It's been awhile

So the big news is that we are leaving the treehouse, which has meant that after a long hiatus, we need to return our attention to the last few unfinished items. 

Enter: Operation Cool It.

We did a little exploratory drilling in the kitchen wall, which conveniently has a bit of exterior wall that is not roof—a north-facing gable end that is visible from exactly nowhere. The gable end is in the middle of the house, facing to the rear, you can't see it from the street, the yard, or even the roof of the garage. 

After toying with the idea of inserting a little window and then using the attic space to install a mini-split A/C unit, we decided on a new approach: "quick, "easy" and "cheap." A thru-the-wall A/C unit (much cheaper than mini-splits or central air) would be tucked into the wall space, all we needed was to find a small unit, right? The plans seemed simple enough, and as an added benefit, so I thought, a thru-the-wall unit would be cheap, as cooling season has left our northern regions.

Of course this is life, and nothing works the way it should. I called around for the cheap, off-the-shelf A/C unit and discovered that they are off the shelves: none in stock at the big boys (Home Despot, M'nards, Sears) or the little local guys. I spent a long time calling around until finally I got a number from a guy, whose number I got off a random website, and hooray they had one! The only problem is it was in the distant suburbs ("Guam"), and that my husband's car conveniently died the day before, so I had to drive him to work in Minneapolis (gnarly traffic), then loop around the interstate outer ring (gnarlier traffic), and then get utterly hopelessly lost in the gridlessness of suburbia. But I did eventually find the appliance shack, purchase the only thru-the-wall A/C unit in the whole of the metro area, and was only 2-1/2 hours late to work. So then the demo happens...

And the unit is too big...

So more demo happens...

To be continued...