A good friend of mine had some maple trees taken down a while ago and he offered me the logs.
Yesterday, with a 112 degree heat index, a friend and I loaded them up and took them to a sawmill.
Wood!
Short Update – Many Changes
Well, it’s been a while since I last posted. The last post was about fixing an oil leak on one of my motorcycles. I’ll post a follow up or two in a bit, when it gets a little warmer out.
But, since that last post we have moved, again. We are now in Maplewood, MN in a really neat house tucked into some woods in the middle of the city. I have space for a woodshop and a deep three car garage for motorcycles and such.
Also since that last post we have purchased a new teardrop camper! We managed to pick up a Vistabule from some friends who just weren’t using it anymore. It’s practically brand new and we are looking forward to going camping.
And, just today, was my last day at work. I’m officially retired! So more time for hobbies and updating blogs!
So look for more updates soon!
R100RS Oil Leak Remediation – Part 1
I decided it was time to start riding the 1982 BMW R100RS again, so I put it on the motorcycle lift to change the oil and filter first, since it’s been a while.
When I got it up there I discovered the bottom of the motor was caked in oil and dirt. Ugh. It looks like the push-rod tube seals are leaking. Not surprising though, they are pretty old – I can’t remember when I did the rings in this motor but that would have been the last time they were replaced. It’s probably been at least 15 years.
It also looks like maybe it was leaking at the bottom of the front engine cover, so it’s time to replace that gasket and a seal I guess.
So I decided to just tear into it and get it sorted
Continue reading →Basement Remodel – Part 4 – Floors
The floor in the basement is just a poured concrete floor. It’s in pretty good shape with only a few cracks. But it’s boring. So we decided to jazz it up a bit. But first there was some prep work.
Continue reading →Basement Remodel – Part 3 – Ceilings
We decided that the simplest way to deal with the exposed beams in the basement was to cover them up with a suspended ceiling. I measured all the rooms and used the online calculator to figure out how many moldings, t-bars, cross-bars and panels to buy and ordered them up.
I called my friend Mark to see if he would be interested in helping me and he told me they had just finished installing a suspended ceiling in his daughter’s basement! How serendipitous.
Continue reading →Basement Remodel – Part 2 – Egress Windows
We thought it might be a good idea to have some egress windows installed – both from an emergency egress standpoint and also to let some more light into the basement.
So we had The Egress Window Guy come out and knock some holes in the walls.
Continue reading →Basement Remodel – Part 1 – Sheetrock
No idea how many parts I’m going to break this into. At least three.
Anyway. We knew we wanted to finish out the basement in the new house. Someone had started the job, but they didn’t really know what they were doing. At. All.
Continue reading →Bought a New House
This is the first of several posts about the new house we just moved to.
We bought a 1961 vintage rambler on about 2 acres just North of Stillwater, MN. The upstairs had been remodeled and everything was painted white (not very well.) The basement was partially finished, but not really.
This first post will just be photos of the house. These are all taken from the listing – we just moved in and there is still stuff all over, so if we took photos they would be messy. 🙂
The house has three bedrooms and two baths.
Blog is moving
I’m moving house and will no longer be self-hosting my blog. The new blog location will be https://www.anansi-web.com/ (Note: this link will not work for a bit, but bookmark it if you care.
I’ll try and setup a redirect from the old location, but I’m not positive it will work. We’ll see.
If anyone still reads this, that’s what you need to know. 🙂
Moto-Guzzi Rebuild Update 10
When we left off I needed to remove the base gasket from the cylinder. I hate removing gaskets, it’s always a huge pain in the ass. So I hit up my friend who does a lot of motorcycle repair and asked him for some tips. He said “get some gasket remover spray, it’s a life saver.” So I started looking around.
No one in town seems to stock it. Not NAPA, not O’Reilly’s, not AutoZone, no one. Which seems odd for a large city. So I had to order some from Amazon and wait a few days.
Continue reading →