Month: August 2014

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A Silk Purse

Southern Saskatchewan has just emerged from a very unseasonable cold and rainy period, brought to us courtesy of Montana, if The Weather Network is to be believed. My friend L says that it was payback for the Polar Vortex…

At any rate, it just rained and rained and rained and rained and rained for four or five days and only cleared up yesterday, Tuesday, although it was still a little chilly. I spent the dreary days in my office typing like mad so I could take some time off once the weather cleared.

It was still a little chilly yesterday, but nice enough in the afternoon to go out and finish cladding the shed. I was on my own and didn’t think I could get it done, but I did! It helps that Charles left me a bunch of tools, including his circular saw. I’d never before last week used such a tool and now I have no idea how I ever did any construction work without one!

So the cladding’s all tacked on and I just have some more screwing to do. Charles came by today and complimented me on my work. I asked him about trim because I am planning to clad both buildings in metal either in 2015 or 2016 and thought that while the trim would make the shed look more finished, it might be a waste of money. Charles agreed. So I’m just going to paint.

This morning, I worked, then went to town for painting supplies and a 12′ step ladder. I’ve been shopping for and looking at ladders for months and decided that this was a good compromise for height and the price was right. I can always borrow ladders, of course, but it’s nice to have my own now even though I will still need to use my neighbour’s when I want to get to the peak.

When I got home, I changed into grubbies and began to attack the interior of the shed. It was HOT, so perfect weather for working with water.

The floor was covered with several inches of mouse poop and seed, very disgusting. I hadn’t wanted to clean it before because the building was too open. It still doesn’t have a door, but it was time.

Like with the cabin, I started by bleaching the heck out of the interior. I demolished the grain chute and then set to work with a manure shovel (that came with the grainery!) to pick up the mess on the floor. I put it all into garbage bags, filling at least a dozen, and I’m still not done!

The floor was partially covered with thin plywood and I decided to pry it up to see what was underneath. To my immense surprise, the plywood was just lying on the floor and covering up gorgeous pristine boards! I was shocked! Unfortunately, the exposed boards have been covered in crud for who knows how long and aren’t as pretty.

Once I had picked up as much as I could, I headed to C&C’s to pick up a length of garden hose (and have a coffee and a cuddle with their dog, of course). I came home and gave the shed its first pressuring washing. This helped lift a lot of the caked on muck.

I am going to let everything dry and do another big pick up with the shovel and broom, repressure wash, and then finish up with the shop vac, a final pressure wash, and a final bleach spray.

I’m going to start on that tomorrow between coats of paint. I bought a five-gallon pail of white exterior farm paint and plan to put on as many coats as I have paint for. I am also considering painting the interior of the shed, including the floor. I don’t plan to finish the interior of this building any time soon, so a coat of paint will go a long way to making it feel fresh and clean. I didn’t bother with the cabin because it was so much cleaner.

My feelings towards this building have changed dramatically now that I have gotten at its bones and found them to be solid. I was really worried that I brought home a rotten piece of garbage, but nope! The shed looked absolutely terrible, but all it needed was a facelift. I can’t wait to show it off with a coat of paint!

South side of the shed. Grain chute gone. Tearing it out with a crow bar was fun!

South side of the shed. Grain chute gone. Tearing it out with a crow bar was fun!

Still have a ways to go, but a huge improvement! North side of the shed.

Still have a ways to go, but a huge improvement! North side of the shed.

The interior before. You can see the grain chute, plywood covering the floor, and lots of mouse poop!

The interior before. You can see the grain chute, plywood covering the floor, and lots of mouse poop!

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Cladding the Shed

Charles, T, and I got a ton of work done on the shed today even though the weather refused to cooperate. I still have a lot to do, but the guys did the heavy labour of cladding the shed with full sheets of OSB, leaving me to fill in gaps and put in some more screws on everything. Charles is leaving me all his tools and T gave me a lesson in how to use a circular saw, so I can move ahead on my own, between typing spurts.

My to-do list for the next 10 days, weather and work permitting:

-fill in all the gaps in the OSB
-screw everything down
-add trim
-make a door (I can leave that for when Charles comes back, but I’ll see how much time I have)
-paint (preferably three coats)
-clean the inside

When Charles gets back, we’re hoping that SaskPower will have moved the hydro line so that we can get the other roof on. Then, it’ll be time for me to go to Quebec to visit my family and when I get back, I’ll have a week to pack and get ready to leave for Mexico.

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A New Roof For the Shed

I was in town at 8:00 this morning to get the missing closures for the roof. I got home around 9:00 and Charles showed up shortly after that, then Laura arrived around 10:00. I was surprised to see her! We got a few sheets of roofing on together and then T showed up, too! I couldn’t believe that he came to do actual work. We managed to get half the roof on in the morning. Caroline showed up at one point with coffee and banana bread.

We took a break after that and I went in to call SaskPower. The power line to my neighbour’s house cuts across my property and is very close to the roof of the cabin. It is not installed according to code and I put in a request to have the line moved. We absolutely cannot put the new roof on the cabin until that happens. I really hope we can get this done by the time C&C return from their holiday. Before the new pole went in  yesterday, the line was high enough up that we could have avoided it, but now it’s even lower and Charles said there is no way he’s getting up there the way it is now. We shall see what SaskPower says…

By the time we broke for a late lunch, all the full sheets were on the roof. T declined to eat with us. Lunch was a repeat of yesterday, minus the ham. Charles is coming tomorrow to sheet the shed if the rain holds off, so I’m going to make ham and cheese pinwheels to go with the rest of the bean salad. Laura threw all the offerings into a tortilla and made herself a burrito. It was nice to see everyone enjoy the spread I put out.

The afternoon’s challenge was to cut up the last sheet to fit the final foot-wide or so section of roof. Laura is good at that sort of thing and she and Charles got it all sorted out. They did a really nice job cutting up the sheet.

Laura left after that and then it was time to put on the ridge cap! Charles screwed 1x4s to the west side of the roof to give himself foot holds. Once the 1x4s were removed, he filled the holes with the screws that match the roof, so you can barely see that he did that. The west side is also the least visible side, so it’s okay that the screw pattern is off and that some of the ribs got a little smooshed. There’s just no other safe way to put on the ridge cap with the equipment available to us.

Brian and Laura did the bulk of the work on the roof today and I commend them. They did a gorgeous job and I am very happy with the result! It even started pouring rain as Charles and I were finishing up, so the roof has already been tested. 🙂

The goal for tomorrow, weather permitting, is to get the new cladding and trim up, plus a door, so I can paint next week. We’ve thus far accomplished our goals, so I’m optimistic!

The shed looked really bad and I thought that I perhaps made a mistake bringing it in. But now that we’ve started to remove old material, I can see that there is no rot and that the building is square and true. So it might have been cosmetically challenged, but it is structurally sound and definitely worth putting money into. I am proud to have saved this building and to be giving it another 20 + years of life.

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Strapping the Shed and a New Power Pole

I can’t believe how fast this summer is winding down! I am so behind on my Haven projects, which are primarily to get the shed weather tight and to put new roofing on both buildings. I ordered the metal roofing the week before last and it came in this past Thursday. It comes in 3′-wide sheets and you order however many of them you need in whatever length. Charles and Caroline helped me do the math on all of that. You also need ridge cap pieces, which comes in 10′ sections, and ‘closures’, which we forgot and I will run into town for first thing in the morning. They fill in the gaps between the ridge cap and the sheeting as well as between the sheeting and the sub-roof.

Charles and I went to town on Saturday with his truck and flatbed trailer to pick everything up, metal sheeting for the two buildings, enough chip board to clad the shed (the rougher of the two buildings), and ‘strapping’ for both buildings, which are 1x4s that are screwed to the roof and then the metal is screwed to them. I helped him unload rocks before we went to town and I treated him to lunch!

This morning, he showed up bright and early as promised so we could get started on removing the old roofing from the shed (chip board over cedar shingles). My new neighbour, K, also came to help. K bought C&C’s last vacant lot and she is using it as an RV pad! She lives here three days and is in the city for four days.

Many hands make light work, so even with two coffee breaks in the morning, we had one side of the shed roof cleared and strapped by lunch. Caroline always feeds her crews well, so I made sure to have coffee and granola bars for the morning, which we enjoyed on our first break, then Caroline came by with more coffee and homemade muffins for our second break!

For lunch, we had a bell pepper and black bean salad, tomatoes, cucumbers, ham, cheese, cream cheese tortilla pinwheels, and more tortillas in case anyone didn’t like bean salad (I knew Charles would, but I didn’t know who else might show up to help). There was lots left over for lunch tomorrow, but no one went hungry. I also made sure to have a cooler full of cold water, ginger ale, and non-alcoholic beer.

We got the other side cleared and strapped by about 3:30. Another neighbour, T, who is our hermit and rarely seen, actually came and lent a hand and promised to return tomorrow and help lift the heavy sheets of metal up onto the roof! Wow! We all had a beverage of choice after all that work. K wasn’t shy and handed out granola bars.

While all this was going on, SaskPower showed up to replace my charred power pole! Talk about bad timing! Thankfully, by the time they arrived, we knew most of the dimensions we needed for the strapping, so I cut all the lumber before the power went out (using Charles’ chop/miter saw).

Charles and K screwed in all the strapping today. I did a lot of running around fetching things, preparing food, cutting lumber, and removing the old roofing.

The shed roof will be done tomorrow. C&C are heading out of town, so Charles said we’ll do the other roof when he gets back. He’s going to try to find time to at least cut the siding for me this week and tack it into place so that I can finish screwing it in on my own and paint it while they are gone. I’m in a hurry to get that done since I had to take my clothesline apart to make room to work today and I want it back up asap!

I was hoping to spend no more than $1,500 on this first phase of the exterior work on the graineries. I still have the closures and paint to buy and am at about $1,250, so I should come in right on budget! For the curious, the roofing is $0.98/square foot for coloured, so about $630 (including tax) for both buildings, plus $110 (including tax) for the ridge caps. I didn’t factor food for the crew into that part of the budget, but I’m at about $150 for that; much cheaper than a roofing crew! 🙂

I can’t wait to get the first roof on tomorrow. It is going to be so beautiful!

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A Non-Intrusive Way of Bringing Cables Into an RV

All of last summer, winter, and spring, I brought my internet antenna cable in through the office window, sealing the gap as best as I could with tape and, in the coldest month, towels. Bugs and cold still managed to get in. This summer, I was determined to find a better, yet non-intrusive, way to bring cables into my RV.

My impetus was moving to a new type of cellular booster. I’m not ready to blog about that as my system is not working as well as expected and I’m still exploring other options. So while I wanted to bring the cable in in such a way that bugs and cold couldn’t get in, I didn’t want to make any holes since I’m not sure my booster system is what I’m going to end up using permanently here.

If I ever get this booster working as well as I believed it would, I will likely put a hole in the roof over a cabinet, install the booster in there, and run the cable to it. But for now, the cable is out of my way and this is working out well.

My coax cable is in two sections, with its connector being at ground level. So when I had to move Miranda in a hurry a few weeks ago, I was able to show Caroline where the junction was and leave her to disconnect the two bits and coiling the part attached to the RV around the ladder while I did other things instead of my having to disconnect the booster from inside and scramble onto the roof to yank the wire out of the way. Unintentional, but perfect, design!