The plan for Saturday morning was to tag and band the calves. The Gingerman was going to help me but Mother Nature interceded by dropping 4/10” of rain. I did not want to wrestle the calves in the mud, that sounded like a disaster in the making. Instead I made pancakes for breakfast, fresh blackberry compote and leftover prime rib bites for breakfast. I have been able to get two new lockable pistol storage areas setup. Annmarie is determined that I have all the firearms secure by the time the grand baby is born.
Instead of working the animals I went into the old house and worked on my man cave room! Two of the walls already have insulation and outlets installed. The outside wall and the separating wall to the front room need to be insulated. I think I have some extra insulation up in the attic area that can be brought down to go into the walls. I am trying to keep the costs way down for this room. I am going to use a tarp to cover the entire ceiling. This will keep the dust from falling through the boards and down onto whomever is below. I will caulk the outside cracks to limit the amount of water that gets into the wall. I was able to get about 80% of the boards ripped off the wall. I wanted them off before going under the house and jacking up the middle of the house. The outside door sags by almost an inch and the inside door needs to be widened but it also has a heck of a slant. I want to get that slant out by jacking up the house instead of just squaring the door frame in a crooked opening.
I have an entire unit of 8”x 8’ one inch boards. I will be using them on the walls. I want to do the uncovered walls first and hopefully I can do all four walls so they match. Otherwise, I will just leave the other two walls with the old shiplap. I may even use a cloth tarp for the walls. I did find the light I wanted, it has a built in fan so I can hopefully keep it cool in the summer. I already ordered a metal cabinet for my reloading supplies. I need to find all of them and get them into one location. My plan is to setup one wall/corner as a reloading area and to set up the opposite corner as a jewelry working station. I will put in a small torch and an exhaust fan plus a brick area to do some soldering. I will keep the reloading supplies inside a metal cabinet so the small open flame will not be an issue.
I just need a new/used outside door and internal air tight door. I am going to try and salvage the old window. I will need to make a couple of work benches but I have quite a bit of leftover plywood scraps and some bent/warped cheap 2×4 that once cut down they will be straight enough. I think I want to install the worktops as free floating so there are no legs on them. This will make it easier to set up the presses without worrying if a stool will fit underneath it. I like to work on the corner of the bench. I will have to put some overhead shelves up also. I will just put clear plastic lidded bins up on those. That way I can easily see what is in them. I figure I can create a brass section, shotgun casings, wads, and abrasive types sections on the shelves. I am still trying to figure out where I stashed the reloader. I think it’s in the attic but it may take me a week of tearing apart every storage area to find it. I had not reloaded anything in decades and I had forgotten that a pound of powder only gets you about 100-200 rifle rounds depending on the caliber.
The only bad part about demolition is you have to get all of the demo out of the area and get the area all cleaned up before you can begin to build it back up. That is my least favorite part of any project.
Stewart Creek Somethings 