Another AWOL post. I’ve got another week or so of these to post, so I’m going to have to finish catching up tomorrow. This one originally appeared on 20 June 2004.
I’m delighted to report that my time crawling through crawl spaces is about at an end. I’ve finished clearing out the old insulation, and can now turn my attention to ridding the house of picturesque but destructive ivy. (Stucco doesn’t like ivy.) Dust masks are still the order of the day, but working standing up and outdoors has a lot to recommend it. Also, the kids can help, at least for the parts of this task that do not require ladders.
I’m afraid I still haven’t had much time to knit. I’ve been busy measuring, then doing dimensioned layouts of the house in Visio. We’re using them to help plan where our stuff goes, and for the electrician, so he knows where to place services. Here’s the result for the two front rooms and three-season porch.
Going back from this point, beneath the dining room is the kitchen, beneath the living room is the den, followed by a back bedroom we will be using as an office. A long hallway with stairs up extends from the center opening.
Before you ask, there’s no particular price break on not running phone, cable and network to all rooms at the same time as we trench the plaster walls to upgrade the regular electrical wiring. Even though we have only one TV and are not planning on having more than one, we’ll have the flexibility to move it around should we so desire. Another consideration – should we have to sell, having the house fully wired is a value point. As far as the furniture, painting, and decorating go right now we’re concentrating on getting the major infrastructure things done. Cosmetics and aesthetics will have to wait their turn, and our jumbled mix of yard sale finds, first apartment stuff, and one or two decent pieces will have to do for the foreseeable future.
Actual Knitting
With all this crawling around and drafting, I’ve had very little time or energy for think-work or involved knitting. I’ve fallen back into the project I had set aside for vacation relaxation. I’m doing a quick raglan pullover in Regia 6-Ply (6-Fadig) Crazy Color for The Smallest One. Nothing fancy – just a top-down stockinette piece with a two-stitch cable detail on the raglan seams. I’m about six inches into the thing so far. I’d take a picture, but all you’d see is a jumble of red, blue, yellow and green stripes jammed onto a circular needle. My only regret is that if I’m using up this project to unwind after a day of house nonsense, I’ll have to find something else mindless to knit while I stare off at the sea.
String-Or-Nothing 
I’m moving into my boyfriend’s house this July, and let me tell you, I wish the previous owners had installed cable and ethernet and phone in all the rooms. It’s a 1960s house – the previous owners did upgrade the electrical, but didn’t run Cable or phone anywhere new. That means that my office, which is in the back of the house, is cut off from all those services. Arrgh. When we bought the router a year ago, we didn’t think to go wireless, so we’ll need to run ethernet the entire length of the house, from the basement where the cable modem and router is, up to the very back bedroom.
So, the moral of my story is that I’d say to install ethernet as well, except that maybe wireless will become nice and easily securable and it won’t matter.
Gail
Yup. We’re putting it in almost everywhere. After adding Cat5 cabling to the house we’re leaving, I really didn’t want to do it myself again. Plus, while wireless can be convenient and is much faster than it used to be, I don’t want to deal with its security hassles. -K.