Painting The Renter House

6/4-16/05

The renter house needed help.

It cleaned up right nicely.

Our plans were

• Paint what we could reach
• Hire somebody to paint the rest
• Have Lowes replace front and rear storm doors ($69 installation special)

Reality was

• Paint what we could reach after cleaning, replacing two window panes and reglazing multiple messes
• Hire somebody to paint the rest
• Hire somebody to replace front and rear storm doors. The doors were bigger than standard, Lowes wouldn't guarentee a time, and the $69 installation special was probably like the water heater installation in Cartersville that was plus $2000 once the guy showed up.
• Replace the back gutter
• Replace almost all the storm windows.
• Major trimming of bushes. Two days of hauling brush and old storm windows to the landfill.

We enjoyed being in the old neighborhood and visiting with old and new neighbors. The House is on the corner of Academy and Cannon drive in Bethal Academy.

The comute was interesting. We were going against traffic. Those poor people having that comute into DC everyday! We found a good sandwich shop in Gainsville so we went down 29/605. There is major growth along 29 in Fauquier County. 605 hasn't changed.

Picture taken Fall '03

In the evening we went home 628/55. 628, to me, is Northern Virginia.

We stayed at Bull Run Regional Park. It has electrical hookups only. We were there 15 nights. Once you have turned your fresh water into gray water and black water you have two choices:

• Hook up the trailer and haul it to the dump station
• Haul the gray water away and fresh water back (The black water tank lasted the whole stay)

Hooking up the trailer to head down the road to a new campground is no big deal. But, once you are at a campground, it seems like a major pita to stow everything for travel just to go to the dump station.

Gray water is no big deal since we have a "Blue Boy." That's a tank on wheels that you can pull to the dump station. We also have two 5 gallon water containers to bring fresh water back. The problem is getting the water from the containers into the fresh water tank. They are too heavy to hold up there, you need a third hand to hold the funnel that only accepts a very slow flow rate.

After numerous trials I finally came up with a workable solution. We were at Home Depot and I bought some 5/8" plastic tubing and went in search for funnels. I asked a young man where I could find funnels. He looked at my plastic tubing and asked: "Keg party"?

I got a three peice funnel set ($2.98). The tubing fits onto the largest funnel and goes into the fresh water tank inlet. So now I can pour the water from the 5 gallon container into a one gallon container, and the one gallon container into the fresh water tank as fast as I can pour.

For our 15 nights we did two water runs and I had to go get another 5 gallons for the last morning.

Main