MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS - *R* is Roof Coating With Elastomeric Paint and Babysitting Weekend

Sorry!  I took a couple days off writing the blog. We were "preoccupied" with having a sweet little dumpling come to visit!   This is our youngest grandchild, and we took her over the weekend.  More pics down on the end of the blog....

Now back to the MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS BLOG POSTS:


I am going to start off the new year with posting some of our motorhome modifications, a few at a time. I will post repairs, modifications, or neato things we have found for RVing.  I have lots of pics in my files so I will do them in alphabetical order.

Underneath that stuff, I will post my regular daily stuff..... kinda sorta fun, eh?

So here it goes, we are up to the letter R now!

MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS 

STARTING WITH THE LETTER R

Roof Coating with Elastomeric Paint:

THIS MODIFICATION WAS DONE NINE YEARS AGO, IN 2009

On our 1996 Safari Serengeti, our filon fiberglass roof can be known to get tiny microscopic cracks and fissures after 10 years of age.... resulting in potential leaks! Although we don’t have any leaks yet, we decided it was a good idea to Git Er Dun! 

In 2006, we had already replaced the sealant tape at the front and rear caps with new layers of Eternabond, removing the OEM sealing tape that was on there.  We also used Eternabond around the sky light, and roof vents.  

These are common places for leaks to start, so we did the preventative thing and had sealed those too the first year owned the rig.  We use Dicor caulk for sealing up any areas around any things that could leak:

So, keeping in mind that we want this rig to last a looonggg time, we decided to take the advice of the guys on the Safari list with rigs the same vintage of ours.  They are all coating their entire roofs with a special elastomeric coating made for fiberglass roofs.... (similar to Kool-Seal, but we had to get the formula made for fiberglass roofs like on our rig) 

There are a lot of different brands of elastomeric coatings out there. You have to find one that works for your type of roof. (ours was fiberglass in this case). Read the cans and find something with a long warranty life. Ours said 7 years if you do two coats. 

Here is the brand we bought, called SealBest at Menards, a mid-west home improvement chain (like Home Depot or Lowes).

(DON'T use that fibered roof coating stuff that is used for mobile homes, it's very thick black tarry stuff that dries silver-- I did that on my old motorhome in the 90's ... not good, and not the right product for a flexing moving structure)

The roof surface on our rig is like a textured sheet of fiberglass that is laid on top of the substructure and sealed around the edges, but left loose in the middle to allow for expansion and contraction in temperature changes. 

But not being sealed down allows for any little leak around vents, AC units, or skylights to let in water and create horrible damages.   Thus the preventative care is very important. 

We checked the weather forecast and found three days in a row of nice 70-80 degree days and warm nights, without any rain in sight.  We hoped.

First,  Stevio scrubbed the roof really good with TSP, a heavy duty cleanser.  He then rinsed with a lot of hot water, and let it dry... Using blue painter’s tape, we taped off the sides where the white roof meets the blue colored sidewalls.

Whew, I sure don't like heights, but with adrenaline rushing and heart pounding, I joined him up there to work fast as a team effort to get it done! 


I sure was clutching that ladder!!!! I HATE heights.. but Steveio needed my help, so I bit the bullet and squeezed my eyes shut and did it. The worst part is when you reach the top of the ladder and have to swing your leg around to get ON the roof. 

Even with Steveio holding the ladder firmly down on the ground, I was still a scared silly mouse. Tee heeeee

I crawled around on my hands and knees, hand brushing liberal amounts around all the vents, air conditioners, skylight and antennas. 

Steveio rolled the remaining parts with a thick napped roller on a long handle. He got to stand, I was too scared to stand!  I built up around the vents with dicor and then coated with elastomeric paint. 

It was a beautiful day and we got the first coat on before noon.

AHHHHHHH
The first coat is all done! 

While the first coat was drying,

on the ground I took care of coating the Maxi Air roof vent covers

We used almost a full gallon with the first coat. 

This is a wide body motorhome almost 40 feet long. 

We waited until the next day after the dew was dry to roll the second coat. We used the second gallon and rolled it on as thick as we could. 

The warranty reads that you must put on 2 coats to comply with the 7 year warranty. There was still some left, so Steve got almost a full third coat done that afternoon before we ran out.

Whewww!

 It sure looked nice,

compared to how it was when we started.

Here we took off the blue tape,

we only coated up to the line where the silvery blue paint 

where the side walls start. 

It was a job well done.  

*added note: it is now 2018 - 

9 years later, 

and it still looks great!

since those photos were taken,

we added 500 watts of solar panels to the roof:

~~~~~~~

Back to the Babysitting! 

We enjoyed some warmth and sunshine out on the front porch. Here she is exploring the newest paperweight to my collection, from her great grandfather!  The grandkids love having the chance to play with something "glass" -- which is really pretty indestructible.  

We bundled her up to take a nice walk.

with her softy ensconced in the little red wagon.

Guess it was too comfy, 

she was asleep before we got to the end of the block! 

It was so much fun to have her all to ourselves.  We cherish our time with all of our Grandkids, and it's nice to take them one or two at a time. It lets us really get to know them without all of them clamoring for our attention.

We gated off the tv and all of the electronics,  This ain't this Granmuddah's first rodeo.  We de-kidderize before any of the grandkids get here.  The rest of the time is spent playing and having fun. No housework or errands or menial tasks are done when the wee ones visit.

Toys are rotated to keep the interest up,

but the Fisher Price Farm from MY Grandma Kafehl

(would be her GREAT GREAT Grandma)

is the number one toy and stays out all weekend. 

Both of our dogs are good with the little ones who come to visit. With adults, they often hide, but they seem to know the little ones mean no harm.  We do watch close for abrupt movements or eye poking etc.  Little Claire has 2 doggies in her own home and knows how to "play nice".

The dogs also enjoy the dropped Cheerios that get scattered about! 

I made this little You Tube from some time spent out in the sunny front porch:

The most favorite book 

for ALL of our Grandkids is 

Brown Bear Brown Bear:

All too soon, it was time for her to go home.  Her Mommy and Daddy picked her up, and the house is quiet again. 

We needed Monday to recover!  

(and take long naps)  

I think the dogs needed it too! 

Monday we also ran up to Green Bay to get our new phone.  After three replacement phones in the last 30 days from Verizon (refurbished ones of the same 2+ year old model each time) it has been determined that the old phone is unable to handle the newest software update.  With the help of our soninlaw, Waylen, I got a brand new phone now and am getting used to new features, set ups and apps that are on it.  I lost some of my contacts, not all, during the transfer, so if I don't call you, you will have to call me first! LOL


We are now facing a colder week in Wisconsin, with dull skies and cooler temps. It was down to the single digits last night, and we heard the furnace kick on quite a few times.  Guess it isn't Spring yet in Wisconsin!

Mirror Mirror on the Wall and Merry Christmas Day

Who is the fairest of them all? Hmmmmmm

As soon as I got home from a babysitting trip up north, Steve was mounting the medicine cabinet mirror that our son Dan ordered for us. He works at a commercial glass place and got us a bevelled mirror cut to size.

I think Steve is the fairest of them all! 

Underneath the medicine cabinet, to one side over the sink, we also mounted some glass shelf brackets. Previously there had been a smaller glass shelf in that place, so we reused those brackets.  I found a larger glass shelf in the basement on top of the paint cabinet in my workroom.  Perfect!   (it pays to ask the sellers to leave behind anything they don't want and we decided if we wanted to keep or reuse those items)

The shelf is for our most used things that we liked to keep up over the sink.  Steve isn't too keen on it, but I think it kinda looks old fashioned.

So our gift was all new beadboard,

 trim and baseboard. 

A recycled medicine cabinet and new mirror.

Lace adhered to the window for privacy.

We added a handwoven rug from my friend Juanita that matches well.

As Steve says:

"So there ya have it"  

meaning our bathroom facelift 

Christmas Gift to each other is 

DONE! 

Incidentally, it has now been FIVE years since we bought Our Old House. The anniversary of our closing was 2 days ago, and here is an old blog post about our house purchase: We Moved Blog


Our Christmas was busy busy busy as you can imagine.  We managed to spend Christmas Eve alone at home and made steamed snow crab legs for dinner and had a peaceful evening by the fireplace.  The dogs snuggled up and we enjoyed some good reminiscing about all we have done in our 22+ years together.

On Christmas Day, we travelled down to Belgium for a family celebration with Steve's dad and siblings.  It was a lovely but very very cold day!  Steve's sister Lynn hosted and we were treated to a nice meal and we brought desserts (of which some were the Christmas cookies the grandkids decorated)

On Tuesday, I trekked up to Oconto to babysit for a few of the grandkids because their day care was closed for the holiday weekend.  It was a long long cold day. Steve and his brothers helped his dad move more garage stuff up to the house in Sister Bay, while I was with the grandtots cozy and warm!

It is so much fun to watch the older ones be so thoughtful and careful of their little sister.  And little Claire tries so hard to keep up with the big kids. She wants to be big too! Don''t grow up too fast, little one. You are the last wee grandbaby we will have and we want to keep you as small for as long as possible!

While little Claire napped, we worked on a gingerbread house from a creative kit, and had a lot of fun with stories, snuggles and giggles. 

As you know, the weather is not very nice

the subzero temps are horrible

and our wind chills have been in the 20 to 30 BELOW range. 

It's now New Years Eve, and we just had a long busy weekend up north with all of our kids and grandkids and dogs and grandpuppies!  It was a hectic crazy fun filled visit with lots of silliness, gifts, food and love!  I will do another blog post about that, because I think we are worn out.  We came home and napped and watched the last Packer game of the season ... and are staying in and safe and sound to ring in the New Year. 

Please everyone, stay safe and may your

 New Year

 be bright and beautiful! 

Busy Family Holiday and now QUIET

Many of you had busy holiday weekends, I am sure.  We did too. I am VERY thankful for having family to be with over the holidays.  Having family around is a blessing and something to not be taken lightly.

But it's TOO QUIET tonight in our house!

We had some busy busy busy family visits, starting with last week with our babysitting each of the two youngest granddaughters, Whitney and Claire.  These are the two youngest ones, as all the others are now 5 years old or older. These are our last two "babies".


We took care of Claire, the youngest, while her parents went to a concert overnight.  It sure was fun having a little one in the house, and she played so well. She crawls and stands but is not yet walking. It was pretty easy to care for her. She sleeps all night and is such a good tot. She played with the old Fisher Price Farm that our two generations before her also played with! She had some relaxing time with Grandpa while watching some tv....

Every Grandmother's kitchen needs a drawer full of containers, spoons and fun stuff for exploring--- strategically located at toddlers' height, right?  Look at that imp, standing up at the coffee table, peeking around my computer. She is looking for her Brown Bear Brown Bear book!

~~~~~~~~~

Then a few days after that, I drove up to Oconto and took care of Whitney, the next oldest grandkid.  Her parents had an overlap of work schedules and only needed me for the afternoon. She sure had me going with fun projects, pretend play, and she has a great imagination.

We cooked up Minion-themed mac and cheese and hot dogs for lunch. Oh yummmmm (not) and we played with big beads and she was performing as a hairdresser for Elmo. Whew.. the afternoon just flew by!

I really enjoy my "one on one" time with each of our grandchildren.

I am truly blessed to have been gifted with seven of them.

~~~~~~~~

On Thursday, we prepared our dishes to pass for the Pfundtner Family Thanksgiving, this year hosted at Steve's brother Pete's and wife Cindy's new home.  We only had about 25 miles to travel, so it was nice and close. The main roads and highways were jammed with holiday travellers, but we had back roads to travel on. We had about 30 people gather for the day.  Missing a few, but they were in our hearts as well.

Our own children and grandkids gather with us as much as possible, but having their spouses and other family members to consider, they spread themselves thin each holiday. This year Heather and Jesse were able to attend our Pfundtner gathering with little Jameson and Whitney.

It was such a nice day with Pops Pfundtner and great aunt Nancy as the elders of the group.  We had all ages in between, plenty of  youngsters and even a couple dogs.  The evening drew out long as folks headed on out, but we stayed late to play cards and gab with Steves' brothers and spouses.

Our dogs were a bit miffed to have us come home so late.  They raced around and acted like a couple nutcases lonnnggg after we headed to bed and wanted to go to sleep. Paybacks?

~~~~~~~~~~~

Friday morning, our daughter Erin came to spend the day with us, bringing grandkids Chelsea, Clayton and Claire. Her hubby Waylen had to work, so we got to have them for the entire day.  We took a walk to the post office and stopped at Hilde's deli and bakery for some cookies and fresh Kaiser rolls.  I had made up a crockpot of pulled pork and gravy to put on the rolls, and we cut up some fresh veggies to munch on --- we were all set for our mid-day meal.

Erin packed up later in the day to head on home with baby Claire, but she left Clayton (5) and Chelsea (7) to hang out with us overnight!

While the grandkids are here, we get to have some special one on one time, but we also work them as all good little slaves should.  Hahaha....  Chelsea started a list of "Things To Do" of stuff that came to her mind.

But our list was long with projects that we had lined up for them:

1. The both learned to use a power drill and put in pilot holes. They screwed in large white cup hooks to hold up our lit garland in the front porch. I used to use suction cups but decided to permanently mount some cup hooks instead. I like having that same garland up every year, hanging from the same spots. If I want to remove the hooks someday, I can always plaster up the holes and repaint.
   
2. Next was to take our little red wagon and go to the hardware store. We planned to get a bag of birdseed to fill the feeders. The nice clerk in the store spent a LONG time with the kids, showing them all of the animals and taking them out of cages for the kids to pet and handle!  They got learn about a hedgehog, a turtle, a chameleon, a gecko and a snake! 
   
3. Since we don't have any snow yet, it was perfectly warm out to make a huge leaf pile and of course, jump in it.
   
4. In the kitchen, they both helped to make "Chompie On The Bone" (nicknamed by their mother years ago) which are breaded pork chops baked in the oven. They set the table for a fancy dinner in the diningroom and learned about where the napkins, forks and knives go by each plate.
5. They found time to make a blanket fort in the livingroom and take the dogs inside too.  (the dogs LOVE it) Nothing can beat a homemade blanket fort! 
   
6. After dinner, they helped to light a campfire outside---- it was VERY warm and still over 50 degrees into the early night. We had a nice backyard fun time with playing kick ball in the darkness, only illuminated by the yard lights. 
   
7. Time for each one to take a bath (with bubbles) and finally fall asleep, almost sitting up because we tired them out so well! They slept all night and came in about 7 a.m. for some morning snuggles and watch a few cartoons with us in bed. My favorite part of having them sleep over is those morning huggy snuggles and sweet faces. 
8. After breakfast, they got to assist with assembling our artificial christmas tree. They loved figuring out how to put it all together. It has five sections and each one has the branches already attached, but hinged to swing down once the trunk is set into place.  We decided to put the tree in the foyer this year. For the past four years we have tried four different places in the house. This seems the best, out of the way, but easy to look at through the pocket doors from the livingroom.  Also when illuminated at night, it can be seen from the side of the tree to the street through the glass front door.
   
   Of course, next comes the lights.  Clayton was right on that task, helping Grandpa untangle and put on the LED lights.  Chelsea, standing on the staircase, held the lights from the top while Grandpa tried to arrange them among the branches.... with Clayton tugging on the bottom end.  LOL!!  It was quite an ordeal, but they got the job done.
   
   
   
   
   
   Our two little Tree Mechanics figured out the stand, how the lights worked and how the branches needed to drop down into place to make the tree the right shape.  The LED light strands Steve bought a few years ago will shine either all colors, or all white, or do various flashing patterns back and forth between.  I think it has 8 different functions. I like all colors burning steady, no flashing.
   
   
   We added the ornaments later, as the kids were not as interested in the decorations as much as they were in "building" the tree,..  I wanted to arrange the ribbon garland and put on the ornaments in a more artistic manner anyhow.  Here it is finally completed. 
   
9. Clayton wanted to weave, so he helped out at the loom for a while in my loom room. He loves banging the loom beater and is strong enough to pack in the weft pretty well. He is finally tall enough to reach the treadles on the floor and still sit on the stool to weave. All of the grandkids love to help in the loom room.  I see his attention span increasing now that he is in kindergarten, and he listens to directions pretty well. He even raises his hand to ask questions! 
   
10. Now for some sewing! Chelsea had a jacket with two small tears at the pocket seams.  We headed up to my sewing room to take care of it. We tore it apart at the inside lining and repaired the pockets with triple stitching.  Then we also repaired a fancy dress that belongs to her little sister. She likes to help with the pins and understanding the idea of seams on the inside and not showing on the outside.  She is a good thread clipper as well.
11. It was time to get some cooking done, so they helped prepare a big turkey breast to put in the oven, and learned about basting and seasoning.  They both thought the turkey looks funny when raw. Clayton wanted to see where the "heart" was inside the chest cavity. 
    
    
    
12. We took out the apple peeler/corer/slicer device and they both worked to make an apple pie! This is a favorite project ever since Chelsea was a little tot. She called it "Makea Dah Ahpohs Go Roun an Round!"  Any time I can include a machine into our projects, Clayton is right there and eager to learn.  Chelsea is the creative one and thinks ahead of what we need and plans the recipe. Clayton just wants to make it work and eat the long skinney strings of peelings! 
    
    
    It just barely fit in the oven next to the turkey roaster.  The house smelled SO good and they kept asking "Is it done yet??"
    
    
13. Grandpa decided to teach them about "Rightly Tighty Lefty Loosey" while he tore apart the clothes dryer. He wanted to clean the vent behind and also use the shop vac inside the bottom base under the drum.  We do this every year ----  we once had a fire in our dryer at our last home in Oconto.  Never again... so a bit of prevention and it was a good lesson for the kids to see how everyday appliances work and how they look inside.  They both had a chance to use the tools and help put the dryer back together again. 
    
14. Clayton helped me set up three shelves of my Christmas Village inside of my buffet... he was so exacting and precise on how each piece went where.  He also used a screwdriver and changed out the tiny batteries in the lit up Rudolph.  Check out Grandpa's fancy magnifying glass with a chest brace that he is using! 
    
15. The kids went with Grandpa to bring some brush and branches to the city garage and to get new batteries for the little remote controls for Steve's favorite LED Christmas lights for the tree. It gave me a little break to recoup and get ready for the next project.  They came back to help set the table and watch Grandpa carve the turkey.  They are not quite ready for knives yet.
16. After a nice filling dinner of turkey and the trimmings, they curled up on the bed with me and took a rest. Clayton read us the family favorite story book of "Brown Bear Brown Bear". Nobody napped, but we "rested" for a while before their parents came to get them. 
     

It was sad to see them go.... 

and now the house is wayyyyy too quiet! 

~~~~~~~~~

Today, I did have a nice afternoon outing with my friend Vicky.  We met up in Plymouth and hit up a favorite thrift shop. Then we headed to a cute place called Vintage of Ada to check out their end of the season sales before they close.  I liked a lot of their stuff, but really didn't need too many things at this time of the year.  Vicky gave me an adorable little red cardinal ornament that she made... and now it's in the middle of my red berry wreath on the front door! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay.. it's late now on Sunday night. 

The Packers lost. 

Time for bed. 

Sigh.