I’m adding a small platform to the bottom of our deck stairs in hopes of keeping the stairs, etc. less dusty/muddy/gravelly. I’m using mostly leftovers and scraps from building the deck and got the “box” about 65% made today! I also planned the placement of and found all the scraps & fasteners! Hopefully I can get it wrapped up over the 3-day weekend.
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Finished building the “box” today, applied butyl tape to the top of all the lumber, and stained the sides to match the other wood on the stairs & deck. BUT I don’t want to add the decking until I set it in place and it rained most of today and supposed to rain all of tomorrow, so I probably won’t get the decking down until at least mid-week when the sun is forecast to come out!
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Just nearly did a movie-worthy spit take when I saw today’s listed price per gallon for home heating oil. (According to the state website it’s up 70% from last year’s avg. cost per gallon) Looks like some warm-it-up diy will be in our future! Draft dodgers, door curtains, fluffy slippers, blankets and hot water bottle covers are sounding like a good focus for my stash and time.
Winter is coming…
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Ooof, 70%. That’s… astonishing.
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That’s what I thought, too. My house is wooden and over 125 years old. It also was seemingly poorly flipped at some time before we bought ‘er so the drafts are equally as impressive as the oil prices lol
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We hung heavy curtains over our front door and in the hallways. It was amazing how much old houses are drafty. It made a huge difference. I got them a bit long so they would touch the floor since cold air hangs out lower.
Also, not sure if you have those venting things in your walls, but in the winter, the top ones need to be closed and the bottom ones need to be open. That’s so that the cold air can return to the heater thingies. Plastic over the windows that you shrink wrap with a hair dryer also help with poorly insulated windows. We haven’t had the windows replaced yet because it is so expensive, but we’ll try to do a few each year. It is going to be a very cold winter, I feel!
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I’m definitely going to get a front door curtain up this year, I have always wanted one of those. And there is a small decorative window that I am going to put bubble wrap over and then also do the window cling shrink wrap thing. The cats will probably take it down on all the other windows so I’m not sure if i’ll do the others, but these cats haven’t figured out they can come up to the decorative one yet, unlike our last cat friends.
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