Construction With Cookies – Day Six

Ahhhhhh………it was so nice to have two days without deafening, banging, jolting power tools.  It felt like a vacation.  

I wasn’t sure how early my bees would show up on a Monday morning but they were here shortly after 8 a.m. and within minutes were dragging in rolls of insulation.  The noise as they stapled insulation was barely noticeable after Friday’s cacophony.  I didn’t have any problem hearing their country music playing in the basement and I suspect they could hear strains of Mumford and Sons coming from upstairs as I was baking Chocolate Peppermint Snaps – Day Six’s Construction Cookie.  The recipe said they’re supposed to taste similar to the Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookie and I love Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookies so even though I’d never made this cookie before I took a risk. They didn’t look like the Thin Mints, and they didn’t taste exactly like them (of course I ate one … okay two … and a half) but they were minty and chocolaty and pretty tasty.

By the end of the morning my worker bees had stapled up all the insulation.  Now it really looks like we have walls!  Unfortunately it also feels even smaller down there.  But when I step off the bottom stair into the room I kind of feel like I’m being enveloped in a fluffy cocoon.  And it’s so quiet.  It’s kind of cozy and comforting. 

A truckload of drywall was delivered around noon and all 51 boards (yep, I counted them) had to be carried down to the basement.  When Dean and I were demolishing the basement I helped him carry some drywall boards upstairs and out to the garage so I know from personal experience they are dang heavy.  Hopefully the cookies gave my bees some added energy, but after watching them haul all those boards from the truck, up three porch stairs and down 12 basement stairs (yep, counted those too) and then back up those 12 basement stairs and down three porch stairs to the truck to grab another one, I thought I probably should have just given them a big bowl of Wheaties instead. 

Speaking of demolishing the basement – you know how they say when you heat with wood you are warmed twice – once when cutting and splitting and once by burning?  Our basement warmed us twice too.  Well, it warmed Dean twice since, even though I implied I was an active participant in the basement dismantlement, he was the one who pulled off all the rough cut wood on the walls, and pulled out all the nails, and then cut it shorter, and hauled it in so we could warm the house with it.  This basement was my project and I fully intended to pull off all that wood myself and take down the drywall and do all that basement demolition stuff, but he really seemed to want to do it and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by taking that away from him.  I did do a lot of vacuuming and cleaning down there though so that must count for something.

 Anyway, at the end of the day yesterday we still had a support post and the mechanical guy who was supposed to come and put in two more heat registers was a no show.  But I’m sure he’ll be here today and my worker bees told me the support bracket is supposed to come in this week.  In the meantime, let the drywall hanging begin!

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Construction With Cookies – Day Six