Flood City USA

Have ya noticed a lag in the updates here? LOL That was some great weather we had locally the past few weeks. Tons of snow followed by one of our famous Findlay floods. Living on the river is one thing but we're starting the high water way too early in the year for comfort. Not like many of you haven't experienced the same thing for yourself even if you're not from our area. Just a nasty thing that leaves you nervously watching for raindrops for months after. The cauldron folk are blessed to be relatively free of water trouble though. Tom's basement situation improved with his addition of a back flow valve and the cauldron building gets water only in the basement. The picture above would be the view from the basement steps LOL I got swamped due to a sudden pump failure but no damage done and Brandie and Julie both stayed high and dry.

Most of the past two weeks has been spent shoveling and walking. First digging out and helping Tom shovel from the last snow then walking between our three places and the downtown area staring at the rising water. When the water receded the sun made a short appearance and we took advantage of the brief nice weather to haul out all the junk and construction debris that had piled up. Around a ton according to Tom! My part was loading up the truck which was a pretty interesting task considering quite a few of the pieces were bigger than I am LOL I learned also that it takes a pretty hefty person to break wallboard into pieces and that person wouldn't be me. I have the bruises to prove it too! I swear we need to install cameras around the place for comic relief. Here I am, trying to break this sheet of wallboard that's like 10 foot by 4 foot and I've got it bent almost in half but the dang thing is fighting and bucking like a mule. I get the bright idea to climb on top of the thing and finally get it to snap in half and yep, I go crashing to the floor! I'm still limping a bit but the worst part is no one saw it to laugh over . . . or get pictures! I can't imagine my expression when I landed LOL

This week has also been a bit difficult. With Tom on a wall removing rampage we discovered the west bathroom still had the original bead board walls = ) Of course I wanted to save them and really, it's a good idea. It's all old wood and people would pay a fortune to be able to put it in their fancy homes. Tom wisely left me to the project and wandered off to tackle gutting the east bath while I researched lead paint removal. Scary stuff, huh? Luckily I found a great chemical stripper that is non-toxic and renders the lead into something safe. Here in a week or so I'll give ya a full report on the forum board for future reference. Those who have stripped paint chemically before will likely already be chuckling. Yeah, I'm dumb enough to attempt it on an entire room. Including the ceiling. Yeah, I'm regretting it but not really. It'll be worth it. And yeah again, Tom is kind of chuckling too and shaking his head. It goes something like this . . .

Saturday I mix up this huge bucket of goo, watery gray color and about the consistency of snot. It brushes on the walls pretty well but on Saturday it was also raining so while I'm smearing this stuff around it's also raining in the bathroom and dripping into three different buckets. Half way through the first wall the smell starts to become noticeable. This is one of those nice non-hazardous materials so the fumes aren't harmful and at the beginning only smell like rotten eggs. By wall two my throat was raw and even Tom was coughing in the other room LOL Still, I'm confident as the old paint is already beginning to bubble. I follow the directions and check the progress after five hours and then start removing it at 24 hours. Yeah. Right. You know that rubber stuff they use to glue gift cards and such onto paper with? The stuff you have to rub and pull forever to get off? Well, on Sunday I had four walls and a ceiling coated with stuff even stickier than that. No lie! I'm wearing rubber gloves and my hands are stuck to the paint scraper so tightly that the gloves tear when I try to release the scraper! LOL Nothing other than huge effort is moving that paint. I got about a third of one wall done before I was too tired to lift another arm and went home defeated to do some more research.

As it turns out we have a problem aka the situation isn't my fault = ) Some of you may remember when there was a compatibility issue between the oil based paints used years ago and latex paint when it first came out. The stripper I used works by breaking the bond between paint layers and since that compatibility issue caused no bond to form the stripper stopped working. It thought its job was done LOL The solution was to scrape off what I could and then apply a second coat. Luckily Tom's sister Julie had a few days off work and bad timing for offering to volunteer. She and I spent the past two days stripping in the bathroom together . . . hehehe Actually, we worked our fannies off but finally the first peeling is done, more or less. I also learned I should have blocked off the furnace duct as its constantly blowing heat on the ceiling caused the stripper to dry hard as a rock. Round two will come over the weekend when I try the second coat. I've got a picture of the stripping process so once the project is done you'll likely see it in a slide show LOL

The rest of this week will hopefully be a bit easier. Tom checked out the roof today and depending on the weather he may start repairs as early as next week. This Saturday, besides a benefit at the Whiskey Venue, we'll be taking a break from the renovations to check out floor and wall tile at the Home Depot in Bowling Green. That's seriously major excitement for me and I can't wait to get started putting things back together a bit. And it serves as a day off and a chance to unwind a bit together. Tom can actually see me clean and not reeking of sulfur for a change = ) Things are moving along well and getting more exciting although the arrival of spring begins a new dress code for the cauldron - umbrellas definitely needed LOL Beyond the three buckets in the only working bathroom there's a steady drip directly over the commode seat. The leak in the west kitchen is growing by leaps and bounds and tomorrow I'm looking for a kiddy wading pool to even try to cover the space. We've started the habit again of always checking the ceiling before entering a room given the state of things there and also water dripping into the downstairs break area. We're not a hard hat zone yet but if ya visit you'll need to be on your toes =)