As Builts

According to my doctor, I've contracted The Bronchial Crud That's Going Around. Doesn't make me too fit to strip woodwork these past couple of weeks. But maybe that's just as well, since my student AutoCAD license expires on the 17th of this month, and after that I won't be able to open the program, let alone practice on it or play with it.

But as long as I've got it, I'm using it to document some features of the house, and maybe to work out some ideas I have for the upstairs bathroom.

The last couple or three days have been devoted to doing an as-built drawing of the living room fireplace. It certainly is a unique feature of the house; I'm thinking it wouldn't be a bad thing to have a measured drawing of it stored off-site in case anything happened.

Here's the results so far. So far and maybe no farther. I've left off the surface ornament, but I've got plenty of photos to show that.
But did I say this was an "as-built"? Not exactly. My fireplace exhibited the same phenomenon as did my staircase-- regardless of how many measurements I took, no matter how often I checked and double-checked them, I couldn't get all the dimensions to agree. In some places it's as much as an inch off, but I can't adjust that inch without throwing other dimensions into chaos. I tell myself it's because the mantelpiece has settled and it's out of true. But not that far out of true! Surely, I'd notice it if it were. It'd drive me crazy looking at it if it were!

But it doesn't. I don't know . . . one more instance of the house keeping its secrets . . .