Operation: Spring Break 2016 #3

Got a few more things crossed off the lists... Remember the old dump truck I borrowed to do the roof last fall? Well... It sat. And the brakes drained out. and the battery went dead. And I've been busy with this that and the other. Had my pa help me get the brakes bled, and we FINALLY got the shingles and carpet hauled to the dump. Yay! glad that parts over with.



High on the list is getting to the floor. Its got some really loose spots- not really creaky, the boards just have a lot of flex. Picked up some shims and started wiggling them in.



Shims:



Floor feels 100% more solid. Its going to have to be, because I just picked THIS up:



And it will be sitting right about in that spot. Eventually. When its cleaned up. Which may not happen for a long, long time... *sigh*

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Operation Spring Break 2016!

SPRING BREAK! The time teachers use to catch up on everything they fall behind on around the house during the school year... Of course we wake up to an inch of snow on the ground after some really nice weather.



It melted off quick though. Got Operation: Spring Break 2016, task one finished up. We are *officially* done moving all of our crap over here. Cleaned out the last of the storage shed.

Got grandpas truck drug over,



And all of the heavy crap was moved with this ooolllllddddd cart. Worked great.



Storage shed empty!

This Old House #11: Thanksgiving and Dining Rooms.

What, y'all thought I gave up? Spent a portion of Thanksgiving break sucking up leaves...



Then the snow hit, and it got COLD.











Then we had a poop-load of people over for Thanksgiving dinner...







And the day after Thanksgiving, my wife decided to enlist everyone that stuck around in ripping the dining room to shreds. Something along these lines:



That left me to the simple task of peeling the wallpaper strip off the ceiling, cause, you know, I'm the tall one.







I scraped, I rolled, I sprayed, I sanded, I tired everything under the sun and that stuff DID NOT want to come off... Finally what ended up working sorta okay was the iron- yup, I spent the first three hours trying things out, and the last 2 hours holding that iron over my head while standing on a ladder, heating the strip up and scraping it off an inch at a time. Barf.

Moving on. Starting to look pretty good! One problem- never ask an "artist" to help you "paint".





Alas, it was in an awkward spot and had that green showing from behind so it got painted over.

Some of the help.

This Old House #7: Up to the HIGHEST heights!

Although no flying kites...

We had a slightly chilly night the other day- it got all the way down to mid '40's and had been "cold" all day, so I lit the stove. Burned some paper to see if it actually drew as it has a really short chimney, then threw a couple of small logs in there. Don't need to worry about draw- sounds like a vacuum cleaner its sucking so much air. Puts out a fair amount of heat. Will probably keep this corner of the upstairs nice and toasty but I don't think it'll warm the rest of it.




In other news, we got a "notice of cancellation" letter from our insurance policy. Was expected, but I was kind of hoping to be able to put off re-roofing the carport until next spring. Now I have 30 days.


I had a fellow come "inspect" and clean the chimney for me. Learned some new things and think I can handle the cleaning duties now. Well, as soon as I get a couple of ladders, anyways...

Heck of a view from up there.







The "main" chimney is pretty solid. Not very straight, but solid.





You can tell where its been extended some time in the past. One of my questions was weather or not we could convert one of the holes back to wood burning so we can put a woodstove in the dining room where the little gas stove is. Answer- most likely. I didn't want to peel this cover up and then have to worry about re-sealing it later, so we left it at that. There are definitely two separate holes at the base of the chimney, and there looks to be enough room for a split at the top. Interestingly, the LITTLE pipe is for the furnace, and the big pipe is for the little gas stove.





The other chimney is in pretty rough shape. Really just a loose stack of bricks...





Apparently didn't look too bad though, no build up of any kind and it draws great. Well, as long as there's no wind.

Another view from the back-



and the carport roof that needs to be redone.



It's a long ways up there!



Meeting a brick mason tomorrow to see what he would charge to raise the chimney 4 feet or so to get it over the peak of the roof. Might try doing it myself, never done any masonry before but I've got a neighbor that I think could point me in the right direction. So many things to do, so little time...

Also need to get with the rain gutter guy and see what he thinks about the spot above the light in the last picture. When it rains water drips off that edge and hits the roof of the carport. When it does, it splashes up quite a ways on the side of the house. There has been some water damage in this area in the past and I'm thinking the water is soaking into the bricks and getting behind the flashing on the carport roof.

This Old House #6: Excavating for Hidden Treasures.

Yesterdays project- excavating some of the ruins that occur when you move... We started moving stuff from the storage room over to the "library" room they had emptied out. Most of it was irrelevant junk not commonly needed that we probably should have just tossed. We moved maybe a load or two a month for several months, and then when we moved officially the room got stuffed full with everything we just wanted out of the way for a while.

I didn't take a proper before picture, so here are some half way through pics. Stupid chandelier lights make it really hard to get a good pic.



The whole center area was stacked up with totes, bathroom stuff, and clothes / blankets in garbage bags.





I relocated a bunch of the long term storage stuff into a closet, got the bathroom type stuff put up in the laundry room storage, and the board games moved to their new home in the built in cabinet downstairs. The rest of it got re-stacked and a little more organized.

There was a built in bookcase right here, so there wasnt any carpet. You can see more wood floor. I think the wood floor upstairs is going to be REALLY rough when we eventually rip up the carpets. Can feel all sorts of wonky things through the carpet.



And that brings us to our next Hidden Treasure.

This little stove was left behind. Aside from the little electric heater built into the bathroom ceiling, this is the only "permanent" heater upstairs.





It's a 112 Oak model, made by the Peninsular Stove Co.











Neat little stove that appears to be in great shape. No proof for sure but from what I could find on the internet it was probably built around 1920. Don't know that it'll put out much heat but we'll give it a try and see how well it works. Chimney may have some issues too, its a little to short apparently, and sometimes doesn't get the best draw.

Finished with the library for now.





Stove's all dug out and "useable".



Trying to decide what to do with these ginormous book shelves.



And here's a little sneak peak at a future Hidden Treasure report- The table was also left behind... Solid would and weighs a LOT.



Managed to get all this done Sat. morning, and still had time to get a couple of paying jobs done in the shop and have a wiener roast in the fire pit last night!