BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Elizabeth Taylor ain’t got nothin’ on the Evil Redhead…

Seriously.

E K is way hotter than E T ever was, and way more evil.  By several orders of magnitude on both accounts… And, she’s really a Kat. So there…

Yeah, so obviously this is a bit of a play on words and all, but since I’ve also been babbling in my status updates about helping Scuba with a roof job he has, I thought perhaps I’d give y’all a bit more info.

Especially since I’ve only recently discovered the fact that E K didn’t leave her evilness on the ground when she went up that ladder…

Day 1 – Tearoff…

I didn’t arrive at the site of the roofing job until late morning because there was a furnace issue at Hell House I had to address. By the time I made it to the roof, tearoff was in full swing. Here you can see her supreme evilness shoveling old shingles in the direction of the dumpster below (out of frame)… I later found out that she was covering up the bodies of those who had been in her way while doing the tearoff. It seems she would simply lure them to the edge of the roof, then hit them in the back of the head with the shovel and push them off into the dumpster. Then, like a cat in a litter box, used the old shingles to cover up the… Well, you get the idea.

BTW, the reasons you will see no pictures of me on the roof –

1. Due to a severely injured foot (long story) E K forbade me from being up there lest I fall off and kill myself. At first I thought this was kind of heartwarming, but she later told me that she simply didn’t have time to break in a new lackey.
2. I was afraid E K would hit ME in the back of the head with a shovel and push me off into the dumpster. I mean, you never know…

Here we have a shot of the Dewalt Boom Box / Battery Charger that goes everywhere Scuba goes. Much grumbling came from the kids on the crew – those E K hadn’t yet pushed off into the dumpster, anyway – because all of us old farts had the toonage set to classic rock from our era.  And, of course, there you have the redheaded roof mistress on the right…

This is a picture of what we on the ground (working cleanup and cut crew) thought was E K helping Scuba with the shingles. Of course, we later found out she was threatening to hit him with a shovel if he didn’t get on the ball. What a slave driver she is…

Here is the Evil Redhead once again. Turns out that this time she was threatening to kick the ladder over if Scuba didn’t hurry up and move faster…

Okay, okay… So, she didn’t really push anyone into the dumpster and she didn’t threaten to kick over the ladder. However, she still didn’t check her dominant self at the door.

During the job, on several occasions Scuba would say, “I’m done. Let’s call it a day,” whereupon he would find something else to do and start in on it. After the fourth or fifth time he did this, E K put her hands on her hips and announced, “Steve, you’re done! Get down off the roof. NOW!”

Yep, he did what she told him to do. Even Scuba knows it’s best to obey the Evil Redhead… Besides, she still had a shovel up there with her and there was room in the dumpster.

More to come…

Murv

Since the Hell House saga has not yet come to an end, and I keep tossing status comments out there referencing such, I thought it might be a good idea to give y’all an update. Obviously, if you are a first time visitor here you probably have no clue what I am talking about, so to get caught up you will need to tweak the dials on the wayback machine and read the previous entries, Hell House Week 1 and Hell House Week 2…

And now, on with the update…

Holey Walls, Batman!

When last we left our intrepid laborers, Scuba and Swervin’, many things had been done, but many were still left for the doing. Among them was a gargantuan hole in the wall as seen at the end of Hell House Week 2.

After cutting back the drywall to square things up, and installing nailers, I hung a partial sheet of rock to patch the hole, then taped, mudded, and skim coated the wall. Once I finished sanding, the results were perfectly lovely.

The incoming tenants slapped a couple of coats of paint onto the wall and everything was just like new again. I’m sure a pro drywall guy would have accomplished what I did in less than half the time, but hey, it looks good and it’s done.

Then the rains came…

As with any other autumn in the midwest, the fall rainy season was upon us. Truth is, Scuba and I had been looking forward to this because we wanted to see our handiwork in operation – that being the basement stairs and drainage system, including the 20 gallon sump well and piping.

Much to our delight, it worked flawlessly. We couldn’t have planned it better even if we knew what we were doing (LOL). Unfortunately, I was unable to get a picture of it in operation, but suffice it to say, the pump move quite a bit of water and the basement is staying dry for a change. We’ve recently discovered a small leak along the West side of the house, but that is due to a separation between the walk and the foundation. We’ve already purchased the materials to repair it and are just waiting for it to be dry enough to affect said repair.

The picture above, while obviously NOT the pump in operation, is of Scuba making some repairs to the gutters. We discovered during the rain that one of the longer runs had separated from the fascia and was sagging, causing the water to pool and overspill. Once Scuba Steve had a talk with it, it straightened up and started draining properly. While on the roof, he also replaced the flashing around the vent pipes since it was shot.

I thought we were done with the concrete?

It seems that where concrete work is concerned, Hell House is the gift that keeps on giving.

Part of the evidence of the gutter problem was the fact that during heavy rains the water would overshoot the sagging gutter as it ran down the valley between the main section of the house and the addition. Over time it had eroded the corner from the back stairs leading from the kitchen to the patio. Other than that the stairs were in great shape, so instead of taking them out entirely, Scuba and I drilled, pinned, formed, and concreted the corner. It’s now pretty as a picture and solid as a rock.

Building the “Great Wall”…

One of the projects we wanted to accomplish was putting in some walls in the basement. Nothing fancy, just yet… Primarily, we wanted to create a lockable storage area where I could house some of the tools and materials we were using on the repairs. We also wanted to enclose the Furnace and Water Heater in a “Mechanical Room” so that they weren’t sticking out like a sore thumb if we eventually decide to re-finish the basement. As it happens, Scuba had a slew of metal studs in his personal warehouse – what we like to call “The Happy Shed” – so we were in business. All we needed was the track and something to attach to the studs once they were in place. A quick trip to the hardware store and we were ready to roll.

The Great Wall takes shape…

Since the this really qualifies as not quite finished where basements are concerned, we elected to go with a wall covering that would be sturdy and accomplish what we had set out to do, but not necessarily be “pretty” – kind of like drywall that hasn’t been painted or wallpapered just yet. So, we used ply. This allowed us to put up walls and provides us with a base should we eventually want to finish with paneling or tongue and groove stock of some sort.

From this angle you can see the doorway to the storage area along with the door already in place.

Here we have a different angle, taken from the far end of the basement. On the left is the doorway to the storage area.

On the right you can see the doorway to the mechanical room. We are going to put some storage shelves in there and hang a door as well. In order to keep costs down we have been using recycled materials from the house itself, as well as many gems donated by Scuba from the “Happy Shed”…

Gotta love the Happy Shed… I’m just sayin’…

In the foreground you can seem my pool table. There is a rich history behind this 3 piece slate table – in short, I purchased it for the paltry sum of $500 back when I was 19 years old. A former High School teacher had retired and was moving to Hawaii. He had purchased the table new and had played all of 10 games on it. Not wanting to pay the price to move it overseas, he decided to sell it and I stumbled upon the deal. My father and I moved it, set it up, and played many a game on it. Unfortunately, when I moved out I had no place to put it, so I left it there for the time being. That’s been way more than 20 years now, of course. Long story short, much damage was done to the table over the years, so Scuba and I, along with some help from the new tenants, moved it, repaired it, and recovered the deck and rails with new felt.

Not only is it pretty again, it plays great…

A closeup shot of the mechanical room. Out of sight, but with plenty of room to affect repairs and even store some things…

And finally, not wanting to waste space, Scuba and I took advantage of the area behind the Mechanical Room and installed a small closet on the left – door and shelves forthcoming – as well as a small platform on the right where we flush mounted a bar fridge my father had stored at the house. The perfect place to keep a few cold ones for “Beer Thirty”… Especially since my knees are having trouble with stairs these days…

Okay, that’s it for now. More updates on Hell House when we create more havoc over there… As I said, it’s the gift that keeps on giving, and there will be plenty more work, that’s a given…

More to come…

Murv