As usual, an assortment of little things not necessarily deserving of their own post.
This was the previous owner's cat room. Best as I can tell they kept the litterbox in here, and left the window open, which led to a cat tree outside so the cats could come and go as they pleased. Anyways, carpet and cats, especially with litter boxes is no bueno. A bunch of stripping down later it looked like this.
Just getting that carpet out of there has been an absolute godsend for smell, thankfully they put tar paper down between the plywood and the carpet as kind of an underlay and nothing penetrated through so the plywood remains blemish free.
Just starting to prime.
And with a coat of purple starting on one of the walls.
Heres the room mostly painted, the unpainted part is going to have wallpaper I believe.
That's the progress on the room for now, but there will be more! Still inside, a few more friends have been by so the front door continues to get more and more interesting.
Outside, with the trench finished the new propane tank was delivered! I'm very excited to again have gas heat.
Speaking of, I stopped by the plumbing wholesaler to grab a bunch of mostly trench supplies, and while I was there scored an absolute blowout deal on more PEX than I'll ever need for when the time comes to replumb the house.
With those pipes now in hand, I was good to core out my holes in my basement wall.
If you've never used one, a coring drill is a truly amazing tool. It makes you work for your results, but I tell you, there is something magical about making a perfect 4 inch round 8" deep circle through concrete with nothing more than a little gentle spinning and some water.
I mentioned in a previous post how I was trying to make it as easy as possible to fish things later. With that in mind, the run down is 3" PVC, but when it comes time to turn the corner and go up, I upsized the pipe to 4"
I also make sure that all the bell ends are situated for maximum fishing ease.
Witj the conduit in place, it was time to get the hydrant set up.
I built some spacers out of the same 4" PVC that the riser is made from to seperate the hydrant from the riser but still allow it to remain secured to it. I chose PVC because they will be buried and I haven't got any stainless handy.
I was able to use some hose clamps and secure the hydrant right to the riser.
You'll note a 12x12 patio stone at the bottom, this is recommended by the hydrant maker to help support everything. Once in place I poured some river rock around the base to ensure the hydrant drain will not get clogged.
Over top of this I'll toss some chunks of closed cell styrofoam to help insulate as I was only able to dig 5' with my machine and I'm not 100% sure where the frost line is at my place in the winter. The styro will help keep the waterline from freezing.
This picture was taken much earlier in the summer, I neglected to snap a pic before I started. Anyways, the power feed for my house runs right through the center of the two trees, so I strapped them to my pickup and used it to make sure they couldn't fall on my power.
I sure do love having a sturdy work truck I don't mind if a tree falls on. To the burn pile you go!
And here we are, a much more bare yard. It's not what I'd prefer but it's better that a "bear" yard ;)
And that catches me up till now more or less. The pipe and a trip to the hardware store for some other misc was $1500, so that brings me to an even $6k to date on the reno.
First up, some improvements to the second bedroom, here's before, once we got it cleared out of all the stuff in it.
The good friend I've mentioned a couple times in the last couple posts is moving into this room which is why it's getting fixed up right now. Anyways she requested that we remove the doors of the closet as she prefers a curtain and while we were doing that, we opened it up basically all the way to the ceiling to make it larger and easier to access. Also note the current heating run vent location, which is all wrong, it's preferred location is on an exterior wall under a window. That will be corrected before the flooring is installed.
With those holes cored, I lined the smaller one with a chunk of 2" PVC before running my 3/4 poly that will go to my frost free yard hydrant, and ran the 100' of 3" PVC to the treeline
And lastly for this post, I do a bit of old fashioned nature destruction. The property came with a total of 4 apple trees on it, 2 in the middle of the yard, and 2 on the edges. That would be fine, except the previous owner informed me that on any given day in the fall, between 6 and 10 bears are congregating in the yard, climbing the apple trees, having a grand old time. I've lived rural in the past and dealt with bears, they are a pain. They are basically rodents that weigh as much as a car. So in the interest of reducing bear attractants on the property, the trees had to go. I cut one down clearing the way for propane, I took the other one on the edge of the property down as well and I was just left with the two in the back yard.
Until next time friends.
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