I'm Back guys

[Dan Wilson]

Well I'm back on the internet finally!!
Been busy living the fred flintstone lifestyle for the last couple of months but finally have electricity, well is finally pumping water, phone and today internet - sweeeeet.

Will have to say that I wont be spending a whole bunch of time on the net for the next month or so, trying to get at much done as I can before the snow flies , but I love this old haunted house, its a whole bag of fun tearing it apart to rebuild. I just wish they had used plaster for repairs instead of CEMENT !!!

I use the broad end of the matox to knock the plaster off but when you get to the cement and stucco lath you need to use the pick end and swing for all your worth - grrrr.

My email is now on my server and you can get me at dan_wilson@militarybeltfed.com (mods, I know the dangers of posting my email, but I can handle any problems so please leave it in the post).

Hopefully in a month I will have the time to start working posting my pics again if y'all want to see them again.

Its great to be back, I did miss you guys, the grumpy ones and all LOL

Dan

[tmark]

Glad you're back in the saddle. I enjoy and learn from your contributions to CSP. Thanks for the post.

[da gimp]

We're redoing our old Victorian, it's guest house & out buildings too, this year, retrussed, re sheathed & re shingled the carriage house/garage, repaired the guest house roof & resheathed & reshingled the potting shed. If I can scrape up the bucks, replace the bathroom floor in one of the guest house bathrooms, new toilet & rebuild the front porch of the main house. 100 year old plus houses are works in progress, you never get em done, just caught up & for a bit the wife doesn't want something else redone.

I've found it helped to suggest selling her china & crystal for cash when she talked about new cabinents in the kitchen, that project has never been re discussed after that.

Love the old mill work & the space though.Looking forward to more pix when you feel caught up.

da gimp

[Deano41]

Welcome back Dan. I'm looking forward to the pictures!

[dryheat]

Hell, Da Gimp, I'd like to see pics of YOUR place. A potting shed-I don't even know what that is.
Everytime I see(and i've seen a few) X cops building mansions, I think, evidence locker. Sorry, that's what comes to mind.

[da gimp]

If the dern thing hadn't needed so much work & rehab we would never have been able to afford it. I returned to union construction work in 86, and had a net paycheck in my 1st week back that exceded my gross monthly check as a deputy.

I have the privelege of working with & knowing a fellow LEO that turned down an offer over $100,000 in cash & several lbs of dope after he stopped a guy for speeding/careless driving. Instead of letting him go, he arrested him. Kent is one helluva fine officer. I'd fixed his old Rem 1100 bird gun the year before, because he couldn't afford to take it to a gunsmith for an extractor & rubber O ring. He was dirt poor & still did the right thing.

A potting shed is a building that the wife keeps her yard & garden tools in, and can repot her flowers & start new plants from seeds or cuttings, she lets me keep my mower & Echo pole saw in it too, if I'm polite. Hers is10' by 24', another relic of the Victorian era.

There is an added 1 car garage built on the house (hers) & the old carriage house/big garage is my man cave & if I get it cleaned out, where I'll park my old car in winter.We built a dog kennel along 1 side of it & put in an insulated dog house inside the garage for my old bird dog.

I got tired of seeing my wife do without getting her hair done @ the beauty parlor & being able to only buy clothes @ yard sales, just because I loved my job.

I started working HazMat, asbestos & lead remediation/abatement in 86, it wasn't unusual to have a 60 to 90 hour paycheck, with a lot of time & a half & double time hours on it. If you saw guys in spacesuits & respirators working a HazMat accident on TV, chances are you saw me @ work back then, retired in 99-2000, from cancer & a cervical spine injury.

There are only a handful of EPA Superfund Jobs here in the states that I didn't work on, as a grunt laborer/field tech, foreman or superintendant/supervisor.

Envious of our paychecks? Get the training & come play with our guys, if you can hack it. On one job we went through over 400 guys before we found 40 that were competent, safe & wanted to work.

Added note dryheat, out of the 10 guys on my old crew working HazMat/asbestos 5 of us have or had cancer. Now tell me that we made too much money.


da gimp

[TomSudz]

Dan, it's great to have you back!! I'm in the same boat with the plaster repairs. We're turning a double block built in the 1890's into a single home- it's a treat, nothing plumb, square, or level! I put the original builders wedding picture from 1895 over the fireplace in the front room.

[da gimp]

Have you learned how to skim coat with 20 minute mud yet? Fun huh. Had to skim coat a chimney covered in concrete in Her Kitchen, because She wanted it the same color & appearance of the rest of the wall.You learn to be very quick, the 1st time.

The heir we bought ours from, left all the little notes & diaries her mom had made for her on how to run everything in the house. When her mom got in her mid 90's she wrote notes in light pencil on the walls showing where plumbing stacks were & how to oil the water pump on the boiler etc.

Don't ever put sheetrock on a wall that was plaster & lath built in the late 1800's early 1900's, as you said, nothing is plumb or square, until the guy plastering it made it that way.

da gimp

[John Sukey]

Speaking of dope, yesterday the cops scored TWO TONS. OH yeah, Janet, "da border be secure" Just as STUPID as "the system worked"
November 2nd can't come soon enough!

[phil441]

Dan welcome back!
I assume you tackled the smokehouse first?
Seriously tho, really looking forward to the before and after pics.
Keep us posted.

Phil