This week Jane11 is out of town again for business, and so I've got lots of free time to work on projects around the house. My 2 goals for this week were to fix the bathroom plumbing and run a cable under the house to the office.
For the past couple months, while the weather has been cold, we've moved my extra computer (and cable modem) from the music room to the office because the music room isn't quite warm enough. However, the office wasn't hooked up for cable so I had run an temporary extension cable from our bedroom down the hall which has been a constant tripping hazard ever since! So on Sunday I drilled holes in the floor, crawled under the house and ran cables & connectors, etc... and
voila! We can now navigate the hallway in peace!
But, like most home improvement projects my to-do list quickly started to balloon! While under the house I noticed that some of the insulation under the sunroom had rotted and fell down,
plus there were bits of rotting cardboard boxes and pieces of wood on the ground which I cleaned out. After a quick trip to Lowes I was armed with new insulation and rolls of plastic. The final result was new insulation under the floor and a protective layer of 2 mil plastic stapled to the joists.
Monday evening I decided to tackle the dreaded bathroom project... While under the house running cables I had noticed the cast iron pipes sealed with lead and realized that replacing the pipes was definitely NOT a
do-it-myself project.
So I decided to take a more conventional and obvious approach -- get the plunger out and give the ol' pipes a good plunging! I had already spent $40'some on Draino products which hadn't seemed to work at all. I had also already tried the plunger in the tub, but hadn't yet tried plugging up the overflow drain. After about 15 minutes of plunging I freed the blockage! A little plastic bottle...
I then tried the plunger on the sink (which also had draining difficulties). Soon I started to hear dripping under the sink. The metal pipe had corroded and had pinholes which had until now been sealed up with crud. So, like most home improvement projects, this one also started to grow. After removing the old leaky pipe I made another quick trip to Lowes and bought a replacement plastic pipe (cheep and won't corrode!). Back home again I quickly slapped the new pipe into place and we were back in business again. Perfect drainage!!! Wahooo! :)
Now that I'm all caught up with my scheduled projects, I can start looking for new projects to work on! Hey, maybe I can start working on my
sailboat again!
Well, as you found out in the previous blog, Jane11 has been away on a business retreat for the past 9 days... Last weekend we went down to Cohutta Springs Camp for the weekend. While we were there we took one of the canoes out on the lake. The wind was quite brisk and I couldn't stop thinking about the possibility of making a sail for one of the canoes. The thought kept running through my head throughout the week and so by Thursday I decided to attempt to build a sail.I ran to Lowes and purchased less than $10 worth of plastic pipes, plastic sheets, rope and tape and threw together a quick collapsible sail.
