#stewartcreeksomethings

Bathroom remodel day 50

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The deadline for the bathroom to be completed is our daughter’s wedding in January 2026. This seems to have become a mantra whispered, sung, stated regularly to ensure I do not forget. It is going to be close! After our grandson’s baptism today, Gingerman helped me get the cabinet into the bathroom.

The first thing I had to do was kill the power and get the outlet attached to the back of the cabinet. Luckily, my measurements were good and the hole lined up with the box on the wall. I was able to get it fit properly in my electric nook. I have another small extension that needs to be plugged in so I have enough plugs for all the various bathroom electric items. I just cannot remember at this point what safe spot I chose nine months ago. I am still in contemplation mode, I have not started tearing apart the mud room or old house yet. I think it’s in the back room of the old house but I am just not sure. We have been moving things around so there is no telling where it is actually located.

I was able to get four countersinked screws in the upper portion while leveling the cabinet. The trim near the wall is going to be painful to get lined up correctly. The wall is slanted and the wooden and tile portion are different thicknesses, I am going to have shape the trim piece to fit into the gap. Annmarie ordered metal hooks Sunday so we can hang hand towels next to the sink. I also think this will cut down on water splashes against the cabinet. I am going to carry the ceiling trim around the top of the cabinet to help incorporate it into the room. I had to bend the trim during removal so I will have to hope I have two more intact pieces out in the cellar. I know there is at least one leftover but I think there may be two. I will need to check that this week so I can order some if needed. I will also need to buy four feet of 4-5 inch oak for the foot and top of the cabinet.

When we turned that cabinet on its side to get it into the bathroom, there is about a 1/4” clearance from the ceiling. If I had made the cabinet any taller we would not have been able to stand it up in the bathroom. I would have had to try and shorten the bottom equally. I am not sure that would have gone smoothly as I would not have torn the cabinet apart again to do that.

I had some more straight run chickens grow up. I had to kill two extra roosters as I only want two. When I went into the coop for eggs tonight I saw one more extra roosters that will need to go. The chickens adjusted to daylight savings time well. They were all in the coop when I went out to get eggs.

Our first 30 bales of small round bales has been eaten by each group of cows. They each got another 15 bales today. The grass is green and the cows were not really interested in the hay. Not a single cow even budged or gave me a sideways glance when I was putting the hay out into the feeders.

I got the second coat of oil onto the $25 sewing cabinet we bought. It turned out really nice, a little Formbsy’s, tung oil and a lot of elbow grease made it a gem.

Bathroom remodel day 49

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Saturday was incredible, the temperature got up to 78.8 F! It is November 1 and it should not be that warm, to compensate the wind gusted up to 38 MPH. It was the perfect day to get the finish on the bathroom cabinet. I rolled on the Tried & True finish then after it sat for 30 minutes I rubbed it all off with a dry lint free rag. Luckily, I was able to run inside and steal three old T-shirts from my drawer as I could not find the lint free rags. I found them about half way through cleaning up the cabinet and they were no longer needed. I want to get the bathroom cabinet installed in the bathroom tomorrow so I can start working on the custom trim. I am going to have to trim it in place to account for the slanted floor and ceiling and walls!

Annmarie had me pick up a sewing end table a few weeks ago. The finish was in very rough shape. I opted to get some Formbsy’s product to help me fix it. So I spent a few hours rubbing the old finish off and getting the new one on. It turned out very nice. I still need to add a second coat of Tung Oil finish tomorrow before I bring it inside the house. I am not sure where it is going to go but that is not my wheelhouse.

The gazebo needs to get done but I am told for the bricks to actually stay in place and me not have to constantly fix it we need to use the compactor on the sand before the bricks are placed. This sounds reasonable as we do own a compactor but it needs to actually run for it to be really effective. Otherwise it is a very heavy obstacle. I tried to get the old O-ring gasket back on and simply could not make it stay in place. Over a decade ago my mother got me a small box of 402 ring gaskets. At the time I was unsure when I would use that, but over the years it has proven to be a lifesaver. It came through again and I went with a slightly larger gasket and was able to stop the fuel leak.

I tried to start it for about 15 minutes before I pulled the spark plug and cleaned it all up. I tried starting it for another 10 minutes. At some point I looked on the front of the machine away from the fuel tank, choke, and spark plug and spotted an off/on switch. I turned it on and was able to get the compactor started 5 minutes later. It died three more times before I could get it to the gazebo but in reality it just needed to warm up. It was running great when I ran it dry in the gazebo. We have been super careful to make sure that no fuel stays in the compactor to prevent any issues with the fuel system. Mr Rainman is coming out next weekend and we are going to try and get the entire gazebo brick floor installed! It is going to be a steep climb but I think it’s possible.

Predators 2/ Farm 7

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On Monday, my mother-in-law called to say that the raccoon was out in her front yard in the tree. It was around 1700 but I was still at work. I called Annmarie and asked her to go up to the house and shoot it. There was much discussion around where was a gun with open sights. The only one we own is an old pre64 lever action 30-30 but she did not want to put lead into the tree in case she missed the raccoon. She ended up taking the HMR17. I could not remember where the bolt action 22LR was located. I thought it was in the closet but the first two rifles she pulled out of the closet was my 30-06 and 243. I knew where the HMR 17 was located. The suppressed 22 pistol would be the best tool but she does not like the pistol, she feels more comfortable with a rifle.

It turns out that by the time she got to the house the raccoon was no longer in the tree. It was in the center of a blackberry bush in the back yard. She killed it in the exact middle of a very large blackberry bush. When I got home late I changed clothes and grabbed a couple of flashlights. I did also take the pistol just in case. I could not reach the raccoon carcass. I tried laying in my belly and crawling into the center of the bush and could not make it in as deep as the raccoon had. I ended up spotting a shovel over by the house and chopped my way into the middle of the bush. From the hole I created I was able to bend down and reach in further with the shovel to remove the carcass.

I did not think the mother-in-law would call about the raccoon but it started to pick on her cats. Once it was caught roughing up her cats, the gloves came off and she was ready for it to disappear permanently.

We have been working on trying to tame down two more cats for our backyard shelf. Luna is over 18 years old and will not last forever. We need two cats to live back there to keep the mice population in check. We are making progress, the cats don’t run at the first sight of us. They will even stay in place while we set out food. Another 1-2 months and I think they will at least be comfortable enough to just sit on the ledge and wait for food. We don’t expect them to be tame enough to touch.

Bathroom remodel day 48

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well it is only day 48 of the main bathroom remodel, but it is week 36! Annmarie tells me I have to have it done before the wedding. It is gonna be close. I need to get the Sheetrock installed and start the mudding process. I am not very good at it and it takes me some time to get it right. Yesterday I really wanted to get the sand spread out in the Gazebo and then compacted down so we could lay bricks. Rainman and I could not get the compactor started and it had a pretty serious fuel leak. I need to get a new float gasket and try again. We ended up moving furniture for the Mother-in-law and then went and got a new sewing cabinet for the wife from MiltonFreewater. It was cheap at $80 but they said it was heavy. They were not kidding, the thing is solid wood and very heavy. We will get rid of the cheap one now.

I started working on cutting shelves for the bathroom cabinet. Unbeknownst to me, I was failing to account for 3/4” from the back piece in my measurements. We had to recut every one of them today so they would fit. At least they were not too short! I used the Kreg tool to install peg holes for two adjustable shelves and another Kreg jig to put in screw holes to attach the boards together. I was going to leave the holes but I found some wooden plugs you can glue in place to make it all neat so I will be doing that. The plugs are ordered. Mr Rainman helped me get it all assembled then we tried to dry fit it into the bathroom. I had to rip out the corner crown molding as the cabinet is about one inch from the ceiling. It is very tall and a ladder will be needed for the top shelf. We were barely able to stand the cabinet upright once we got it into the bathroom. If we had made it 1/2” taller it would not have stood upright. As it was we had to get it square to the wall and ceiling and turn it on the long side to minimize the arch height. Once it was in place we took a level and worked on getting it moved around and level. It will need to have some trim added at the bottom to keep it level. Mr Rainman reminded me we could just screw the cabinet into the wall above the tile once we had it level. This way I could then work on getting the custom trim job in place to cover all of the weirdness. This is a great plan!

I was supposed to get some wider oak today when I went to Home Depot and I forgot it. I did get some stuff to put on the finish and picked up a single chunk of gutter to put over the office/old house porch steps. They had ice build up on them last winter and I don’t want that this year. That will also require another trip to the hardware store as I grabbed a gutter end from the right end box and one from left end box. When I got home and tried to set up all of the gutter I realized that I had two left end pieces.

I was going to stand up the cabinet in the old house and seal all of the surfaces but the ceiling in the old house is too low to stand the cabinet upright. So I will be doing all of the visible sides then turning it over and doing the back. I want to seal all of the surfaces as it will be in the bathroom.

I did drive by and check on the sheep. They look good and are doing well, no issues.

Sheep moved, projects advancing

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I went over to Hermiston and took the pregnant ewes with me. I unloaded them into their temporary pasture and then worked on setting up the electric fence just inside the vinyl fence. The sheep have never been around an electric fence before. It has been years since we used one on our place. I just keep cross fencing the farm so I don’t have to move any chargers or electrical wire around. I had to do the part directly across from the neighboring field first. As soon as the ewes came out of the trailer the herd across the driveway came running over to see what was up. So both herds wanted to stand next to their respective fences. I was afraid the ewes would just hop through the vinyl fence. I got it up and then hooked up the charger and ground wire. I forgot to bring a tester and I really did not want to grab the wire, luckily several ewes tried to scoot closer to the vinyl fence and it was readily apparent that the electricity was on! Before I could get the next section up and energized I had one ewe try three times to get to the vinyl fence. Everyone else had caught on to the consequences and was avoiding the outer edge of the field. I think she got the message after the third shock as she just ambled into the field to be with everyone else and ignored the herd across the driveway.

Winter is coming so I planted a bin full of garlic and looked at tossing the green beans and tomatoes over the fence for the chickens but they are not frozen down yet and I may get one last picking off of each one. My beets I started in the fall are growing but they have some weird brown leaf thing that is stunting them. I am not sure what it is but it is not a bug. I am hopeful we can go another month without a hard lasting freeze so they will continue to grow. I will pick them once the leaves wilt down. I dug up half our potatoes and got almost 20#. We did way better this year by switching bins. Next year we are moving every single type of plant to a different bin. We win also be testing the soil and adding nutrients as needed in the spring. I will dig up the other potatoes in the next 2-4 weeks.

I did disconnect all of our yard and garden hoses. I blew out the lines going to all of our garden and to the lavender plants. By the time I was done we have several piles of hose with 15 hoses total being used. The tree orchard is slanted one direction so I just opened up the drain plugs at the end of each of the three lines.

The Gingerman and I removed the old dishwasher and installed and leveled the new one. I thought this would be a quick process. If you call a solid two hours to remove the old one, clean up the floor, change out the electric cord to the new dishwasher, install the new one, level it and then attach it to the underside of the countertop so it doesn’t rattle around fast then yeah it was quick.

We then set up the table saw and ran all of the bathroom cabinet pieces through it so I could hopefully take some of the wow out of the pieces. It helped. I won’t really know until I start the assembly but now I can actually start the assembly. I will be finding my Kreg tool that lets me drill pilot holes on an angle so I can glue and screw the pieces together.

I hav two main projects left, the gazebo floor and the greenhouse. It’s a race now to see what gets done.

I did finally capitulate and find a varmint rifle for the tractor. I needed something that could just be beat up. I ended up getting a single action break open 243, one shot with a Vortex scope and synthetic stock. I have a waterproof ammo carrier on the stock of the rifle. The entire setup was around $500. Now I just need to weld the holder onto the tractor and get it mounted. I bent one of the bucket support arms a couple of years ago and kept it thinking I may have a use for it in the future. I am going to cut it in 14” lengths, weld them straight up the arms of the bucket and put a piece of angle iron across the top. This way I can bolt the rifle holder directly to that angle iron. We will see how well it all rides soon.