Removed brick from over the door

I had planned on handling this after the bathroom was done, but I was running out of sheet rock joint compound (mud) and got the idea to do it now before the compound was gone.   I had gone through almost all of my 48 lb box of mud.  When I visited my brother this past Winter we tossed out a partial box of mud from when I mudded mom's house three years ago after she died.  Now I wished I had saved that box and brought it to Montana.

Initially I thought I may have enough mud to seal the joint from above the doorway so I decided to replace the brick with sheet rock.  After I was done and began mudding again I found out I was nowhere close to having enough mud to finish everything.  I had to go and buy another box of sheet rock compound.  For sure I will have a a lot left over.  Darn.

Anyway, here are the photos from my doorway work.

Photo 1 is before anything was started on the bathroom.
Photo 2 is today's look.  Yes, the double oven and small electric heater next to it are gone and a pantry is roughed in.  And Snow White and the swinging door have been banished by Tammy.

Ah, yes.  Fake brick. After 47 years it has outlived its usefulness.  But not all of it is going (now).  On the left side (with the gold circle decoration covering a hole) is the backside of the fireplace chimney.  The fake brick will remain here for now as I want to try to limit the current remodel to the bathroom and its immediate outside wall.

But where to end the brick?  Initially I left it above the doorway.  But as I was mudding the pantry wall I took another look.  Ending the brick above the doorway doesn't look good.  I was back in the demolition business.

As usual during this remodel I found two 1" by 6" boards under the brick. Very old and dry wood as I believe this was wood from the original 1941 build. They were even with the door sill so they had to go so I could replace them with sheet rock.  I carefully cut the boards and removed them.  I was careful as the boards also went behind the remaining brick by 1 1/2 inches.

I was also careful so as not to repeat the mistake back when we removed the wall around the double oven.  There were two 2 by 4 boards at the top of the wall and Curt said to cut the bottom one.  I did.  Then we found that board was the top of the wall frame.  The 2 by 4 on top of that one was an extra board the ceiling wood met up to.  Ooops.

The opening, and the backside of the boards on the other side of the door way.  The 2 by 4 at the top is the continuation of the 2 by 4 we mistakenly cut earlier from the double oven part of the wall.   If we hadn't cut that section of the 2 by 4 maybe the new pantry wall would have lined up better.

I'm not sure why the previous builder had a piece of cardboard attached to the stud.

My problem was the board that is the top of the door sill stuck an inch past the stud. The boards I had removed were true one inch thick boards. (Just as the 2 x 4s in the old house are true 2 inch by 4 inch boards.)

And... the pantry wall that Curt and Larry built to replace the former oven wall stuck out an additional quarter of an inch past the doorway sill.  The new wall was not even with the sill, nor was it a half inch beyond the sill to account for sheet rock, but a quarter inch beyond.  *sigh*  Nothing is ever easy.

And I had only one piece of half inch sheet rock left.  I know I had said that about the bathroom window, but that was a larger size.

How do I make everything even, especially when I have two sizes (1 inch and 1 1/4 inch) to handle?

First I solved the inch problem when I found a half inch size board from my scrap wood pile.  That, and the half inch sheet rock, solved the 1 inch door sill problem.

Now... what to do about my final quarter inch problem?  Well... this is why one doesn't throw all the old wood away.  The original bathroom sheet rock was a quarter inch thick.  A couple of the larger pieces I had carefully removed were still usable.  From one of those pieces I was able to cut a piece I needed. 

Ta da!    (when its all painted it will look better).

I know they don't look even but that may be because one piece of sheet rock is painted and the other is not.

Of course this design problem solving took me some time so don't get on my case as to why I'm not done with the bathroom yet. 


A bonus photo.  The wood and nail may be 71 years old, but - look! - no rust on the nail.  The nail looks as new as the day it was pounded into the board.

Bathroom window

"She Came In Through The Bathroom Window"

That ain't going to happen at my place.  My bathroom window is history.

Years ago the bathroom used to be in the corner of the house.  Then the mud room and the bedrooms were added and the bathroom became an interior room.   The window now was to the master bedroom.  I didn't mind as the glass couldn't be seen through and the window provided natural light into the bathroom.  Other people, including Tammy, weren't thrilled with a bathroom window to the bedroom.

So the bathroom window went by the wayside.  Here are views before and after.

The 1" by 10" layer of boards around the window has been removed.  But the other walls give you an idea of what the wood looked like.

The same wall today:

No window.   :-(

On the bedroom side this is what I had to deal with.

From right to left:

• stud
• A one inch board
• Quarter inch sheet rock
• A thin (1/8 inch) layer of plaster
• bedroom wall

This all added up to a little over an inch and a quarter to the studs.  My new sheet rock was a half inch thick.   I needed the new sheet rock to align evenly with the old sheet rock making up the rest of the wall.

I also had to frame the window opening so I could nail the edges of my sheet rock.  Apparently when Curt and Larry cut out the old window that frame went with the window.

I build my frame against the old studs and placed the frame so it was a half inch from the edge of the old sheet rock.

I had only one piece left of sheet rock this size and I measured many times before and while cutting it.  The opening was roughly 27 inches by 34 inches.  The sheet rock piece before I cut it was 28 inches by 39 inches.  So I barely had one piece that would fit.

I still have to sand the mud and put a final coat of mud on the wall as the lower left side is still not completely flush.

Temporary bachelor

Tammy is in Minnesota visiting her kids for the Memorial Day holiday.  And her youngest child is graduating from high school.  So I am on my own - back to being a bachelor.  I have to make my own meals once again.  Saturday night I cooked venison steak, corn on the cob, and mashed potatoes.  Yum!

Debris pile

Since I am past the major construction phase and past the phase of putting in sheet rock, etc., I cleaned up my debris pile.

The following photo shows the debris pile from the first day my uncles were here.  The stuff I removed prior to my uncles arrival I already had sorted and put away.  The debris in this photo was what we expected to remove from the bathroom.  My uncles really tore into demolishing my bathroom.

Here is the debris pile at the end when my uncles left.  The pile includes the unexpected stuff we had to remove (one example: the floor), and remnants from our rebuild work.

Here is the area after I cleaned it up.  A little over a week under the debris and the grass was already affected.

After sorting out the metal, copper, brick and the wood I put on my potential reuse piles, this is the wood left for my burn pile.  This is enough stuff to light fires to get a couple of tree stumps burning.

I'm glad I got the debris pile cleaned up before the rains came!

Mud boots

Other than a scattered rain drop a time or two, no rain today!  Still, the corral is somewhat muddy- especially around the cattle feeder.  That is why my mud boots are necessary.

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Btw - this is about all that is left of my many sheets of sheet rock.  I finished my sheet rock work on Friday.  That includes the pantry and filling in the bathroom window on the bedroom side.

Recycling my bathroom

Thursday I took my bathtub and double oven to Pacific Steel and Recycling.  The bathtub was cast iron and very heavy.  Well, for that matter so was the double oven.

I am not sure of the exact breakdown as they didn't give me a receipt with the numbers.  I remember the two weights: 260 lbs and 380 lbs.  I'm not sure which weight was for the iron or the metal.  I think the prices were 6 cents and 8 cents with the higher price for the cast iron.

In addition to the tub and oven I also tossed in some miscellaneous metal items I planned on getting rid of.  I did a quick search around the yard and tool shed and found more metal and iron.  I even took the wheel and seat off an old Schwinn exercise bicycle and recycled the bicycle.

Because I had a mix of metal and iron he planned on averaging the weight.  Instead I offered to unload the metal and re-weigh the pickup, then unload the iron and re-weigh the pickup.

I unloaded the double oven under the large crane in back of the yard.  Then the rest of the metal elsewhere.  I was leery about driving in the muddy yard as there was crap everywhere.  I hope I don't get a flat tire.

I made $47.40 for my troubles.  It is about time I got some money out of my bathroom instead of putting money into it!

Most of my old bathtub and sink.

I didn't have my Uncle Larry to help me again with the double oven and I had to get it into the pickup bed myself.

Most of what I took to the recycling place.  I did find a few more items after I took this photo.

I hadn't figured out my fix for the broken tailgate lever so I had to put the broken piece in the lever each time I wanted to open the tailgate.

Broken tailgate

After returning from my tree stumps' wood pile I discovered my pickup's tailgate was broken.  I couldn't open it.  I finally figured out that one of levers was broken.  The green plastic piece on the right wouldn't stay in its hole for the lever to work.  The area is so small I couldn't see how the red one was attached or how the green one wouldn't stay attached.  I took a little wire and wrapped the green plastic piece and the rod to the lever and it works now.  Prior to my fix I had to put the green plastic piece in the hole each time I wanted to open the tailgate.  I have no idea why the green piece broke.

If it not one thing, its another.  Last year I had to replace the black plastic piece (not shown as I had to take it off to find the broken green piece) that fits in the hole as several of its tabs were broken.  The salvage yard I bought another piece from said it was not unusual for these black plastic covers to break on Chevy Silverado pickups.

Let out once again

It rained like the dickens over noon today.  Not just rained - it poured.  The rain started for real once I drove out to my wood pile for burning tree stumps.  I had to wait inside the pickup for a while before I could unload the wood.  With the cool temperatures we have now, the inside of the windows fogged up.

When I got back to the corral the cattle were dry as they were laying in the loafing shed.  "Red" - the steer with the big belly - was in the loading corral and, without shelter, was wet.  I planned on keeping him there another day but he was so wet I took pity on him and let him out into the corral to join the others.

Did he?  No.  He wandered over to the feeder.  The feeder only had the left over hay.  I had been feeding him so he wasn't starving.  He nibbled a little bit and occasionally glanced my way.  Then he stood over the feeder and chewed his cud.  He has such a nice gentle disposition I don't think he was being defiant and rubbing it in to me.

Tonight he looked fine.  Maybe he got over his "pigging out" on hay.  We'll see.

He looks good now.  He just needed to floss to get that piece of hay out of teeth.

More cattle photos

While checking on my steer with the weight gain, I took photos of the other cattle.

I am not sure what breed - or breeds - this heifer is.  It looks like she may have some of the Corriente or Longhorn breed in her based on her spotted rear and the coloration of her muzzle.  I have named her: Spotted Butt.

The whole gang minus the steer.   The white heifer looks to be a Charolais breed.  Other than having a few warts she looks good.  I like the Charolais breed of cattle.  I had a few Charolais when I first bought cattle and those cattle were good.

The cattle don't see Tammy in the corral much so they were curious about her.  Here are some of the braver cattle.

Bloating?

My one steer has a problem.  I am not entirely sure what the problem is.  Perhaps it is just that he is a glutton.

A few days ago I noticed that he suddenly gained a lot of weight.  In fact he looked like he was pregnant.

He looked like he could be bloated even though he doesn't have access to fresh alfalfa..  He had the signs of bloating: sudden weight gain, the left side more protruded than the right.  And the weight gain up higher on the left side.  Working against the bloated theory was that he seemed fine and was not lethargic.  He was relaxed and chewed his cud.

To be on the safe side I put him in the loading corral in the early evening so he couldn't get any more food.

Here is how he looked the next morning.  Yup.  He slimmed down nicely overnight.

Photo 1 is him with all the weight and photo 2 is the next morning after he lost it.

I checked on him in the early morning Tuesday.  I left him in the loading corral until the other cattle had a chance to eat the new hay bale I put out for them.  That way the steer wouldn't be tempted to pig out on the fresh hay after a night of fasting.

I let him out of the corral around 1 pm.  Throughout the day I noticed he was at the feeder. I gave the cattle another bale around 3:30 pm.  Around 6 pm he was still at the feeder eating and I noticed he gained a lot of the weight back.  What's going on?  Was he at the feeder the whole afternoon eating?

I put him back into the loading corral.  He didn't want to go as he didn't want to leave the feeder.  Even though the hay left in the feeder was the stemy stuff, he wanted it.  I had to chase him around the feeder a few times before I got him into the loading corral.

Today I left him in the loading corral all day to be on the safe side.  He has water and I toss him some hay when I feed the other cattle.  Maybe a few days of rations will get him back on track.  He is alert and active - it just seems as if the switch that tells a body they are full is not turned on.

Dan came by Wednesday night to look at the steer.  To Dan he looks fine - albeit with a full belly.

He is such a nice sweet steer I hope he gets better.

After the weight gain he did more than his normal grooming.  I wonder if his sides were bothering him from all that weight gain.
 

The other cattle visiting him "in jail".

2012 cattle corral jailbreak

So much for my new 8 ft corral gates.  This afternoon, after we returned from returning more unneeded bathroom remodel stuff, I spotted the cattle in the NE pasture.  Not where they are supposed to be!

I jumped out of my pickup and yelled for Tammy to come help.

Fortunately the cattle were still clustered near the open gates.  I was able to get several cattle back into the corral by the time Tammy arrived.  With Tammy blocking an escape path the rest of the cattle reluctantly were herded back into the corral.

This was a similar jailbreak to when Tammy first visited me a few years ago.  This time Tammy knew more of what to do and the herding was easier.

How did the cattle get past the gates?

Shh!!    Don't tell the heifer checking the bar out but... notice where the bar ends on the left side.  There is not much space left of the bracket.  The same is on the right side of the bar.   The cattle pressed against the gate in an effort to reach more and more green grass.  The bowing of the gate was enough that the bar slipped out of the bracket and with a little wiggling the bar tipped and slid down enough to be in only one bracket and the gate opened.

Here the cattle after they were herded back into the corral.  Once I left the gate area they sneaked back over to the gate in an effort to do another jailbreak.  This effort failed as I moved the end brackets in to eliminate the slippage from the brackets when the gates bow out from the cattle's pressure.