Category Home Improvement Projects And Repairs

Jul 17 2019

Repairs and Remodeling on BOB Continue

Last report on Bob, he was getting the roof sealed. We have now moved inside to work on the bedroom ceiling where it leaked over the winter.
David removed all the bad area that had been damaged from the leaking. This photo from 2017 shows the begining of the damage.

Beginning of leak damage.

 

Before he did that though we moved the mattress off the pedestal into the living room so he would have that area to work.

 

I didn’t think to get more before and during photos.
Whilst David was working on that I began removing the wallpaper in the bathroom. We had removed the bathtub earlier at the end of last fall. We decided we could do without the tiny tub as it had started leaking. That is why we used a storage tub for the fish we caught rather then the bath directly. We are planning to put a large sink in its place. This will work better for storing and cleaning fish. Most rv parks and camp grounds have showers now a days anyway.

The fish bin sits in the bathtub.

 

 

I used a hair blow dryer to heat the wallpaper, then peeled it off. Keeping the dryer pointed at the wall as I peeled the paper. This works much better than trying to scrap it off with a scraper or utility knife ( box cutter if you prefer). I thought of this after I had done one whole wall in the bedroom remodel back in 2014. The walls were sticky behind the paper. I thought if I heated the paper up and pull at the same time it would release the glue and just peel off. As you can see it works like a charm. A lot faster and less work too.

I then got to painting the walls. This is after one coat.

 

I did a total of three coats, I also put a coat of fresh paint on the previously painted walls in the 2014 remodel. I also painted the ceiling cause it looked drab and yellow next to the new white walls. The paint was all dry now so I thought I would add a bit of decor. These were both items given to me at my retirement going south party from the care home in 2014. They all knew I liked fishing so I got a couple of fishing themed presents, a fishing basket, creel and this little outhouse.

 

David had to tear out quite a large portion of the bedroom ceiling. The wood and foam insulation were rotting and falling to pieces as he took them out. He let the area dry out for several days. He then put in new pieces of foam insulation. He then screwed this piece of wood paneling in place that is actually used for flooring. Since I was in painting mode, I asked if he wanted the patch painted. He said, “No, not yet I want to make sure that the leak is fixed. You can paint the rest of the ceiling if you want.”
So I did. I also touched up the right wall. After a few years of extra fishing poles rubbing against it, that wall needed it.

 

My next goal is to get some new plastic taped down on the pedestal and then put the mattress back on it. Then I think I will move on to the kitchen. I need to get the various tools and supplies put away. I then will wipe it all down and since I got the paint, add a fresh coat to the kitchen wall.
After that I need to start deciding what stuff inside can go in the outside bins. The fishing poles and all other fishing accessories for sure as we are not fishing now. They don’t need to be readily accessed. The space where all the accessories are stored right now is where the deep freezer will go. I don’t think the fishing poles need to ride around strapped in the seat. By the way, our trip to Texas has been postponed until fall of 2020. We realized we needed more time to make preparations.

 

May 19 2019

A Little Bit Of This and That

 

I have been spending a lot of my time this month getting my music library organized on my laptop. The weather still doesn’t know what it is going to do so it was a thing I could do inside when I was not in the mood to crochet. When I was in the mood to crochet I worked on the bathroom floor rug. I had a little help on one of the last days before I finished it. Little Kitty thought she needed to hold it down while I was taking a break. She is just so stinking cute I could not ask her to move. So I went back to organizing my music.

 

 

That’s what I did on May 5th before David got up.

When he got up he decided he had a spring cleaning bug.

He wanted to clean up the pantry shelves, so we could put all the canned goods from the spare bedroom back in the pantry.

The Pantry is now fully stocked and organized.

 

 

Then he started pulling out everything else from the spare room. He wanted to reorganize it so he could move all his urban prospecting inventory and tools back in it. Little Kitty was happy with the newly organized spare room too.

 

This would give me back my living room. We toddler proof it for my younger grandson. The grandboys would have more room to play. We got all but a few smaller items moved over the first two days. David moved them over the course of the rest of the week. We got it all back together just in time for a good Mother’s Day Weekend.

Yippee! It’s a living room again!

 

My daughter, son-in-law, and the grandboys came over on Saturday. My daughter made a big dish of lagsana. It was yummy! I played with the grandboys until they wore out this grandma. This is what they gave me for Mother’s Day. It is a cute little hedgehog planter with a calandiva plant.

I will just squeeze in between these two plants.

 

 

 

Monday (May 13th) was actually a very nice day so everyone went outside to do some work. I tackled the leaf pile I made behind BOB. David wanted it moved so the grass could continue to spread into the bare spots and crowd out the weeds. I first had to put some air in the wheel of the wheelbarrow. I used my new little rake and the big leaf rake like salad tongs to place the leaves in the wheelbarrow. It took me six loads to move it over to the compost pile along the south fence.

 

While I was busy doing this, David and Nick were busy painting roof coating on BOB.

 

This is only one of the projects that will be done on BOB over the summer. We are getting him ready for the drive down to the Texas coast. We are planning on staying the winter of 2019 there. This was another reason the spare room was reorganized. So that things we need in BOB for the trip were readily accessible when it was time to pack up and hit the road.

 

Tuesday I first went out to feed and water Milly.
She was more interested in me giving her some pets.
So I obliged her After a couple of quick photos.

 

Then I went out to do some mowing. I did the section directly in front of the house between the deck and the back stairs. Later in the day, David moved BOB into this area. This will make it easier to continue his repairs. I took the photos the next morning before starting my next section of mowing.

 

I also happened upon the johnny jump-up in the west flower bed. This just goes to show you how cool and wet this spring has been. These little guys like it shady and wet. They usually have not jumped-up until I have begun regularly watering the beds.

Look at me! I am an early jumper!

 

 

Wednesdays section was rather large. I started at the west tree over to the east end tree that holds the clothesline. I finished that then just kept on going east until I reached the fence. I worked my way back towards the north over and around the wood pile, the burn barrel, and in front of the shed.

 

 

I paid for doing such a large section, on Thursday morning my hips were pretty stiff and sore. I go to hang with my daughter and grandboys on Thursdays, so no yardwork was done that day. I was starting to feel fairly good by the afternoon. Then my granddog, Buck was doing his zoomies around the yard. I just happened to be standing in one of his zoom paths. He came zooming by and crashed into my butt knocking me to the ground onto my bad left hip.

My daughter yelled at him because she thought he jumped up on me and knocked me down. After I calmed down and got myself off the ground I explained that he was doing his zoomies and did not do it on purpuse it was an accident.

I spent most of Friday lazing about in bed resting up from my dog collision. I would not have been going outside anyway as the weather decided to get cold and wet again. It was a cold, cloudy, foggy, misty, drizzly day. A perfect day to spend in bed watching dvds. The day’s show to watch was Criminal Minds Season 1.

Saturday was like Friday but not as wet, so I spent the morining playing games on the computer. My daughter’s family came over in the afternoon. We got to see their new family vehicle. It is a 2001 Dodge Durango. They have been needing a new one. Their old car was a Audi sedan. It had two car seats cramped in the backseat with a bit a room for the dog. Now the dog has the whole back section to himself and the carseats are not crowded together.

 

And here we are on Sunday morning typing more to this post.

 

 

Jan 16 2019

Just A Quick Update

On The Furnace Repair

 

David received the text that the motor for the furnace impeller was in at about 2:00 pm yesterday afternoon. When Nick got home from work, David took the truck and went to town to pick it up and was back just before 2:45.

He attached the mounting brackets to the motor. That went pretty smoothly even though he had them on backwards his first attempt. Next step was to mount the motor to the impeller and the impeller housing. Again all is going well. He gets the housing back on the furnace and rewires the motor. He turns the furnace back on and waits for the impeller to kick on. The first few seconds are fine then it starts to vibrate and make noise but not the awful squealing.

So he turns it off again. He then does some troubleshooting on the internet. He needed to adjust where the impeller sat on the shaft of the motor and tighten the set screw that holds the impeller to the shaft of the motor. He then turns the furnace back on.

Do you hear that? Neither do I! David did a terrific job, thanks !

Now we won’t really freeze with the next blast of cold that is suppose to hit our area starting Friday!

Jan 15 2019

Some Random Photos

Oh, And the Furnace Broke!  😦

 

I happened to look out the window on this morning to see this beautiful pink sky.

 

This was the second day in a row that this little fella came to visit me at my computer. He was in a hurry to investigate every bit of my laptop. That is why the photos are blurry. You may not be able to tell bet he had some wonderful white markings. Even his little pedipalps had a dash of white. Jumpy Spider, Sooo cute!!

 

Sunday (Jan. 13) morning after I finished my chores, I was planning on spending a leisurely day in bed crocheting, But Noooo! My hubby comes in to tell me he has taken the furnace apart so we can clean the impeller fan as it was starting to squeal when it would kick on to heat. We did a quick cleaning and reassembled it. Still squealing!

So hubby cranks the thermostat up so he could watch it spin when it kicked on. The whole motor almost started spinning not just the impeller fan. He thought it might be just some loose screws,but as he looked more carefully he could see that the bushings on the motor were shot. So he took the whole impeller and motor out. I spent about an hour thoroughly cleaning the blades of the impeller with a toothbrush and vacuum.

Then he thought maybe the motor from the furnace from the RV would work. So I went to the Junk/Little Kitty’s room to unbury it. I found it fairly quickly and easily. He came in and looked at it. Nope, not possible the motor was way to small. It was worth a try. After he left, I decided to give the junk/Little Kitty’s Room a thorough cleaning. Which took me about two hours.

So my whole Sunday was not as I had planned.  😀

David went to town yesterday to find a new motor for the furnace. He was able to get one ordered and it should be here sometime later today. I hope we get it all reinstalled, so we don’t have to spend another night using the electric heater, leaving the oven on and open, and the little propane heater for warmth.  😦

We just have the oven on long enough to heat up the kitchen and living room to about 80 degrees after the sun has gone down. We turn it off before we go to our bedroom for the night. Nick has an electric heater for his bedroom. We have a small ceramic space heater for the bathroom, we have that sitting on the floor blowing into our bedroom. We turn this one to just the fan blowing just before we hop into bed, which has an extra blanket on it now. The propane heater is sitting in the bathtub. It keeps the bathroom pretty toasty so that is why we leave the ceramic heater’s fan on to blow some of that toasty air into the bedroom. We leave it running while we are sleeping, when the propane bottle becomes empty it will shut off.

So no, we have not all turned into snowmen like the ones in the feature photo. LOL We are lucky that we are in a mild spot in the weather for January. The lows have been in the mid 20’s with highs in the mid to upper 40’s. The lowest temperature in the house on Sunday night/Monday morning was 53 degrees. It is a balmy 55 degrees as I sit in the kitchen typing this up at 2:15 on this Tuesday morning. I had an acid reflux attack and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I thought I would do something productive since I was up anyway.   😀

Dec 2 2017

I Have Gone A Little Old School For This Post

What We Did Over Summer Vacation

I know I said I was going to post from the library, but with getting photos ready and I tend to go on abit, I would be sitting there for hours. I would feel like any minute they would kick me off so someone else could get on. I just would not feel comfortable. I would feel rushed and my post would not be up to my satisfaction.

That being said, I am now typing this at home on my son’s computer in word pad so I can save to a gigistick and then copy paste into WordPress at a later time.
Oh, did I mention this is going to be a long post with lots of photos and several galleries? 😀 I guess I just did.
Ok, so let’s get this post started.

A new developement this summer was that my daughter, Kay rejoined the workforce. She is now waitressing at a major food franchise Monday thru Friday. So I am now babysitting my grandson, Martin(we call him Marty). I watch him 3 days at my house and 2 days at his house. He keeps this Grandma and Grandpa( Marty calls him, Papa) on their toes.

Next up is gardening and yardwork. I have been calling it Yardening. I don’t know what type of project I will be doing for sure when I step outside for the day.

Yardening In 2017

Gardening has been a bit strange this year the weather has been a bit cool and wet at times. So things seem to be growing at a slower pace. We have had our hot spells too, but they have only lasted 2 or 3 days, then back to cool and wet. The cool wet days were great for the June barer strawberries.

They produced many a nice sized berries so I was able to freeze a quart size bag, before everyone at them all fresh.
This is how I freeze them. I cut them in to pieces, place them on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and put them in the freezer for a couple of hours. Then take them out and put them in a quart bag. This was done over several pickings to fill the bag. I had an assistant on this day.

I was having troubles getting pepper seedlings to stay alive or even sprout at all. Part of that, I think is I started to many too soon. I did not have enough pots to transfer them to, while I waited for the outside temps to warm up. The package also says that the seedlings should have at least 5 leaves before you transplant them outside. Thus the shortage of pots after they started to outgrow the starter peat pads.

Close up of the sprouted sweet peppers.

I need more of these size pots like I started the moonflowers in. Since I was having so much trouble with the peppers, David bought some from the nursery when he got his tomato plants. He bought 8 plants of a variety called Big Bertha for the peppers and 4 plants of the Big Beef variety for the tomatoes.

I was able to get some of the seedlings transplanted into these sized pots and my long rectangle flower pot and eventually out in to their garden spot( 17of my seedlings and the 8 Big Berthas, one of the Big Berthas did not make it) among the strawberries or into the flower beds on the south side of the house(14 seedlings, two did not make it).

Speaking of the moonflowers, they were a challenge also. They got to a nice size in their pots and the weather had warmed up so I figured it was time to transplant them outside. Of the 6 seeds I started only three made it this far. They are the large leaf seedlings in the photo. The other seedlings are some peppers. I planted one by Rocky Raccoon, one by the deer skull in the south bedroom window flower bed , and the last one in the corner of the new bed under the west bedroom flower bed, more on the building of that bed later.

All of these soon died. I did not keep them watered. They were the only things planted at the time, so I tended to forget about them. After the voulenteer marigolds started coming up and I had planted other seeds, I decided to give the moonflowers another try. This time I just planted the seeds directly into the bed. They are doing much better, but I still don’t think I will see a flower before the first frost. I think I still have some seeds to try again next year.

I mentioned above that I made a new flower bed under my west bedroom window. I had been thinking of putting one there for a few years. I finally got around to it. I gathererd rocks and old concrete chunks, that have just been laying about the yard doing nothing useful, the shovel, the rake and set to work.

David also made a new flower bed/garden spot. He needed to dig out the east side of the shed to replace one of the lower walls that had rotted out. There was alot of dirt to be moved so David had Nick assist with the project. The dirt in question was the old compost pile alot of this was used on the south side of the shed to level it out and provide good soil for the bed.

Now that the compost pile was cleaned up and moved, David was able to make two new squash hills.

The iris bulbs that I had tossed on the compost pile a few years ago continued to grow, so David moved them to the corner of the bed. I then planted eight of my pepper seedlings and marigold seeds around them.

All did well. As you can see in the last photo the weeds did well too. They got way ahead of me. I had weeded it twice though before they did.

Another little project I did was to clean up underneath the back steps. I moved a bottle of windshield cleaning fluid, a floor jack, a plastic bin lid, four windows, and an oil pan to the shed. It was alot easier to find a place for it all as David had been cleaning it up over the late spring months.
I thought it would be a simple task, but nooooo!! It turned into an earth moving and an eviction. All I wanted to do was move that oil pan to the shed. It was stuck it would not budge. So I crawled under the steps to see what the deal was. There was a big pile of dirt all around and under the oil pan which had wedge it under the bottom step. Well I was going to have to “dig” it out using one of David’s concrete trowels. I moved dirt aside then wiggled the pan and repeated, until I was finally able to lift the pan enough to move dirt from under it. I then was able to scoot it from under the step and lift it fully up, as I did this all the dirt from inside fell out. I also dislodge something in the pan that started to move. It startled me, but it was just a toad. 😀
I had just evicted him! He hopped off to the side and watched as I finished demolishing his home. Then he hopped over by the water spout and hose to worry about being a homeless toad. I finished leveling out all that dirt and sloping it so it would drain when it rained instead of puddling under the steps. I then spread some grass seed under and around the steps.

I felt bad about making the toad homeless. Then I remember David and Nick said there was one living under the storage area under the deck. So I rehomed my toadie friend there. He got a new home plus a neighbor. 😀

My most recent project was to clean the deck and paint its stairs. It was a beautiful morning to do this project. Plenty of sunshine and a light breeze to move the paint fumes away. I only had a bit of the original February Gold from when we painted it in 2007, so I knew I would have to do some of them in white. The white paint was some we got when David’s brother cleaned out their sister’s home after she passed away. There were two different gallons of white exterior paint neither had been opened but the rims were a bit rusted. I opened the first can only to find a watery solution on top of a thick glob of latex that I could not stir into any form of being paint. I opened the second can it also had a water solution on top, but the latex was still liquid. Yippee, I was able to stir this into paint! I was going to paint every other step white, but this paint said not to use it on foot traffic areas as it was semi-gloss.
So I painted all the steps gold. I took a lunch break at around 12:30 pm. I finished the steps around 1:30 pm. I still had enough gold left to paint the top of the railing that went around the edges of the deck. It was pretty hot by now and it was starting to get smokey out.

I finished that up, then with white, I repainted the door frame, that had started to peel. David had not painted the sides last fall when he installed it as the wood was prepainted. I guess it just could not handle winter. I next I painted the lower half of the siding to the right of the door. After that I got out the broom, started moving things, and began sweeping off the deck. As I moved each thing and swept, I painted the east rail and the facing support beams white. By the time I finished at around 3:30 pm the smoke out was really thick. David had come out earlier and told me that the smoke was coming from four fires around Billiings, Montana. The smoke is still in the air this morning as I type this but not as thick and it is much cooler today.

 

I knew I would not be able to post so I took a few walk around photo shoots to show the progress of the gardens. I have lots of flower photos so they have their own gallery for each month that they were blooming.

MAY’S WALK AROUND

JUNE’S WALK AROUND
insert photos 94-113

JULY’S WALK AROUND
looking from above photos 183- 186

If you are wondering what is up with the summer squash plant in photos 129 and 130, this is due to another problem we have trying to grow a garden. GOPHERS!!! He tunneled right under the plant. First he ate the root’s tips so the plant got all wilty, because now the roots are hanging in the roof of his tunnel the water does not go to the root when we water. We think the plant is ok when it does perk back up for a short time. The next morning this is what we found, he had pulled the whole plant down into his tunnel! I guess he is trying to fill his larder for winter too!
So this is the reason for the new planting strateogy in photo 131. David made large mounds and placed a coffee can in the middle. I put potting soil inside the can and planted the seeds. This proved to be more successful(see photo 170).

July’s Flowers

marigolds

alyssum

petunia

coleus, shadows were a bit funky
first cosmos
first gladiolus cane
The first gladiolus cane was soon joined by a second. They were both a lovely yellow. I brought them inside and with a few other flowers I made this arrangement to enjoy.

AUGUST’S FLOWERS
I did not do a walk around in August, but I took lots of flower photos.
marigolds

petunias
cosmos

zinnias

Gladiolius

    harvested big bertha peppers

Other happenings in August included these turkeys taking a strut through the butternut squash patch.

The biggest happening was the total solar eclipse. We were not in the path of totality, we would have had to drive 45 miles to view that. Judging from the traffic headed south a lot of people were doing just that. We didn’t get any viewing glasses. We did notice that the shadows were looking a bit funky. I was able to snap this shot of the leaf shadows on the driveway.

September happenings included David’s 60th birthday and our 25th wedding anniversary. No big celebrations for either occassion, just quiet at home celebrations with the kids.

October brought my and Marty’s Birthdays, my 50th and Marty’s 2nd.We celebrated at an indoor play area with two bouncy castles. I baked,frosted, and decorated the cake Mama bought for Marty. He requested a pink cake through and through.

November has been unseasonally warm. Thanksgiving was spent eating turkey soup and marathon watching season 6 of “Bones”. My son was at a store here where you can buy, sell or exchange video games and gaming systems this month. He saw that they had a laptop for sale. It was 100 dollars, but we got it on Black Friday for 96.75 tax included. So now we have a laptop again. WHOOO HOOOO! No internet at home yet, but at least now I can take my own to the library!

The fishing season has been a slow one too. David has managed to catch some big catfish and pike for the freezer. I have not gone as often, I was doing more yardening and then I started watching Marty 5 days a week. Here are a few photos of David’s catches. He caught 7 other catfish but these were the biggest. He caught two other pike but this is the biggest one of them.

I have continued to do crocheting during the summer. I completed one big project and a few smaller ones. I will give a detailed post on that over at Skrappy Skarves and reblog here.
Well that is all for now folks!