rather than an office. What attributes should I build into to make it happen? First what are the threats? In my area, the biggest threats are earthquake, flooding, fire.
Each threat might have different design considerations. Take fire, the best structure for fire would be one that doesn’t burn. Or for an earthquake, a wooden structure that can move but the framing elements are strapped so the parts don’t slide apart. Flooding would want to be sealed or at least have water management capability. So, from that standpoint, no one single structure is going to meet all of those requirements adequately.
But also in the room is going to be some supplies to wait out the emergency such as food, water, sanitation and entertainment. Depending on the duration of the event would be what to prepare for. My scenarios would range from a few minutes to several days.
I have always thought that if you were in the situation, you may need tools to get out of the safe room. Imagine that the house around you collapsed, you would want to escape from the place or at least be found, so some demolition tools and shut-off capability.
The Hollywood set would have you believe that this is the place to ride out the Zombie Apocolyse. This room would be hidden and fortified against outside threats. There are such things as ‘bullet proof’ panels (of fiberglass) or steel plates but they are heavy and expensive. You could add steel door frames with hidden doors. I think that in reality, those things are adding extra time until they are breached rather than so much as ‘proof’ anything.
Sometimes I see Youtube videos of fallout shelters and I watch because I am interested in seeing how problems are addressed. You can generate some power as long as you have fuel or you can have a bank of solar panels strung up somewhere. Many of them have some sort of charcoal air filter. My view is that you can probably survive some acute event, but sooner or later, the filters are going to fail. Charcoal is great at absorbing until it is full. Some sort of power source would be needed to refresh it. It would be impractical to live more than a couple weeks in that kind of setup.
So, I guess what I am saying is that everything is an act of compromises. The perfect structure for one scenario is largely imperfect for another. Building a structure for one type of scenario is potentially possible and could be successful. This office won’t be a saferoom, but if I lived in a tornado prone area, I do believe that having a place to go for that sort of thing would be on my list of wants.
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