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Monday, June 29, 2020

"Wind Event"

Yesterday was an interesting day. The Las Vegas valley had a Wind Event. Bill took his wind meter outside and it measured the wind between 47 - 51 sustained. Gusts higher. A couple of videos I took.
So much dust in the air can hardly see the hills. 
I woke up about 4:00 this morning -it sounded like something was in the house. A loud scratching noise. OMG my thought immediately went to the hole in the kitchen floor. I imagined a raccoon had come inside. So I carefully got up and explored the house. Nothing inside. So opened the door that goes to our "front" yard. I could barely hang on to the screen the wind was so bad. This was taken in the afternoon, but the wind was even worse at 4:00 a.m. - the noise was the bougainvilleas blowing against the side of the house. 
This morning the weather front has blown through and the wind is just a breeze.
And today we will freeze - high temperature is supposed to be below 90! Though the AC just came on and it is only 11:30. It is set at 84...
The owner of the restoration company came by this morning to write up the estimate for the insurance company. We should hear from the adjuster tomorrow afternoon or the next day. Then we'll get an idea of what has to be done. 
This is a picture I nabbed off the TV - it was taken by a professional photographer  yesterday evening - his name is on the photo. Anyway the mountain, Mount Charleston,  is on fire. So far no control. At least the temps are down and so is the wind. So hopefully they will be able to get it taken care of before it spreads too much
I spent most of yesterday watching NASCAR races. Only to stop watching after my driver's car was wrecked. He finally had a fast and good car then SMASH. Oh well. 
Did some more work on my lady. Stopped when I cut the pieces for the obe WRONG THREE times. [Finally got them cut right this morning.] Then there will be a lot of small detail sewing and other work to do.  
 Bill got up early enough to get a photo of the sunrise. There is smoke and dust in the air. 
Have worked off and on on my Lady - she is one of a set of three. Have started to cut the kimono for the second one. [I'm thinking they would make beautiful stained glass pieces.] Took care of some bill paying and other house business. Not much else. It is getting to be very easy to do nothing.

Friday, June 26, 2020

What a difference a day makes.

It is still hot here in Vegas but at least there has been some improvement with the mess. 
I got tired of some of it and did clear off the dining room table. Nothing got put away it is just cluttering up another area. But makes me feel better to see the table. And the trash can is now back in the kitchen. 
 Yesterday afternoon we got a call that we could shut the fans and dehumidifiers off. Oh thank you. Another day and we'd both be deaf. 
 An okay sunset.
 More of same sunset. 
 After shutting the fans off Bill stacked them out of the way. 
OH YES - they came this morning to pick the machines up! And tapped all the raw edges to hopefully prevent one of us from breaking a toe. 
 Covered big hole in kitchen floor. I was wondering if any animals ever got under the house - hate to see a raccoon pop his head up there. 
 The little room. All the flooring has to come up eventually. Monday the adjuster is coming over to inspect and decide what will get done. 
While here they hooked stove back up and shoved the dishwasher back into its hole. We can live with this. The RV is back in its parking spot. 
But we have been keeping busy, more or less. Bill dug out our old light box so I could trace the pattern pieces for my lady without taping her to the patio doors for light. Much easier now. 
This is what she looked like when I pulled her out of a drawer. I'd started working on her a long time ago and had really made a mess. So spent some time pulling off all the old material. I think I used the smallest stitch on the sewing machine to do them. 
Here she is with all the bad stuff taken off. 
 And here she is now. Lots more to do. And several of the red pieces are just laying on the block, not on permanent yet. This time I'm using  a fusing material, not the sewing machine. 
And Bill has been keeping really busy as well.
 The material around the faces is dyed leather. We got the raw leather years ago in Mexico. To mold it around the heads it has to be wet then slowly dried. 
I like this one.  

One of these days we'll have to open a shop or on line store. Or our kids will kill us if we leave all of this stuff to them to sort out. 
And that is about it. This weekend there are four NASCAR races for me to watch and two soccer games for both of us. 

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Wednesday morning in the house.

And so another day starts.  Kind of a good news - bad news time lately. 
The good news yesterday was our auto insurance sent us $50 cause of the virus. The doctor where Bill had his cataracts done a couple of years ago sent us a letter that they over billed us - so we got $260 back from them. And then I called the Home Warranty people and complained about the plumbers estimate to fix something that was not wrong and they told me to send them something from the company that discovered the LEAK and we would get our $75 copay back. Then of course comes the mess we are living in. 
Yesterday after the workers left - we developed a problem. Half of the house shorted out. No lights in bathrooms, kitchen and dining room. That also meant no stove - it is unhooked and no microwave. But it also shut off some of the fans and dehumidifiers so most of the noise was gone. There are 12 fans and 2 dehumidifiers working right now. (Yes they came over here this morning and rerouted some of the fans and flipped one of the main breakers back on. 
So last night was a mixed bag. The noise level was down - only a couple of fans working. But no way to fix anything warm to eat. So about 8:00 we went over and brought the RV here to the house. Bill fixed himself something to eat out there. 
These fans will be running until sometime tomorrow or Friday...again turn your sound on. To watch it full screen click here
 
So here are some pictures from the house. 

Great! This is our laundry room. The cabinets there have to come out.

My sewing room - not going to be doing much in there for a while. 

The stove is unplugged and unhooked from gas. No cooking for a while.

All the lovely fans waiting to be put to use. 

Laundry room without sink cabinet. 

Laundry room without cabinets. 

Cleaning up debris.

Cabinet in hallway is gone and wall has been cut away to get to the inside.

Cutting away more wall board. 

Removed part of kitchen cabinets. 

At least they just had to remove a drawer here. 

All the base plates removed from rest of kitchen cabinets. 

Right outside the computer room door. 
Looks like the big green one had babies. Gives me the impression of a bunch of spiders. ICK.
Hole in the floor where the refrig used to be. The fans are multiplying. 

Dishwasher pulled out, stove unhooked. Refrigerator in living room. Oh yes, and no cold water in the kitchen sink. When they shut off water to ice maker hose they also shut water off to kitchen sink! And it just gets more fun. 
Only thing we use in kitchen that is still working is the coffee pot - 
 small blessings. It and the toaster are plugged into the ONLY plug that still works. 
As I'm sitting here writing this something just popped and half the machines stopped running. We've already had the guys here this morning to rearrange the machines. I'm just afraid they might start a fire. This is an old house with old wiring. 
Almost forgot to mention - all the toilet paper, paper towels and Kleenex we just bought were under the sink in laundry room. They are now in the trash. Soaking wet - of course, why not!

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Summer is here!

And things just keep getting better...
So here is what we are dealing with now in Vegas. Yesterday was hot today will be hotter. At least the heat and low humidity is helping drying the floor out. 
Got up just before 5 o'clock the morning. it was already 86 out.
8 o'clock now and the workers are back. Thank goodness the first thing they did was shut off the fans and dehumidifier.  Silence is great.  Now they are ripping up more flooring. 
I finally finished that puzzle - now I am out of any more new ones.  will have to re do some of the older ones. 
A closer look at a very small area. 
I did find a place for my Japanese Lady. I have a collection of Chinese and Japanese pictures and items in one corner of the bedroom. Just rearranged a few things and there she is. 
Bill continues too work on his wood spirits. Eventually we'll have to get a web site up or go on e-bay or Esty to get rid of everything. but not while we are still traveling. 
At least he is keeping busy and happy. 
Of course right now he is "supervising" the workers. They all speak Spanish, so I really don't know what is going on.  But they had him empty a cupboard in the hall and the big one under the sink in the laundry room. Lovely.  Will take pictures as they go along. Bill also just told me it might be up to three weeks before everything is finished. 
I've started a new project too - but won't be able to work on it for a while as the whole sewing room is full of stuff from other rooms. Actually I started it before we moved to Indiana about 11/12 years ago. It is a set of three ladies.  No I don't know what I'll do with them if I ever finish them. This one now has the paper patterns on it.

We talked to the property manager where we live and they are going to let us keep the RV in front our home for three days. By then the floors and everything should be dry and the stove hooked back up and no fans running all night. We'll see how much reno we can stand - This way we don't have to load the RV with anything but ourselves. Can not stand another night of the fans. Also now the stove is not hooked up either. But refrig is in living room and running. Between that and microwave we should be fine. 
This is turning into a major repair. Two cabinets have been removed, there is NO FLOOR where the refrigerator used to be. And all the fans have blown our power in a couple of rooms. 
So...there we are.

Monday, June 22, 2020

Twas a lovely day today!

Today had its highs and lows.  Over the weekend we noticed that our flooring in the kitchen was pouching up at some of the seams. Hum...when I pushed on one pouch - technical term - water came out!
By this morning. 
OH OH!  Every time we looked another seam was getting loose. So this morning bright and early I called our home owners insurance. No problem they would have someone out in a couple of hours. [By this morning the seams in the hallway were coming up too.] I told them we probably had a leak in the pipes under the house. Remember we live in a "manufactured" home - a nice name for double wide trailer. So our pipes run right under our floors - above ground. First second thing she told me was - we don't cover plumbing problems but we will take care of the flooring.  Okay - so I called our home warranty insurance. Yes! they would take care of the plumbing part - $75 to plumber when he walks in door. Worked for me. Plumber showed up in about an hour. Spent time under house then came in and told us. Nope, the warranty wouldn't cover it as we need a whole new main hot water line. From back of house to front. About $1800.  Wow.  Guess we'd get another estimate.
About then the contractors from the home owner's insurance showed up. They went under house. No puddles, no wet pipes dripping. Hum...So they started ripping up flooring. Puddles under the flooring. Soaking wet stuff under the flooring and soaking wet plywood base floor.

See how wet the subfloor is. The felt was sopping wet. 
The kitchen after removing the vinyl flooring. See the puddle, the ugly linoleum is the very old stuff that was under the wood look flooring.  Their handy dandy water detector machine was showing a concentration of water by the refrigerator. So next step - move refrigerator.
 And here is its new home in the living room.
 And guess what they found behind the refrigerator?...An old connection hose for an ice maker - we do not have an ice maker - it was never disconnected removed from under sink when the refrigerator was put in just before we moved in. And the plastic finally rotted through. A steady stream of water was coming out of it. One of the workers looked under the kitchen sink and shut off the valve to the hose. Voila - no more leak. The end of the hose was way back against the wall, down in the teeny tinny grove between flooring and wall. So the water didn't run out from under the refrigerator it got down under the flooring and spread all over the place. 
Lots of big fans and a dehumidifier. Thank goodness it is also hot and dry here.
Mean while this is what we are living with. Turn on your sound.

To view full screen click here. 
So tomorrow should be interesting too. At least we get a new floor. Sure glad we didn't tell the plumber to go to work. Hopefully we can sleep with the noise of the fans etc.