Here's the deal: our house is cold. Even if I set the thermostat at 80 it would still feel cold in the winter. The reason has to do with our basement. Most of the house is surprisingly well insulated for a home built in 1909. It has it's drafts, like any older home, but at least the walls themselves have what appears to be decent insulation.

The basement, however, is not. There is about a 2 foot span where it extends above the ground that allows heat to exchange at an alarming rate. Additionally, the basement is not heated (which, considering it's insulation status, is probably a good thing given our budget).

The end result of this is that it tends to be very cold near the floor in the main level of the house, and that makes us all feel cold, even if it's really pretty warm inside. So, I'm looking for ideas that will help it be warmer nearer the floor, without having to heat up the rest of the room at well.

I have already done some work towards improving the situation in the basement, but I think I've found all the low-hanging fruit there- about the only thing left is to improve the situation near the windows.

One idea I'm considering is to put some insulation between the joists supporting the main level, but I'm not sure that will help much and might make it get dangerously cold in the basement where the plumbing is. Another idea is to put some kind of canopy over the vents, to force new warm air coming from the furnace to spread out more at a lower level (as well as slow it down, so it feels less like a draft).

I'm also open to any other suggestions. And no, raising the thermostat temperature really won't help much.

Whole bunch of stuff to talk about today.

We have a new car. Well, new to us anyway. It's a '98 Nissan Quest minivan. It has a 123,000 miles on it, but it's in pretty good shape. That's still almost 15,000 fewer miles than the Lumina, and I would expect an import like this to push 200,000 miles, whereas we don't really know how much more time we could hope to get from the Lumina. We had to use a line of credit to get it, but when we sell the Lumina it should remove the vast majority of that debt, and in the mean-time we're only paying 2%.

Speaking of selling the Lumina, in preparation for the sale I needed to put a new tire on it. Apparently, it's supposed to get 'H' class tires, whatever that means (something to do with speed). Currently it has all 'S' class tires, so the tire place wouldn't sell me a tire without replacing all four with a premium model. It's not like I race the car, and it's not even my fault it currently has 'S' tires. Well, I guess I have put 4 tires on it since I bought it, but I just replaced what was there before. We left the car with my parents, since they're thinking about buying it. They're going to put it and one of their cars up for sale, and use whichever doesn't sell. So my Dad will take care of replacing the tire, and deduct the cost from the sale price.

I finally brought the baby swing in the from the garage a couple days ago, and we don't know how we ever did without it. Ryan just loves it.

While I was messing around in the garage I rigged a counter-weight for the bay door on the Aveo side. I really need a real pully at the pivot point rather than a loop, a cable rather than stiff wire, and something heavier than a paint can. In spite of all that, it really does help. I figure I can improve on it as I find better parts. I also need to do something about the side door. Hopefully I'll be able to address that this coming weekend.

We're finally putting the finishing touches on the bathroom. I've got a coat of paint on the window and door frames (need a couple more), and Dad is planning to come by tomorrow to help hang the cabinet.

I put a new light fixture in the dining room. The new one isn't as nice as the old, but this one will take standard sized bulbs, and all the sockets actually work.

Finally, I closed the storms today. While I was at it, I took the opportunity to stuff some insulation fiber in a few obvious locations. So this winter will be just that much less drafty. I also have some clear-film window insulation kit that I want to put up, but I need to borrow a hair dryer from someone first. I only have one kit, so I can only do five windows. I plan to target windows that never open, so that I don't have to take it down in the spring and can just make it permanent.