This Old House #12: Baby, its COLD outside!

So the thermometer this morning said -12. Pretty, but YUCK.























Interestingly enough- the shop is STILL sitting at about 32 degrees. Havent lit the fire in there in like 2 weeks...



It was so cold that even our two kitties, who normally won't get within 10 feet of each other, decided to let past feuds lie for the moment...



The outside temps mean the upstairs temps get a little low. Started checking things with the infrared gun. The one storage room upstairs with the door closed was a*little* chilly.



I musta not been naughty enough for Santa, so I had to have a friend give me a bucket of coal to try out in the stove.



Didn't take much to get it going,



Threw in a couple of scoops of coal and viola!

HEAT!



Stove works great with coal, which I guess isn't surprising since that's what it was designed for... Going to pick up a few buckets of free coal tomorrow. We'll see how well it works over this week while we're home.

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 #9- More on the roof.

Well, after several conversations with several different people including the company that sold it to me, we picked a course of action and got it (mostly) done last Saturday. I'm REALLY running out of time, and the weather is NOT cooperating this week. Was hoping to have the little bits finished off but here's where I'm at so far...

Got all the shingles shoved off in the evenings over the week.






Got back from camping with the scouts around 10:30 and the help showed up at 11:00. Cleaned the roof up a bit, got rid of missed nails, etc. Restacked the tin so it was all straight and even and pre-drilled holes through the whole stack. Got the water / ice barrier laid down around the edges, and started hoisting chunks of metal. We ran a string at the bottom, tacked the first 5 sheets together but not to the roof, got it all square, then started screwing 'em down.



I was a little perturbed that my the first couple of sheets got some nice scratches in them as they were pulled off the pile, but no complaints as the help was, er, VERY affordable... :) Got a process in place for pulling sheets and all was good.

The help!





Trimming up the ends. Turns out one side was 4" SHORTER than the other. Thank goodness I measured the long side!



Most of the tin down. Still have a little sliver on each side at the outside edge, the ridge cap, and the house flashing to put down. Oh, and the vents...







By this time I was beat and had other things that needed to get done too. I finally looked at the forecast later that evening, and it SUCKED. Decided to tack the ridgecap on real quick- spent an hour looking for the dang nut driver and finally had to go buy a new one. Got it tacked on though, and good thing because its been raining and SNOWING this week. Haven't dared get back up there when its wet to finish the last couple of pieces off...



And thats where it still sits. Hoping to get up there tomorrow. It's gotta be done this weekend no matter what unfortunately.

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!