Chapter 29...Retaining Block, Water Storage Tank, And Underground Pipes

Off Grid...Chapter 29 We had a really good week. We are so close now. Monday 9-22 We had to go over to our other property and take care of the lawns. I think we only have 1 more round until next spring. Mike called the flooring place to see when they were coming to do the installation. They can't come until next Monday(which is now today). We'll just have to finish some of our other projects. It's not like we don't have anything else to do. Mike finished wiring the rest of the electrical outlets in the house. Next he has to working the light switches. At least there aren't as many of those. Mike installed our outside light. Tuesday 9-23 We installed one more kitchen cabinet for above the refrigerator. Check it out it was only $23.00. Woo hoo! I started bringing stuff from the motorhome down to the house. The coach is breathing a huge sigh of relief to get some of this weight off. I am so excited to play in my new big kitchen. I can't wait until it is done. Right now I am stocking the cabinets. When we move in I can be an organizing fool. I love to organize. It's so much fun. Mike worked on the switches while I was stocking my cabinets. This is what he did. First he pulled the wires out of the box, stripped them, and cut them down to size. Then he tied the grounds(copper) together with an extra leg that goes to the bottom of the switch. Then one black(hot) wire goes to the top of the switch and one black(hot) wire goes to the bottom of the switch. Then he tied the two white(neutral) wires together. because those wires are not needed on a switch. Mike finished all the outlets and switches in the house. He tested everything and they all work. He only got zapped once. Mike also installed an outside receptacle. Wednesday 9-24 We hooked the trailer to the jeep and headed for our propane company to pick up some of our appliances. On our way we passed Jimmy's(our grader) and we saw he picked up our concrete retaining blocks and they are sitting on his loader(all 40,000 pounds of them). That's a good sign. He should be coming this week to install them We got to the propane company and loaded our fireplace, washer, and dryer. They didn't get my stove in yet. The woman tracked it down and it was sent to one of their other stores in Georgia. You would think that after almost a month that store would have realized they didn't order that stove. Anyway they will get my stove by next week. My refrigerator should also be in today or tomorrow. On our way home we stopped at David's to pick up conduit pipe to put our water line and electric line inside. We want to keep the lines protected when they go underground. I finally got my apple picker. While we were there we ran into a bunch of people that we know. We even saw some people that we haven't seen since we owned the Roller Skating Rink here. When we got home we unloaded everything into the house. Here are the fireplace parts. The fireplace insert. My dryer And a matching washer which I didn't get a picture of. We also unpacked the bathroom vanity that we bought at Home Depot last Sunday. We were pleasantly surprised to find out it is solid wood. This is our vanity. We also bought the sink top but unfortunately it had some damage on the top. So we'll have to return that "all the way to Bristol Va", yuk! Thursday 9-25 Today turned out to be an extremely busy day. Our grader showed up with our retaining block. This is how they had to unload each block. Each block weighs 4000 pounds and each half block is 2000 pounds. First they hook a chain to the block. Then the block is lifted. Then they move the block. And they put it down close to the house. Of course the nosy bull has to check it out. The bull has been getting into our yard the past 2 days so we have to add more wire on the fence. Here is Mr. Bull posing for me. This is Jimmy and Mike placing the block. One side of the house is done. The other side is done and back filled. Now the block is up. We are either going to stucco or rock the front of the block and other concrete. We haven't decided yet but at least the block is in place. Then Mike had to move the motorhome so that are trench could be dug. This is our new campsite with grass. This is the trench from the house to the well. Mike and I put in 100 feet of electric wire inside ten 10ft conduit pipes and then glued the pipes together. We also put 100 feet if water line inside another 10 pipes. Then we put the pipes in the ditch. While Mike and I were working with the pipes the grader was digging a hole for our water tank. Mike helped him get the water tank in the ground. The grader covered up most of the ditch line and left the ends open because Mike still has to tie it all in to the well, well pump, and the house. It was a very long day and we are exhausted. Friday 9-26 We woke up this morning to rain. Thank goodness we got the block in and most of the grading done yesterday. We drove to town to check a couple of stores for furniture and we picked up my counter tile from Lowe's. We couldn't get any more work done today because of the rain. Saturday 9-27 Oh, it's the dreaded day. We went to Hickory NC to look for furniture. We left about 9:30am and got home at 6:30pm. Poor Niki. She hates when we are gone a long time. I was a little surprised by the gas situation in NC. We aren't having any problems in our small town in TN, maybe because the population is so low. Anyway we drove over 75 miles one way and I would say about 95% of the gas stations had no gas. It wasn't even that bad after Katrina. Ok, back to the furniture trip. We stopped at every store along Hwy 321 and Hwy 70 in Hickory. We probably went to 20 different stores and 2 separate outlets with multiple stores in each one. It was as bad as Mike and I anticipated. The furniture today is really big and mostly ugly. It wasn't looking good for us. Mike and I had a system-he would take one side of the store and I would take the other side. We would buzz through the store and if anything looked good we would show the other. Nothing looked good. We are so screwed.. At one of the outlets we both ended up in front of the same bedroom set. I said "I like that" and Mike said "do you know why"? Uh yeah, because I think it's nice. He told me it was the exact same line of furniture that we found online in the dining room set. So we ordered the bedroom set and the dining room set. They have to check the stock on Monday(today). The saleswoman gave us 35% off the list and she came in 50% less than the place online. We also don't have sales tax when they deliver across the state line. We kept looking for a leather set for the living room. No luck. We were so tired that we gave up looking. It's hard to make a good decision when you are "done". We drove home and Niki was thrilled to see us. I went online to check our furniture because I got the brochure. That turned out to be mistake. Our furniture line was discontinued in August. Now I'm nervous that the furniture place won't have our pieces in stock. I'll find out today. I really hope that whole day wasn't wasted. Sunday-28 It's a little drizzly out today which isn't good. The flooring company is supposed to deliver and install our floor tomorrow. We need things to dry up around here. Mike worked on some of the connections for the electric and water lines in the ditch. We also put the seal on our water tank. Now that the trucks and track hoes are done on our front lawn we can work on it. We started raking it out which is very hard to do in the mud. Then we put seed and straw done. At least it is cleaner. Front lawn before. Front lawn after. That's all for this week. More busy times ahead and another story soon. Have a great week everyone. Lisa and Mike

Chapter 28...How To Wire An Outlet And Painting

Off Grid...Chapter 28 Good Morning Everyone! It's time for the week of September 15 of our story. Monday 9-15 Today we went to Lowe's(again) and "finally bought our interior paint. Yeah. We got 10 gallons of tinted sheetrock primer, 10 gallons of paint, and 2 gallons of gloss white paint for the doors and trim. Hopefully we bought enough. We also ordered the tile for the kitchen counter top, it's supposed to be in on the 22nd.(today). We had to stop at K-mart and Wal-mart to pick up some winter items. We haven't spent a winter in the cold since 2002. We bought some winter boots, matching , and some sweats. It's a start. Poor Niki girl, she's a Florida girl and I have no idea how she will like the winter. She might be in shock when she sees the snow. Tuesday 9-16 Now that we have all the paint it's time to really clean the house. First we cleared everything out of the house and Mike got out the electric blower. He blew off all the rafters, walls, and floors. Then he blew all the debris out the door. After everything settled we vacuumed the house. What a dusty mess we made! We did this process 2 more times to make sure it was all clean. Then we let all the dust settle overnight. Wednesday 9-17 We started our day by making a dump run. When we got back home we vacuumed the house again. After that we started putting plastic on all the cabinets and taping everything off. We are using a leftover roll of plastic(like a huge roll of saran wrap) that we've had for about 3 years. We don't let anything o to waste, lol. We put plastic and tape on the kitchen cabinets. And the shower. And the front door. I put the painters tape on all the outlets to protect the wires from the paint. I also covered all the gas and water lines with the plastic wrap. Now everything is covered and ready for primer in the morning. That afternoon Mike ordered more solar panels, another wind generator, combiner boxes, breakers, and another charge controller. He is still trying to perfect our system. I ordered my propane refrigerator that uses "no" electric. I got the Diamond Elite 19ss. It's a good thing I saved money on my cabinets because I just made up for my savings. This is it. Propane Gas Refrigerators Thursday 9-18 Now we are ready to prime the walls. Mike got out the paint sprayer and mixed our tinted primer. We laid out sheets and plastic on the floors to protect them from over spray. Now hopefully we did a good job with the plastic and we have enough paint. Mike is priming the kitchen wall. He is done in the kitchen. Look no more green walls in the bathroom. We are done. Mike did a great job. We made it with the primer. We used about 8 of the 10 gallons so we have enough to do the closets, when we build them. After everything was set up it only took about 3 hours for Mike to paint the house and about 45 minutes for us to clean the sprayer, Yuk, and the paint buckets. The house is now ready for paint. Woo Hoo! Friday 9-19 Today was just a repeat of yesterday except Mike sprayed on the paint instead of primer. Again it only took a few hours and now the inside of the house is painted. We let everything dry for a couple of hours then we removed all the tape and plastic. Now we have to wait for everything to completely dry to touch up any problem areas. We are now ready for the floor to be installed. We made it! The floor should be installed Tuesday or Wednesday(I hope). After the flooring is installed we can paint all the doors and trim in gloss white. After dinner Mike started working on the outlets. I told him to do 1 each time he went down to the house and it wouldn't seem so bad. We have a lot of outlets. We will never use them all but we wanted to make sure the house had them in case we ever hook up to electric, which I doubt. Mike wants to show me how to do the outlets but I'm not sure that's a good idea, lol. Mike also found out that our washer, dryer, and fireplace have been delivered to our propane company. We will pick them up next week(well this week). Saturday 9-20 Today I had to do the usual running around, grocery shopping, cleaning and laundry. I can't wait to move into the house. The motorhome is exploding with stuff. Mostly food and kitchen things. Mike worked on the electrical outlets in the house. Here are the ones in the kitchen. This is how Mike wires and electrical outlet. Do not try this if you have no electrical knowledge. First he pulls the wires out of the box. He cuts them down. He slices the coverings open and cuts off the excess. Then he twists the ground(copper) wires together. Connect the ground(copper) wires to the ground screw. Connect the neutral(white) wires to the silver screws on the side of the outlet. Flip the box over and connect the black(hot or live) wires to the gold screws. Tuck it all back into the wall and screw the outlet in place. Screw the outlet cover on. That's how Mike installs an outlet. He installed 24 outlets today. Later today I got a call from Lowe's and my kitchen tile is in. Sunday 9-21 Today we had to do the "long" shopping trip into Virginia. We went to exit 7(our favorite) in Bristol. That exit has everything we need. Walmart, Sam's, Tractor Supply, Home Depot, Lowe;s, and a lot more. Our goal today was to find a bathroom vanity. We went to Sam's and found a really nice one but it was too small, oh well. We checked the Lowe's there and also stopped at a furniture store. The furniture store was a big disappointment. Mike and I didn't find anything we like. We are in so much trouble because we do need to get furniture this week. What's so hard about plain, simple and not trendy or gaudy? Anyway if any of you know of any "large" furniture showrooms in Elizabethton or Johnson City please, please share. Thank you. We did find a nice and clean looking vanity at Home Depot. So it wasn't a wasted trip. We got the vanity, a sink, faucet, and a mirrored medicine cabinet. We need all the storage we can get. After our long day of running and shopping which is never any fun for us Nicole stopped by. We had a really nice time with her. That's another week in the Mike and Lisa world. I hope you enjoyed. This week we will be getting the flooring, hopefully get furniture, and start moving some things into the house. Yeah! It was cold this morning so we need to get on it. Have a great week and I'll write again next Monday. We should get a lot done this week. Lisa and Mike