More gypsum boards in the barn Sunday, 28-Dec-25 21:36:09 CET

Sunday, 04-Jan-26 21:34:18 CET

Installed the Murphy bed

This was the first week of 2026. I had a second whole week of holidays. We installed the Murphy bed. I finished the metal corners to protect the outer corners of the gypsum boards. I began plastering the barn ceiling.

Monday 29 December

Here starts the blog of the first week of 2026. This is because this week has a Thursday in the new year. This might not be very clear to some, but this is the ISO 8601 standard, and I am Swedish, so I like ISO standards. Also, this week I have a holiday. It is not an entirely free week. I volunteered to help out with technical questions at work.

I had not uploaded the blog yesterday, so that was the first task for today. The reason for the slip was that I worked on assembling the Murphy bed yesterday evening. There is no deadline to meet on that bed, except that I want to have it finished.

After the blog was written and uploaded, I began the day's primary task: installing metal corner bars around the barn's windows and doors to protect the corners. All outward corners need to be protected. The corner around the restroom will also need these bars. The bars are 300 centimeters long (about 118 inches). Even though that is not a pinultimate fact, you can also buy other lengths. The shop I had in mind typically has the 300-centimeter bars in stock, and I can easily fit them into the car. How is that possible? Well, I slide them between the two front seats into the passenger-side footwell, and the total length is just a little over 3 meters (9 feet 11 inches). It is a convenient length.

So how many should I buy? For the house, I always bought too few, and when I needed more, I went and bought them. We talked over the approach, and all the numbers and combinatorics overwhelmed me, so I said I would go with the main approach, buy some, and go ahead. DW was not amused. She suggested figuring out the cut scheme and the optimal combinations. We went for this approach, but it was not easy.

I created a list of the length needed, and she went ahead. Then I had a brilliant idea: let AI figure out the combinations. It did a great job at presenting a result that looked good, but it had some flaws. Then DW made a solution that had flaws, too. I did not know that. I was happy, so I went to the shop to buy the bars. While DW and I worked on the list, Merida kept an eye on Hunter, the neighbor's cat.

When I drove to the hardware store of my choice, it was 6.5°C and overcast, but I caught a glimpse of a couple of patches of blue sky. I am on my way to the professional hardware store. When I arrived at the store, it was closed! I was disappointed.

I went to another hardware store, and it worked. At the other hardware store, they only accept companies, so I go there and act as if I am buying on behalf of a friend with a company. It works. I got the things I wanted.

The other day, I pondered whether there was any point in writing this blog. A YouTube consultant had made a movie advising companies on how to upload content. She said it is pointless to produce content without the product's sale in mind. Apart from the lyrics editor, there is no product here. There is no product monetization anywhere here, and if I listen to her, this blog is pointless. But then I read the blog I’ve been writing, I am happy with the result. I will continue!

When I came home from the hardware store, I started mounting the corner bars. I have come a long way. The east and south walls were finished. The west wall is almost done, and there is more to do on the north side.

In the evening, I continued on the Murphy bed. There are some odd things with the bed, but overall, I am still satisfied with the result! The thermostat is a little close to the bed, but we can live with that. We even mounted the white aluminium back plate. It looked nice.

Tuesday 30 December

DW and I talked about our situations at work. She is going into the new year with excitement. At her work, she is valued for her knowledge, cooperation, and team spirit. The new team will get together in the new organization in March 2026, and it will be great. At my workplace, we are also excited about what lies ahead in the new year. Things are going well!

Russia captured one percent of Ukraine during 2025, 18 in total, and in June, they had lost one million soldiers since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. It is an open question how long the Russian economy can hold up.

I do not believe that the USA will invade Greenland next year. On the one hand, Trump does not know in the morning what he will do the same afternoon, so predicting his actions for a whole year is impossible. One thing with Trump, though, is that things he repeats constantly, even if they sound stupid or unlawful, those are the things he carries out. So he is going to invade Greenland; it is just a fact. It is the end of NATO as we know it. Trump will hand over the control of NATO to Europe to put himself in the position of starting the war over Greenland. Suddenly, Europe is at war with both Russia and the USA. It is going to be mental.

In the morning, I finished the Murphy bed from Opklapbedkopen.nl and made a video showing what it looks like when opened.

After making the video, I put on the handle. It felt great to have this project finished. It all started with selling the old sofa and going to the factory where these beds are made. I moved the electricity outlet. Then we had to wait for production, transport, and finally assembly!

Then I went out to the barn to finish the corner work. Then I went to the hardware store for the next phase.

I fetched 3 more corner bars. Yesterday, one corner bar was missed, but since I had one left from the main house, all went fine. The thing is, I had forgotten about the hole to the attic, which also needs bars, and now, while driving, I realized we need aluminum corners, too. I also need plaster mesh. The professional hardware store's website claims it's open, but it's really closed. No worries, I go to a hardware store for everyday people. It is open, that’s a good beginning.

My plan succeeded, and I got the stuff I needed! The alu corners were special; they had brass-style corners. Then I went to the screws section, and there they had black, green, and white screw heads. I had preferred white aluminum corners, but there was another option. My second-best choice was brass-style corners, but they didn’t have any matching screws, and that would have looked horrible. I decided on black only corners with black screws.

The cluster mesh proved elusive. The regular place for plaster things had mesh bands, but we already have plenty of those, so I don’t need to buy more. I wanted the extra-wide mesh, and that was stalled in a totally different place, obviously.

The corner bars for gypsum boards were shorter than 300 centimeters, but that didn’t matter this time.

I was checking out the screws of Torqx. There are screws up to 35 mm in regular sizes, and then a gap up to 50 mm. I am missing the 40 mm and 45 mm Torqx screw variation. I almost feel like a coin collector who wants the Queen Juliana 2.5 guilder silver coin from 1963 to complete the collection. I went for a Pozidriv screw of 40 mm instead.

Back in the barn, I started mounting the plates covering the metal beams. In this photo, I mounted 5 plates.

Wednesday 31 December

It was a sunny morning. In the afternoon, a blanket of clouds arrived over us.

In the morning, I applied two more gypsum boards, bringing the total to 7 plates mounted on the first beam.

After that, I put up metal fencing around our sheep to give them a more contained area. This is so they cannot run around during fireworks.

Then we went to the second farm shop—the farm shop where DS is doing voluntary work. Here, we had ordered the typical Dutch New Year's Eve pastries, "Oliebollen" and "Appelflappen". We also bought vegetables and fruits.

I talked to the shop owner, Diana, and offered my DJ services; she liked the idea. DS had never told her that I am a DJ, but this is typical for DS; he never says anything extra. We will see if this can generate a gig.

At the second farm shop, they keep lots of animals. Actually, their name in Dutch is citizen farm. They are lovely people. We had a look at their pigs. They were eating chunks. The next meal was beetroot. The pig caretaker told about the pigs, how she feeds them, etc. The pigs are set to work in places where invasive plant species are present. They love hogweed and Japanese knotweed.

With the grocery shopping done, I went to the barn to continue the gypsum project. I finished nine boards of the northern steel beam and stopped the work when I had mounted four boards over the southern steel beam. I will be able to finish the southern beam tomorrow.

Then I will apply gypsum along the attic opening's edges. It will look good when I finish that part. I am looking forward to finishing the gypsum work and starting the next phase. As you can see, I put boards over the opening to keep the warm air on the ground floor.

DS came in the evening. We ate delicious food. Then we had a quiet evening until it was time for the new year.

I tried to draw Alice Herbst's nose this evening. She got a fascinating nose. She's a former fashion model who now works as a fine art artist in Stockholm. She’s a really talented artist, making beautiful paintings, but this evening I just wanted to try to paint her portrait on my new phone. I went in depth with the color analysis, so I was not able to capture much of her features, except for her nose. I had hoped I could draw her mouth as well, because it's a fine art sculpture in itself, but that is something I will do another day.

I think it’s interesting with Alice because I do think she has a complicated relationship with her own beauty compared to the work she’s producing. It is as if she does not want herself to be at the center, because her face is always a brief glimpse in her videos. For me, that doesn’t matter because I can pause the video and take a screenshot. I also see it in the themes and motives she is painting. There are complex aspects depicted in the persons and personalities in her paintings. I have not been able to grasp it all, but it is intriguing.

When the new year arrived, we toasted, and then we went outside and calmed the sheep.

We were spotted while we were standing there. DW had it really cold.

Thursday 1 January 2026

Good morning! It is the first day of the year 2026, and it's raining. This morning, we heard the news that a former Catholic church in Amsterdam had burned and collapsed, and it is supposed that the fire started from fireworks. That was horrible news, but no one died. Initially, I missed that part of the former church. It was a beloved building, I joked to DW, that when the Catholic church let out a little farting, the air is filled with goldflakes. She had to laugh, though she did not like the joke. She informed me that it is a former church and that there are probably no gold flakes to be seen in the restoration. I then suggested that a wealthy building company would put up a tall apartment building with luxurious apartments for a couple of million per unit, and that, in the end, all would be happy.

In the rest of the country, there was an orgy of fistfights, explosives, and property damage. The Dutch showed their best side. The disorder of New Year's Eve appeals to the Dutch hooligans and those who dishonor the national symbols of the Dutch Crown and Nation by turning the Dutch Flag upside down.

I usually feel a twinge about the end-of-year celebrations because of our sheep. Over the years, we learned what not to do with the sheep at year's end. Our recipe has been to create a narrow enclosure for the sheep so they can't run around and hurt themselves. If given more space, they have more room to run, and that is not good. It is also vital to use firm fencing that the sheep cannot get entangled in, so we are using the build-site fencing for the enclosure, and it works really well. The fence parts are held together with sturdy metal clamps.

It is interesting to see how various households are approaching New Year’s Eve. There are many dog owners in this area, and their dogs react fearfully to the fireworks, and the owners feel sorry for them on New Year’s Eve. I think of the 50 or 60 households in this area, and only one was shooting fireworks. Unfortunately, it was relatively close to our house, so I walked over and told them we have sheep who are scared of the fireworks. I begged them to move their fireworks farther from our house, but they were uninterested. As you might guess, this makes me rather annoyed, but there’s not much I can do about it.

To explain my feelings, I will tell you a little about the history of this area. Initially, there was an inland sea here. The municipality is 50 years old, and this area was farmland until about ten years ago, when the municipality began the project here. Various organizations came together, such as the municipality, banks, and farmers. What they wanted to create was a blend of city and farmland, with self-service at its heart. The municipality sought to preserve the area's rural character and crafted rules accordingly.

Well, this is the Netherlands, and when you set rules, what is typical of Dutch people is that you have as many interpretations of them as there are people. We abide by the rules more than others. But the idea was to have regular farms mixed with private houses, with everyone here setting up their lives and doing some farming. They called this city farming. We had to develop our city farming plan, which the municipality evaluated; if it was deemed acceptable, it was approved. In our plan, we use sheep to produce garden manure and to dye yarn with plant dyes. There was a wealthy farmer who bought all the farmland at once. That way, no small farms emerged in the project, even though that had been the original idea.

There is a conflict here, as some people want to live a regular villa lifestyle, even though that is not aligned with the area's goals. With the regular villa lifestyle comes fireworks. The rest of the year, we can live side by side, but on New Year’s Eve, it hurts. These people are cruel to animals. I look into our sheep's eyes, and they are wondering what's happening. They look at me as the leader of the herd, and their eyes are asking me to make it stop.

The desire for a house and a large garden makes people forget their commitments. For example, a vast lawn and a couple of trees that will produce nuts in about 20 years. I can see people who came here just for the low ground price. I can see all these things, and I understand them. The thing I cannot accept is that they are cruel to animals! I went to these people and said I was standing among my sheep, trying to calm them, and they were horrified. The neighbors didn’t care. I asked them to move 20 meters away from my house, but they couldn't. They were the only people in the area shooting fireworks, and they had no idea why the rest weren't doing the same. I might sound a bit upset because I am upset.

After writing this, I found that formulating it had a therapeutic effect on me, letting out frustrations with people who are cruel to animals. I can now turn a page on this subject. I’m sure this will come back in some form or another. It is not so that the coexistence with dog owners is entirely uncomplicated for a sheep owner, although we share our sympathy for animals in general.

Today I finished covering the metal beams with gypsum boards. I covered the hole in the attic with gypsum siding and one metal corner bar. I discovered that the metal corner bars came with a price tag that was challenging to remove. If I had 20 bars of these, I would have been horrified.

In the evening, it was snowing. I had no hope the snow would stay overnight.

Friday 2 January

There was snow on the ground, and it snowed more this morning.

I filmed the snow using the phone's slow-motion feature. There is something special about filming falling snow in slow motion. It becomes poetic in some way. I like it. To keep the film from being about the neighbors, I had to go out into the garden and film our house, and that wasn't pleasant in the snow. This is the sacrifice I have to make for the sake of art. Blah blah.

Today I applied the metal bar corners to the attic entrance hole of the barn. With that, I started the next phase, and to my own surprise, I discovered I had to clear away more obstacles before I could plaster the ceiling. I had one complete gypsym board to move up to the attic. I used the gypsum elevator for that. The level of good order in the attic is not on par with my ambitions, so here I have more to do, but not today.

Now I could start the next phase, but to my surprise, I realized I couldn't just start mixing course mud without easy access to water. For this, I had to install a water crane. Is it not enormously frustrating to find out you need to do something before you can do the things you thought you were just about to start on? I had the proper crane to match the threading on the pipes that Mr Radi, the Superman, had installed in preparation for the future kitchen sink under the canopy. While I was busy in the barn, four birds observed me from a tree.

Then it occurred to me that I had to apply scrim tape to the corners and edges before I could mix and apply mud—another do-it-before task.

Now I could start mixing the course mud!!! I found the recipe for the mud on the blog on 15 January 2023. 2l water, 1.7kg MP5 and 400gr TopFinish. The result was slushy; I dripped mud on my new smartwatch. The mud got stuck in the little wrinkles of the watch. It is not a good idea to plaster with a Samsung Watch 8. I plan to take off the watch before I soak it in slushy plaster the next time.

I was standing there, learning to plaster again, when I realized I had forgotten the metal corner for the window opposite the restroom. How is this possible? Did I not even write that I had the corner bar count under control? Well, the mud in the bucket was slowly getting stiff; there was no time to waste on other issues. I even filled up a couple of openings of the metal brackets. Next time I am plastering, I am sure things will run smoothly!

Saturday 3 January

This morning, I installed a heating cable to protect the water pipes at the barn's canopy. To my surprise, we have had sub-zero freezing temperatures for a while now, and I have been worried that the pipes would burst. That is, if they contained water. Not if they contained air. I had a theory that the pipes were installed while they were empty, and the plug was installed while the pipes were empty. I was there when it happened, so I am sure of that theory. If this were the case, the pipes would emerge from the foundation filled with air, and I would have nothing to worry about. Yesterday I installed the crane, and to do that, I had to remove the plug. There was a lot of hissing before the water came out of the pipe. So I was correct!

It is nice to be correct, but what now? Now I had to fix the challenge of freezing temperatures. We ordered a heating cable a couple of days ago, and yesterday the cable arrived. That was perfect timing.

First, I had to cut away a part of the beam at the bottom of this section of the wall. Then I could apply aluminium tape to the water pipes. The aluminium tape is used to distribute the heat. Then the cable is wrapped around the pipes. Then on top of that comes the next layer of aluminium tape. So the heat cable is sandwiched between aluminium tape. Around all this is insulation wrapped. With this method, the pipes won't burst because ice expands inside them. The part with the red spot must be on the pipe; I corrected it.

With this out of the way, a burden on my mind was lifted. It was feeling great.

I mixed two buckets of coarse mud! I plastered much of the ceiling of the north side of the workshop in the barn.

Sunday 4 January

We are slowly adjusting our minds to the fact that this holiday is soon over. I had 17 days of holidays! Next week we will go to our work as usual. The weather is predicted to stay around zero or slightly below zero (in Celsius, that means the freezing point, 32 degrees Fahrenheit), so roads will be slippery. We have proper winter tires in the attic of the barn. There is an air compressor, a tyre pressure monitor, a pneumatic wrench, and a two-ton car jack, so why not just exchange the tires? So this is what we did this morning.

Everything worked as it was supposed to; that is fantastic! I used our winch to get the winter tires down from the attic. Do you remember that I broke it and then repaired it on 12 December 2025? Both DW and I worked on this project. I have done this before, so it's routine for me, but it is great to do it together.

Five years and eight months ago, I switched tires at this property for the first time. It was on 19 April 2020. We owned the property, but there was only barrier tape and a couple of trees that needed water. I preferred changing the tires at the new property rather than on the street of the old house. This time, we did not even take any photos of the process. Now we are good to go for a slippery week, with Swedish road conditions in the Netherlands.

When we were finished with the tires, the snow was falling, and afterward we got plenty of blue sky and sunshine, for a while. In the distance, another dark cloud filled up the horizon. It was all sorts of weather today. Here is Merida sitting on a rug that DM has woven.

In the afternoon, DW attended a New Year's gathering hosted by one of the wool organizations she is active in. We drove on icy roads. Motorways and larger roads are in better shape. The less-used roads are nicer to drive on with winter tyres. DW's event was near a hardware store, and I had some things to buy, such as MP75 course plaster mud. You buy that in 25-kilo bags. I bought the missing corner bar for the barn. I even got myself a package of 45 millimeter Torqs 20 screws! Now I am equipped for another round of work in the barn.

At home, I took down the Yule Tree. Just like that, no timelapse movie, no songs, no nothing, just stripping the ornaments, taking off the glitter stuff, the lights, and then packing branch after branch back in the box where it came from. Then I taped the box closed, as I usually do. There must be at least 30 layers of tape on that box. If I really want to know how old the tree is, then I need to analyze the number of layers of tape used to close it.

Here ends the Yule this time, and here ends this blog. I wrote a whopping 4287 words. I made good progress on the barn project, and DW had a lovely crafting holiday as well. See you next week!