Projects Galore
What's going on here? Maybe it's the prospect of hitting the road again, wanting to have everything in its place and all systems running smoothly. Jim has completed three projects in the last couple of days. First he put shelves in my bedroom closet.
Because of the shape of the closet (it slants inward on the rear) he had to put the standards and brackets on the side. One 4' shelf, cut in pieces, just about filled the space. Cost of materials at Lowe's was about $30. Time to completion about 2 hours.
Here you can see the shelves in use. There are actually two stacks of clothes on each shelf. I've heard that if I rolled the clothes I could fit a lot more in. Also I sure need to get rid of some stuff. Got to follow the rule of new in, old out. And do I really need four sweatshirts?
Under the closet on the night stand we have plastic storage drawers from Staples that hold underwear and socks. I'm very happy to have this done since before this I had two stack of clothes, floor to ceiling, that toppled over periodically....and finding what I wanted was a nightmare.
Next project was to get the new desktop computer set for travel. The computer box is now under the table with wiring run through the bench seat. The printer shelf had to be raised up a few inches. The space beside the computer holds cases for laptops and hard drives while traveling. Next step...put away the stuff on the seats.
Cost is about $10 with some field fitting involved. Time to completion another couple of hours. I chose to go play with baby Evan while this one got done :).
Finally, we got up at 6:30 AM to get the hot water heater drained and the anode rod replaced. When the temps are high 90's in the daytime the early birds get it done easier. Here are a few picture of this task. The anode rod serves as the collector of gunky stuff in the water heater. In the process the rod gets eaten away. Scaley gunk collects on the bottom of the tank and sooner or later the heater becomes inefficient.
Here's the new rod and the two year old rod. We really should do this replacement every 6-12 months.
Jim fixed up a copper tube to fit in the opening and flush the gunk from the bottom of the heater.
And here's the gunk flowing out.
Time to completion about 30 minutes. Be sure to turn off the hot water heater several hours before doing this. Also open the relief valve to let the water flow more freely and open a hot water faucet after refilling the tank to bleed out air bubbles. You can get a good book on basic RV maintenance at Camping World or online at the RV Bookstore.. We use Trailer Life's Rv Repair and Maintenance Manual. Even if you don't do it yourself you can read about what needs to be done and be a smart shopper.
There's still one project to be done and that's to hide the cables for the TV sitting on the dashboard. I guess it must be a nasty project because Jim is not moving too quickly to get it done. And would I nag about it?....never :).