Stupidity strikes again

 Well  I had one blissful day of nothing broken or needing to be repaired then stupidity struck. I had backed my little GEO Metro (my 46 MPG, 20 year old car) out of the garage, shut the motor off and put it into gear so that I could close the barn door. As I blissfully pulled the barn door down Anna started to sound the horn of the other car she was driving… it seems that old Rusty had decided to go “walk about” and was rolling backwards down the driveway. Luckily… (and I say that tongue in cheek), the wheels were turned just a bit and instead of rolling backwards all of the way down the driveway and into the neighbors car, it turned and rolled in a circle over the edge and into an oak tree (as if that is good news). Well, it destroyed the back hatch and bumper and pushed in the rear body. It took me 3 days to disassemble the car, pull out the body, find used parts and rebuild the car. Now, old Rusty is back on the road almost good as new. Moral of the story, always set the emergency brake.

shattered the back glass

Pushed the body is too

I used a come-a-long and a big hammer to pull the body back out. 

This rusted hatch is temporary until I get the replacement painted up.

Keys

 

Just a short little entry, have you ever moved and a year later as you are still unpacking you come across something that boggles your mind as to why you are keeping it? Anna pulled out a can that was chock full of keys… what they ever went to is a good question. If your missing any and would like to try one of these come on up to the lake house!

The last job

 

This summer has been filled with contracting work and now that September is here I’m finally doing the last job, rebuilding a brick wall under a bay window. The home owner must be scraping the bottom of the barrel as far a brick layers go in hiring me but I told him that I’d give it my best shot. The wall had been open at the top for several years and we didn’t know what we would find behind the wall once we tore it down. Luckily, when it came apart, the water damage was minimal and it only required a new inner OSB wall to be installed. After cleaning the good serviceable bricks, I went to work building a new wall. We decided to change the style of the wall a bit by making it a continuous curve instead of 5 segments and we had a bit of trouble finding exact replacement bricks so, the look of the wall is slightly different than original. Everything  went well with rebuilding the new wall and with the addition of the top sill, the wall was completed .Overall, it looks pretty good… I’d say this is a “25 foot” wall, that is, it looks great if your more than 25 feet away! The best thing is that it’s solid and should last for many years to come.

The top of the sill had fallen off and the top course of brick was also falling off.

Behind the brick was water soaked fiber board.

I replaced the fiber board with OSB

Half of the wall is done

Ta Da! 

The top sill is in place, Not quite professional level work but I think, better than amature work.