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Starting August
2019-Aug-02, Friday 11:55Its been a whirlwind.
Sharons Dads place guest house now has new flooring.
Its this plastic planking stuff that snaps together.
We have a table and chairs.
The stove has been steam cleaned and is working from a 10gal tank next to it.
There is a compact fridge.
I went through the breaker panel and lifted and taped all wires that I didnt feel good about and Don got the power turned back on.
The whole place is on smart meters, so they can remotely send a start or stop signal.
Unfortunately, it didnt work, but they sent out a tech on Saturday afternoon.
The meter said it was on but no powder on the bussbars of the panel.
Turned out that power was shut off before the smart meters were installed, so it still had the plastic boot on the contact on the meter plug.
The tech suddenly realized that the seal was yellow and that gave him a clue.
This gives us porch light, kitchen light and kitchen outlets.
Many of the boxes in the place have Romex going through holes in the boxes with no bushings or clamps.
Definitely asking for trouble and definitely not up to code.
Down at the pump, installed cut off to studio and studio line bleed valves.
Poking around in the dirt under the pump, found a buried shutoff to the incoming line from the meter out by the highway, and the buried shutoff to the old system that includes house and guesthouse.
Don & I removed some superfluous piping.
Wed like to move the valve up above the ground but its still stuck.
We are still trying. In the meantime installed a hose bib as a bleed to the old system.
This allowed me to strew on a vacuum breaker and a short double end washer hose between the 2 bleeds
and leave pressure to both systems all the time without allowing the old system to backfeed into the studio system.
Charles gets water from the main house when we are there because of my backfeeding the guesthouse
through the laundry sink from a hose bib on the studio.
Charles has been flushing his toilet with a bucket for years.
He was blown away when he realized that when we were there, he has a flushing toilet.
If he heard the tank filling, hed know we had arrived for the weekend.
2 weeks ago, he came home, we had left already, no hose was going in the guesthouse laundry window and his toilet was still flushing.
I wish I could have seen his face when he realized that.....
A few pain touchups on the guesthouse are in order, but its if fairly good shape.
We have actually gotten more done than Sharon had hoped.
This comes in spite of several surprises that we hadnt planned on like the mailbox.
Cars turn around in the driveway outside the gate.
Sharons brother has replaced 3 mailboxes in the last 10 years.
I dont think its vandals. I think its people who just dont know where their bumpers are.
Like the people who stop 15ft short of the stop line and then dont trip the traffic sensor....
A few weeks ago, Don was laying floor and Sharon and I took a half dozen old tires out to the mailbox post.
Shes trying to get rid of all the old tires on the place anyway.
We stacked them and packed them with mud.
It now kind of hurts to kick that stack of tires.
We will see how that one lasts over the winter.
We also painted the stack white.
If this doesnt work, we will do it again with concrete!
The rotting pallet and other lumber pile is almost all chainsawed into firewood.
Unfortunately the videogamers are too lazy to haul it off to the wood shed and stack it.
And Sharon is so conflict adverse, it will probably sit out there, continuing to rot.
At least, this got me far enough in to dig out the roots of a major blackberry briar.
With roots dug out, we dont have to keep cutting it down.
This weekend, we finish the rotten wood pile, and then move on to chipping brush.
A few weeks ago, we got up there on a Friday night and Don & Sharon went to bed.
I went down to the print shop to tidy up a bit.
I had one of the rollup doors open.
I freed up a bunch of space by disassembling a city stand typecase rack in front of the next roll up door.
This let me move the table saw and the welder over there.
I also moved this huge heavy locking cabinet out of there.
The goal was to get the 14x20 press in where the saw and the welder used to be, and open that roll up bay.
I ended up with the press on a pallet jack very close to the edge of the concrete.
There is a 6in step in the slab between these 2 roll up bays.
Half way through this ballet, I ended up with the steering wheels of the pallet jack off the slab and in the driveway gravel and the heavy cabinet half way over the step.
Hell if I was going to leave the place wide open all night and double hell if I was going to wake up Don.
It took 2 hrs of running back & forth but I got it sorted out.
With the press in the doorway, the only way in or out was down to the annex at the end of the building.
Back & forth wrestling things around either pushing the press, pulling it or moving stuff behind it to make
more room.
I told Sharon the next morning over coffee (she had tea) that I had the distinct feeling her Dads ghost was
laughing at me the whole time. She said he probably was.
There is a presence in that shop I cant describe. When I enter it, I usually say "Hey Boss..."
Almost all the type cabinets are all at the far end of the shop.
The annex is almost all bindery (saddle stitchers punches etc) and Ludlow line caster matrix cabinets.
Ive moved one type case from the annex to the type cabinet area.
I still have to move the type cases down that go into it.
Then I have to do it one more time.
Simple shuffling around has freed up an amazing amount of space.
The annex includes one Ludlow line caster in unknown condition.
The main Ludlow is the one thats frozen up and its out in the middle of the shop.
It seems to be mostly fixed although I cant find the lower mold assembly.
It also needs a LOT of cleaning before it can be brought back online.
Right now the priority is cleaning up the property in general so the county doesnt come after her.
The print shop itself is WAY down the list, but Im making a difference.
Next year brings totally fixing guesthouse electrical, redoing all the windows, guest house hot water,
flushing all the water pipes with either chlorine or peroxide.
The outdoor kitchen & picnic area needs a lot of work, and its probably time for security system & gate control.
This year has been an every weekend since mid May.
Hopefully next year will be more of a 1 or 2 weekend a month but will need to start in Feb.
Meanwhile, in 2 weeks, we have stakeout for Renfaire....
This means we have one more weekend after this one left for the year.
Sharons Dads place guest house now has new flooring.
Its this plastic planking stuff that snaps together.
We have a table and chairs.
The stove has been steam cleaned and is working from a 10gal tank next to it.
There is a compact fridge.
I went through the breaker panel and lifted and taped all wires that I didnt feel good about and Don got the power turned back on.
The whole place is on smart meters, so they can remotely send a start or stop signal.
Unfortunately, it didnt work, but they sent out a tech on Saturday afternoon.
The meter said it was on but no powder on the bussbars of the panel.
Turned out that power was shut off before the smart meters were installed, so it still had the plastic boot on the contact on the meter plug.
The tech suddenly realized that the seal was yellow and that gave him a clue.
This gives us porch light, kitchen light and kitchen outlets.
Many of the boxes in the place have Romex going through holes in the boxes with no bushings or clamps.
Definitely asking for trouble and definitely not up to code.
Down at the pump, installed cut off to studio and studio line bleed valves.
Poking around in the dirt under the pump, found a buried shutoff to the incoming line from the meter out by the highway, and the buried shutoff to the old system that includes house and guesthouse.
Don & I removed some superfluous piping.
Wed like to move the valve up above the ground but its still stuck.
We are still trying. In the meantime installed a hose bib as a bleed to the old system.
This allowed me to strew on a vacuum breaker and a short double end washer hose between the 2 bleeds
and leave pressure to both systems all the time without allowing the old system to backfeed into the studio system.
Charles gets water from the main house when we are there because of my backfeeding the guesthouse
through the laundry sink from a hose bib on the studio.
Charles has been flushing his toilet with a bucket for years.
He was blown away when he realized that when we were there, he has a flushing toilet.
If he heard the tank filling, hed know we had arrived for the weekend.
2 weeks ago, he came home, we had left already, no hose was going in the guesthouse laundry window and his toilet was still flushing.
I wish I could have seen his face when he realized that.....
A few pain touchups on the guesthouse are in order, but its if fairly good shape.
We have actually gotten more done than Sharon had hoped.
This comes in spite of several surprises that we hadnt planned on like the mailbox.
Cars turn around in the driveway outside the gate.
Sharons brother has replaced 3 mailboxes in the last 10 years.
I dont think its vandals. I think its people who just dont know where their bumpers are.
Like the people who stop 15ft short of the stop line and then dont trip the traffic sensor....
A few weeks ago, Don was laying floor and Sharon and I took a half dozen old tires out to the mailbox post.
Shes trying to get rid of all the old tires on the place anyway.
We stacked them and packed them with mud.
It now kind of hurts to kick that stack of tires.
We will see how that one lasts over the winter.
We also painted the stack white.
If this doesnt work, we will do it again with concrete!
The rotting pallet and other lumber pile is almost all chainsawed into firewood.
Unfortunately the videogamers are too lazy to haul it off to the wood shed and stack it.
And Sharon is so conflict adverse, it will probably sit out there, continuing to rot.
At least, this got me far enough in to dig out the roots of a major blackberry briar.
With roots dug out, we dont have to keep cutting it down.
This weekend, we finish the rotten wood pile, and then move on to chipping brush.
A few weeks ago, we got up there on a Friday night and Don & Sharon went to bed.
I went down to the print shop to tidy up a bit.
I had one of the rollup doors open.
I freed up a bunch of space by disassembling a city stand typecase rack in front of the next roll up door.
This let me move the table saw and the welder over there.
I also moved this huge heavy locking cabinet out of there.
The goal was to get the 14x20 press in where the saw and the welder used to be, and open that roll up bay.
I ended up with the press on a pallet jack very close to the edge of the concrete.
There is a 6in step in the slab between these 2 roll up bays.
Half way through this ballet, I ended up with the steering wheels of the pallet jack off the slab and in the driveway gravel and the heavy cabinet half way over the step.
Hell if I was going to leave the place wide open all night and double hell if I was going to wake up Don.
It took 2 hrs of running back & forth but I got it sorted out.
With the press in the doorway, the only way in or out was down to the annex at the end of the building.
Back & forth wrestling things around either pushing the press, pulling it or moving stuff behind it to make
more room.
I told Sharon the next morning over coffee (she had tea) that I had the distinct feeling her Dads ghost was
laughing at me the whole time. She said he probably was.
There is a presence in that shop I cant describe. When I enter it, I usually say "Hey Boss..."
Almost all the type cabinets are all at the far end of the shop.
The annex is almost all bindery (saddle stitchers punches etc) and Ludlow line caster matrix cabinets.
Ive moved one type case from the annex to the type cabinet area.
I still have to move the type cases down that go into it.
Then I have to do it one more time.
Simple shuffling around has freed up an amazing amount of space.
The annex includes one Ludlow line caster in unknown condition.
The main Ludlow is the one thats frozen up and its out in the middle of the shop.
It seems to be mostly fixed although I cant find the lower mold assembly.
It also needs a LOT of cleaning before it can be brought back online.
Right now the priority is cleaning up the property in general so the county doesnt come after her.
The print shop itself is WAY down the list, but Im making a difference.
Next year brings totally fixing guesthouse electrical, redoing all the windows, guest house hot water,
flushing all the water pipes with either chlorine or peroxide.
The outdoor kitchen & picnic area needs a lot of work, and its probably time for security system & gate control.
This year has been an every weekend since mid May.
Hopefully next year will be more of a 1 or 2 weekend a month but will need to start in Feb.
Meanwhile, in 2 weeks, we have stakeout for Renfaire....
This means we have one more weekend after this one left for the year.
