Well, bugger.

This past weekend I went home to the farm for a few days - I had some errands to run, and it was my sister's birthday. Who am I to miss out on cake?
I'm also suffering from project paralysis. Not knowing where to start, and not wanting to spend the money doing it until work settles down.
While I was home talking to my mom, she asked about the state of the floors. Seemed like a good thing to mull over.
At this point, the first floor is comprised of tile (bathroom), linoleum (kitchen), carpet over sub-floor (porch and mudroom), wall-to-wall carpet over narrow board hardwood (living room), and area rugs over narrow board hardwood (dining room, office and hallway.)
The narrow board hardwood dates to the Victorian Renovation period. It's also found upstairs in 3 out of the 4 bedrooms and in the hallway. The only room with the original pine floor exposed is the front bedroom, where it's been refinished sometime in the near past. The pine board is evident in the eve closets off the front of the house, where they've been painted green. The other front "bedroom" (really about the size of a generous walk-in closet) has narrow board over the pine, I believe. There's a slight height difference between the hall and the room that makes me think this.
At this point, I've seen 95% of the floors that can be easily uncovered (I'm not ripping up the living room yet, so that can remain a mystery.) All the floors I've seen (95%!) are in good, used condition, and I told my mom as such. Eventually I'd like to get them refinished, but that's a ways down the line.

I had yesterday off. I had all sorts of plans, but couldn't get a good start anywhere. Finally I settled on washing the dining room, since it's the last room on the first floor that hasn't seen a bucket of TSP substitute. While I was at it, I decided to pull the heat register out of the floor and give it a good scrub.

Rather than wall to wall in the dining room, they made
a patchwork of area rugs, and cut out a hole for the heat.

I've done this to many of the other registers, sticking my vacuum down into the sharp holes while deflecting the very curious cat at the same time. It's a... production.
First things first! Pull up the rug!

What is this nefariousness?

More tape. I'm not at all surprised. Ms Mary taped down anything that moved. I appreciate her dedication to modern adhesives.
But there was white... goo, too. Caulk?
Nope! Some flavor of plaster with a decorative wax coating!

WHO DOES THIS?

At some point in the far past, there was moisture infiltration, which led to insect damage. (There is no active insect damage. I have the receipt that this property was very thoroughly treated for all manner of pests before I bought it, and what the treatment was.) I'm not sure how you don't notice insects causing this, but maybe there was a buffet over this area or something.
One thing's for sure, I can't go refinishing a floor with gobs of plaster sticking out of it. So, let's remove that plaster and see what we've got.

Whelp.

It looks like I can replace the first three planks from the wall and fix it all. This is also the area that needs some sill work, so in hindsight I can't be too surprised.

So Mom - I didn't have any areas that needed fixing until yesterday.
But I got the dining room all washed except the ceiling!

The little things

I wasn't going to post about this, because it didn't seem like a big deal at the time.
I mentioned to Energy Audit Nick that this house just felt cold all the damned time. Part of that was me being paranoid about oil consumption and keeping the house at 60-62, but part of it wasn't. Even in the evenings when I'd tweak it up to a luxurious 65, it just always felt cold. I knew, sitting in the living room, with my hooded sweatshirt up, the cat on my lap, both of us under a blanket, it just wasn't that warm in here, though the thermostat was quite content that it was. Who was I to argue with the thermostat?
I submit to you evidence A: (It's not an 8x10 color glossy, but it'll do.)

The white spot on the wall is where the old thermostat lived.

See the hot air register on the floor in the lower left? The one blowing warm air conveniently at the thermostat? EA Nick suggested that if I move the thermostat away from a hot air vent, perhaps things would get better. He would even give me a free programmable thermostat to replace the old manual up/down one.
Last night I decided to dive in and just do it. Electricity is one of my not-very-learned things, but this isn't that dangerous, as it's two AAA batteries talking to the furnace, not real house currant. I was just moving it to the other side of the wall/closet. (You'll recognize the closet as the one I wedged myself in to paint.)

Seemed appropriate to keep all the furnace switches clustered.
Also, that vent in the wall (lower right) is a cold air return.

 Found my 1" drill bit, popped a hole in the wall, mounted the backplate, linked a new bit of furnace wire to the old furnace wire with a significant amount of twisting and electrical tape, and viola. The furnace now talks to it's new upstairs brain.
I intend to run a new furnace wire all the way to the furnace in the future, now that I have a 49' roll of wire.  (You can't buy it any shorter than 50' from the Big Box stores.) The old wire was much lighter than this new wire.

While it's sill not warm in here, the heat is now significantly more even. That's a huge improvement. And now with the programmable thermostat, I don't have to worry about forgetting to set the heat back down when I go to bed.

Pole Switches and a Space Age Basement

The neat thing about this house is that I can do projects when the time presents it's self or the whim strikes. Last night I wandered around putting foam insulation gaskets behind light switches. I took the plate off the pole switch upstairs, took a picture, and will add it to the list of things Electrician Wayne can address the next time I feel like bankrolling his electrical Honey-Do list.*

I think this should probably be updated.

The nice thing is that you can get modern reproduction pole switches that look the same, but are probably a heck of a lot safer.
"Why have Wayne do it?" you ask. "It's just a switch, and that's easy enough to swap out." It's true. And if this was a regular old light switch, I might be tempted to watch half a dozen YouTube videos, read a book about it, throw the breaker and give it a go. I still might do that for a switch in the kitchen. But in this case, I have no idea what the condition of the wires are behind it. If things start crumbling to dust, or something is super wrong once I get in there... well, I'd have to call Wayne anyway, and he's a busy guy.
I've put the plate back over it and walked away for now.

I insulated the basement door too. I'd picked up a roll of this fun silver bubble wrap and just stapled it to the back of the door that goes up to the bulkhead. I may still pick up a piece of board insulation and screw it on over the back, but for now? Shiny.

The staple gun was a good investment 10 years ago.

I'm not holding my breath for epic energy savings from this blanket and the little foam gaskets, but every little bit helps. The oil tank is at around 5/8ths, but I'm still doing anything I can to slow it's roll. I signed up for automatic fill from the folks that have been servicing the system for the previous owner.
Speaking of furnace systems and chimneys, I've discovered the ash out door is only held on with tape, and there's some concerning cracks that ought to be dealt with. Onward, to masonry! (Eventually)

Hrmm. No bueno.

The more I putter in circles, the more things I notice. Which is fine, it all just gets added to the list.





*Addition - Fun thing I figured out while insulating outlets is that "Bedroom 1" (the funny little room that's hiding behind the stair landing) has no electrical outlets. It won't even function as an office right now. That has to be changed, or it really is just a glorified closet.