Wednesday 6-21 First Day of Summer

Summer is officially here 

We spent our first day of summer doing brother do's for Larry's sister. Once in awhile Louise needs a little help on some house maintenance or computer issue, when this happens Larry and I try to go to Round Rock to help her out. This morning we went down to her house for some brother do's.

A couple of weeks ago she mentioned that the faucet in her bathroom tub was dripping. The first project was to work on the plumbing issue. Larry was going to replace the valve piece in the shower so he turned off the water to the house and removed the cover to determine how he was going to fix it. He discovered it was an old Moen fixture and you need a special tool to remove the valve so off to Lowe's we went to see if they had the tool. Larry talked to an employee that worked in the plumbing department, the employee really wasn't sure but he did show Larry a tool that he thought might work. Larry decided to pass on the tool considering he wanted to make sure that he got the right tool. Before leaving Larry asked the guy if there were any plumbing supplies companies in Round Rock. He looked on the computer and found a few so Larry took a picture of the companies address and phone number. The first one we stopped at was Morrison Supply Company. They had the tool that Larry needed and they also had the valve so Louise bought them both. When we got back to the house Larry worked on trying to remove the valve but it would not come out and he was afraid of damaging the entire fixture so finally he told Louise she needed to call a plumber. He put the faucet back together and turned the water back on to the house.

Larry working on the faucet valve

The special tool Larry needed to remove the valve

The next project was working on her back door. Down near the bottom of the door there was very little gap in between the door and the jamb and the paint kept pealing off, we needed to do something to increase the gap and then sand and paint. Monday he made a jig for her door so he could use a router to take a small amount of material off of the door. After looking at the door he came up with another idea so he didn't use the jig, instead he decided to shim the hinges. First thing we did was remove the door then Larry scraped off the old paint from the frame and door where he was going to paint. The frame area was damp so he decided to dry it with a hair dryer, he dried it for awhile and then asked me to take over so he could work on sanding, priming and painting the door where the paint had come off. Once he put a coat of primer on the door he dried it with the hair dryer then he put a couple of coats of paint and in between each coat he dried it with the hair dryer. While he was priming and painting the door area I dried the frame area with the hair dryer. It took me awhile to get the frame area dry, then Larry primed the frame and put a couple of coats of paint on it. He dried the frame with the hair dryer in between each coat of primer and paint. By using the hair dryer it made the process go a lot faster.

Making shims for the door hinges

Sanding down the door

Painting the door frame

While waiting for the paint to set up before putting the door back on Larry worked on Louise's computer. She had told him that a few programs weren't working on her computer. He got the programs to work properly and she is back in business. Then Larry and I put the door back on.

Louise's computer

The last time we were at Louise's house her dog Alice was scared of us and today she was still scared of us. We were at Louise's from 8:00 to about 3:00 so Alice was starting to warm up to me a little more. In fact she became my buddy when we had lunch considering I'm a softy and gave her a little bit of my lunch.

Louise 

Alice is worn out after being awake most of the time we were there

Larry had a busy day at Louise's house but he had fun. He really enjoys doing house maintenance.

In the evening we watched our YouTube videos and three episodes of Fortitude. I'm still not sure if I like Fortitude or not. Then I worked on my puzzle. LIFE IS GOOD!!!!