A long weekend

It's been a couple of days. A lot of typical housework - cleaning the bathroom and vacuuming, etc.
There's been some seasonal work - shoveling the rest of the driveway, filling the bird feeders. Then some monthly upkeep - change the filter on the cat fountain, filter on the fish tank, putting a pack of enzymes down the drain for the septic, checked the furnace filters (it's fine), checked the water filter (it's fine).
I confirmed that the floors are only finished around the edges. (Not uncommon - The same was true of my Grandparent's house.) I found where Ms Mary had been using newspapers to pad under the carpet. Interesting, but nothing older than 2004.

She cut out the carpet pad so the basement door would clear the carpet,
but didn't want the carpet to damage the unfinished floor.

Saturday I decided to make two fakey storms for the kitchen. I sort of got sidetracked by scraping the flaking paint off the mantle, and then (since the flakes fell down the heat register) I disassembled the heat register, vacuumed the heck out of it and scrubbed the metal register housing. Then I remembered I had to deal with a crock of saurkraut that's been needing tending since November.

I eventually got to the storms.

Still not perfect, but functional

This time I found some 1x2" firring strips at Home Depot. They were more robust than the molding I'd been using, and cheaper. The width allowed me to use two screws in each corner, so that negated a lot of the rolling. Only issue is, where the molding was decently square, these firring strips are glorified wooden noodles. Doing this with hand tools, on the dining room floor, with stock that is fighting back, is proving to be a challenge.

I love that little Disston dovetail saw.

The nice thing is, by the 4th window (the second in the kitchen) I sort of worked out a system. It looks like this:

It might be hard to tell, but this shows the top and bottom, then the three uprights, then the two cross pieces next to each other. Setting it out this way made visual sense to me.

Another view - three uprights, the top and bottom, the two cross pieces.

I hammered out two more Sunday morning, so now the kitchen, dining room, and office that I'm using as my bedroom are done. Next up - the 5 windows in the living room. Then there's one window in the bathroom and the first floor will be done. The bedroom is already less drafty.
I've figured out that these cost roughly $12 to make - 3 firring strips at $2 per, 2 rolls of foam weatherstripping at $2 per, and the window plastic which comes in a kit of three for $6, so $2 ea. Then 12 screws and a nail (with the head cut off).
They aren't super pretty, but they seem to help. The bed room is already less drafty.

For some reason, when I embed links, they aren't showing up as live unless you hover, so here's the link to the place that I'm cobbing my design from.
http://www.islandinstitute.org/sites/default/files/Interior%20Storm%20Window%20Directions_0%202.pdf

Island Institute uses two layers of plastic. I'm just using one for now so I can use the supports as handles to get them in and out.

Getting better.

I picked up roller shades for the dining room and kitchen. Tomorrow I'll see about putting them up.