Wednesday, August 12, 2009

S&D are Baaaack!

Cool...folks to chat with again! Watering their garden was interesting, fun and rewarding vegetable wise...lots of lettuce, tomatoes, beets (oh the beets!). We had a good time with it as our own is a mess and all because we have spent all this trip in the house "doing things". I used to tend the garden at Dix and loved doing it, once in and growing it was not hard to maintain at all. Now though...the courtyard here is just overgrown with weeds and unpicked flowers and has a generally sad look about it though there ARE flowers amidst the gloom and the herbs are fine as they are. The weeds? Roundup anyone?
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We are redoing the infamous Blue Room...the WC with the motto "It's Not A Turkish Toilet!". Not that I have anything much negative to say about any "facilities" when you really need them but a hole in the floor is just a bit much. At least we had a fine white ceramic toilet to use. First the ceiling, white to reflect the little light that enters naturally. Then a little bureau that will be the stand upon which the new sink will reside. A new faucet is ready to be installed...at $7.90 Euros it was the cheapest one there and it looks fine, nice crome, the valve is all bronze and while there is no fine ceramic seals...it will do. Kelly picked out a wild green, fushia (purple) and cream white wallpaper and bought a color matching fushia for the lower wainscotting area. No more Blue Room indeed! It will be just this side of shocking!

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We (I) have used up the last dregs of Nansulate on the front walls of the parlor. 5 gallons are on the house's outside walls (mostly) and we will be ordering more sometime in the winter so we can have some handy after the new roof is installed.
How much? The roof is huge...another 5 gallons might be enough...maybe. The most interesting experimental use of Nansulate for me has been on my little gas oven. I've coated the sides of the thing with 3 coats as Industrial Nanotech has instructed and wow...what a difference in performance after about 3 weeks of curing.
I can get temperatures above 650 degrees...the limit of my temp measuring equipment was 650F so if it was higher I'll not know...yet! But the upside is that the leakage from the sides has been cut dramatically...enough that it reaches 450 degrees in 20 minutes where it used to take 50! The sides aren't cool..but they won't burn you either...which is another dramatic improvement. The refrigerators are equally happy about having their outsides coated in Nansumate Home Coat...they now are turned to their lowest setting and still are very, very cold inside, below 40 degrees...and the freezer is now at -45 degrees F! it was -25. All in all things have changed for nthe better, howmuch money it will wind up saving us is hard to say now as billing for electricity is a not so often occurance. I'll report though when I get some numbers.
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Take care everybody!
Good health to you and yours!