Sunday, May 08, 2005

Gorgeous Day to Work...and Not Work!

Today the weather was absolutely perfect. Warm, but not too warm. Spent the whole day working outside and not working outside! Couldn't help pulling on the old WBC (that's right, so old there wasn't another C and an I!) beret. It's the vintage one I bought off ebay after seeing the really cool old Airstreamer beret at the Cherry Blossom rally. I know there are the folks who think the berets look silly, but I LOVE my beret! It makes me feel--well, rather pretty.

A nice day for working outside
So, went to town on cleaning. Organized the tools, then started sweeping. I've decided that the hantapoopies identification was wrong, based on the copious number of acorns stored under the tub area. I think it was more like chipmunk poopies, which is nicer, since while they still can make me sick, I don't face the prospects of dying from exposure. Looks like a chipmunk (I don't think it was a squirrel, since our squirrels are too fat) may have fit into the bellypan, then ran up the p-trap hole into the trailer behind the tub. Makes me think we'll have to see about the joints in the belly pan. Finally finished by scrubbing out the tub and hosing off the toilet. It still has the yucky wax seal, but I'm not feeling the urge to go crazy with this quite yet.

Finally decided to go ahead and get a professional job done on the tub. It's not that I don't think I can finish it, but I do think a pro will be able to shoot a much nicer spray coat and get better results in a dust free spray room than I ever could. Rick agrees--we're going to look into this later this week.

After that, went to work on the windows. Finally got the first window completed, reinstalled, save for the operator. Turns out the company that sells the replacement operators has their store in close by in Silver Spring, MD! Pretty darn cool--so will try to get down there soon as well.

Getting the gasket in the window turned out to be rather slow work. It really jams in there, so it took about two hours to work it in with a putty knife and a screwdriver. But if slow, it was pretty easy. Finally it was done, got Rick to help me reinsert it. Then I used some regular D shaped weather stripping from Home Depot to replace the "mystery gasket." Unfortunately, though the stuff had adhesive, it really didn't stick, so I'm going to have to get some gasket adhesive to keep it in place. But overall, the window looks great.

Beautiful new window with clean gaskets

Then I started thinking about doing another window, but momentum stopped for me. I installed new lenses on the taillights--managed to crack one by overtightening (it stays for a while, I'm afraid). I also played with installing a new locking deadbolt, but realized the old strikeplate was slightly too small for it. Considered taking it off and grinding it larger, but decided to take a nap instead. Woke up and decided to faux paint my gas tanks instead.

Painting the gas tanks was fun, little effort, cheap and rewarding. Now they look like brushed aluminum, instead of rusting off white! Yay!

1 comment:

Helen said...

I like the beret!
Peace..........