Trailer Repairs - 1D, 2B, 3A - Several Things

The upper kitchen cupboard should now stay where it belongs, and have adequate support. The trim strip that is above the window is now doubled up so that the back edge of the cupboard rests on it. The only issues with this fix were finding the same kind of molding (not stored with all the others at the store, and it took me two trips to find it), and buying some additional screws because the extra layer then added 1/4 inch to the distance to reach wood.

Cathy came over and we got the last piece of foam insulation in place. That was definitely a two-person job just because of the size of the flappy thing.

Then I was able to replace the vent trim.

And I worked on getting the new, dimmable light installed. The wiring diagram that came with it was wonky, so I had an electrician friend tell me what I should actually do. Of course the wires on the fixture were too short, so I had to extend all of those by a few inches to have enough to work with. It took forever to find several of the items I needed to make this happen. OK, not forever, but it seems like I spend more time walking back and forth to the house than it takes to actually fix the item.

You can see that it is lit up, and the dimmer switch does work properly. However, by then it was nearly 5 pm, and my neck was stiff from working at the funky angle. The wires were being a pill to get stuffed back up out of the way, so I decided to finish this another day.

And, I had clothes on the line. It was warm and windy, so I got one more outside drying day, and I had to get those taken in.

The other trailer project that is now finished was to replace the electric port on the back. I don't know why I didn't do this as part of the initial project. The plastic was old and brittle, and the door broke off sometime during this last year. Here's the hole with the old port removed.

The new one fits the hole just fine, but the flange is larger, so I had to drill new holes. Actually, I'm glad it's larger because that way you can't tell that I didn't remove this before I painted. Funny story about putting in the pop rivets. A number of years ago, I bought a nice pop rivet tool because our old one was a piece of crap. However, the new one seems to be made for someone with monster hands. I was unable to get my hand to span the two handles and squeeze them to install the new rivets. Cathy and I did it together and were able to squeeze them enough until the rivets popped. I had exactly three rivets of the size I needed. So I dodged yet another trip to the store, for now.

It was a glorious day! The morning started with the "red sky, sailor take warning." The forecast says we may get some rain tonight, but it's hard to believe how lovely it was for mid-November.

I didn't get all the stuff on the porch put away because I spent so much time on the trailer, but I did do the most annoying one- had to take everything out of the car to put the jumper cables away.

Every time I am able to work on projects long into November, I am reminded of the year when I took out the entire wall of our enclosed porch on the old house and rebuilt it in November- some year- maybe around 1980? Maybe earlier. We might not have had the boys yet. Doesn't matter.

I also did work for a client in the morning and the load of laundry. No writing happened, but I needed to take advantage of the nice day to do these jobs.

See Insulation