Monday, November 18, 2013

Storms, Scraping, & Sanding

Seriously, all we needed was one whole day of good weather.  But all we got were a few hours here and there.  We crossed off some small items off the list but we have yet to get to the sanding of the doors on the shed.

What did we do?

1. We cut and installed a board under the threshold to support the edge that overhangs and to hide the nail heads on the shingles under the threshold.  We reused a trim board from the shed door demo.  R took one of the 1X4's, that I stripped and he sanded, and ripped it to a 1X2.  COST $0.00

2.  We were able to buy a small box of rivets to finish the downspout install.  COST $4.69

3.  We installed the pop rivets and added a short extension onto the elbow to direct rainwater away from the shed.  The extension was a short piece of left over downspout.  COST $0.00

4.  Placed a concrete splash guard under the newly installed extension.  The vintage concrete splash guard was given to us by someone who wanted a PLASTIC one.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I love this one because it has an aged patina that vintage concrete gets after years and years of weathering. The splash guard is in perfect condition and looks like it has always been there.  COST $0.00

5.  I was able to get all the walls in the little vestibule scraped and they are now paint free. Unfortunately, I have to scrape the ceiling in this small space.  The ceiling is peeling and looks like it had water damage at one time.  Probably before they installed the new roof and when they still had the cedar shake roof.  COST $0.00



6.  R took the kitchen door jamb apart and reinforced it so that it could support the heavy oak door we installed.  He also fixed the flooring in the corner by the door.  All this work just took time and all materials were reused materials.  COST $0.00

7.  Finally got rid of the last piles of cut wood.  COST $0.00

8.  We did not install the gutter guards that we purchased and removed the three that we had already installed.  We do not like how they lay and you can see them, which we do not like.  They are going back to Home Depot and we will try another style.  We have so many trees that we need to have something to keep the eave troughs from filling up with seeds, nuts, and leaves.

So what's up next.

R needs to sand the floor in the back entry where the kitchen door is located.  I guess you could call it a mud room.  He's not going to sand the entire floor just the area where we are going to build the bench and shelf area.  The floor is currently grey enamel and there are 4 inch wide pine planks under the ugly grey paint.  R will end up with bloody knuckles if he waits to sand after we build the bench.

Once the floor is sanded, we will first install the shelf and then build the bench.  I did some quick figuring and planning and I think we can reuse boards from the cabinet demo.  We are really looking forward to this project because it is a creative project instead of fixing a problem project.

If it ever quits raining and dries out, we will try and sand the shed doors and install the door handle, door stops, and astral.  But we need dry weather because the belt sander is electric and we need to run an extension cord.  The doors are just too heavy to bring inside to sand.

We still need to turnover the bird bath tops and maybe do some raking but the raking isn't a must do. While R sands, I will scrap the ceiling so I can check off the vestibule from my list.

The storms that hit the Midwest today missed us for the most part.  We got some rain but mostly high winds.  It did get to 61 degrees which was great but it was a damp 61 degrees.  Tomorrow we will be back to the 40's.
Site Supervisor
"Patches"
Patches and her sister, Sasha, and two brothers, Morrie and Elvis are looking for humans to love them. These are the kittens that were born in our barn to a feral cat.  These kittens are very social.  We've handled them a lot and they have been around a lot of construction so they are used to noise.  Elvis will sit and watch you work until he feels the need to nap.  Morrie is more of a paws on kitty and like to stand on your tools so you can't see them.  Morrie and Elvis are always looking for a belly rub and a good time.  The girls, Sasha and Patches are girly girls, quiet, but can smell a chicken nugget from 20 paces away so you better get a 20 pack if you want some for yourself.

All four kitties have never ever scratched us, they all play very gently.  The boys love to be held and both are big time talkers.  All are litter trained and know their names and what 'time to eat' means.

We would really like to find homes for the two boys together because they are very attached to each other the same for the girls.  We would keep them all but we already have two kitties and it just wouldn't be fair to them.  I know a lot of people like the very young kitties but when you get a kitty that little you have no idea what their personalities will be like.  These kitties all have a gentle demeanor and are fun loving playful cats.

Contact me here at the blog if you can give them a loving home.

2 comments:

  1. I saw something on one of the home improvements shows (might have been This Old House) about gutter guards and they basically went over each style and told what was good and bad about them. In a nutshell they said that some of them had openings that let certain kinds of foilage through to clog up the gutter as if you didn't have them, the ones that didn't suffer from this problem had issues with wet leaves sticking to them and causing the water to run off the roof over the stuck leaves and miss the gutter. If I remember correctly their advice was not to bother with any of them and to just deal with having to clean out your gutters.

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  2. Alex...I wish we didn't need to install something because these little doo dads are expensive at $5.99-$7.99 each but there are eave troughs that we just will not be able to reach to clean out. We are trying to make the house as easy as possible so that in our later years we can handle a large house by ourselves.

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