The weather finally turned cooler yesterday and the overnight lows dropped into the upper 50’s; perfect sleeping weather. We had the house open all day and left windows open overnight.
After breakfast and coffee we worked in the bus for the rest of the morning. I wanted to clean out all the remaining items from the drawers and cabinets before we start sanding the residual thinset and mastic. Our first task was to get the refrigerator out of the way. We laid it down on its face with cardboard under it and slid it forward and over to the passenger side behind the co-pilot seat.
We surveyed all of the storage areas and decided it would be easiest to remove all of the drawers from their slides with the stuff still in them. The drawer boxes release from the two side-mounted slides at the front via a plastic clip. The back edge of the part of the slide attached to the box then slides out from under a small tang, allowing the drawer to be lifted out. An added benefit to removing the drawers is that it will be easier both to clean them and clean the face frames on the built-in cabinetry.
Linda decided to go through all of the stuff as it came into the house, sorting it initially according to whether we should keep it or and throw it away. Of the things she thought we should keep the next step was to clean them if needed, or queue them up for cleaning. That included almost everything related to the kitchen. She reorganized the stuff that was already in the small bedroom, putting cardboard boxes in the recycle pile while I took some ham radio related stuff down to my office.
Linda emptying the inside of the bus.
By noon we had the kitchen and part of the bathroom cleaned out. I decided to take a break from bus work and install the new bottom weather seals on the garage doors. I unscrewed the mounting track from the bottom of the 16 foot wide door and removed it. It had years of accumulated dirt in it so I cleaned it out. With Linda’s help we got the new seal installed, using soapy water as a lubricant, and reattached the track to the bottom of the door.
Our luck did not hold up with the 8 foot wide door. Both doors are Wayne Dalton products but the 8 footer is not as thick. The bottom track for the weather seal is only about an inch wide and the replacement seal, which is designed for a “T” channel would not fit. Closer inspection suggested that the proper seal would have a cylindrical edge rather than a “T.” We checked online and found a supplier through Amazon but held off ordering until we had a chance to check for local sources.
We had lunch, after which I went to The Home Depot to see if they had any garage door seals that were different from the one’s at Lowe’s. They did not. There is a branch of our bank adjacent to The Home Depot so I stopped there and then headed to Lowe’s where I returned the weather seal for the 8′ door. I then bought a 400 foot long roll of 9 foot wide 0.31 mil painter’s plastic and four roles of 2″ painter’s tape. We will use this to mask off the cabinetry before we start sanding the floor or taking on other parts of the interior remodeling project that might affect the woodwork or furniture.
Back home I continued emptying out the house portion of the bus. (The basement bays are a whole other story.) In order to remove one of the last three drawers in the bedroom we needed to remove the bed platform. It is 3/4″ cabinet grade plywood sized to support a queen size mattress, definitely a two-person job. It is hinged about 18″ from the head end, so we folded that piece over and secured it on both edges with tape, shortening the total length by that much. It was still heavy and very awkward to handle, especially getting it through the cockpit and down the entrance stairs, but we managed to get it out. I used a hand truck to move it to the garage for safe storage. Linda commented that perhaps we should cut it down and switch to a full size mattress. I think that is an idea worth considering as it would give use more aisle space.
The storage base for the bed with the plywood platform removed.
The plywood platform is 80″ L by 58″ W so even after removing the 18” piece at the head end is 62” x 58”. That means it was not cut from a 4’ x 8’ sheet of plywood and would be almost impossible to replicate. Our mattress is approximately 78″ L by 60″ W whereas the foundation box (storage compartment) is 72″ L by 43″ W. Our full size mattress in the middle bedroom is 72″ L by 52″ W. Cutting the plywood platform down to full size (or building a new one) would gain us 8″ of isle space at the foot of the bed and 3″ on each side. That may not sound like much, and would be irrelevant in most bedrooms, but it would be a significant difference in the aft cabin of our land yacht. If we do this I would keep/store the existing plywood and build a replacement.
With the bed platform out of the bus I was able to remove the last three drawers across the back. The one farthest to the driver side, in particular, could not be removed with the platform in place. Another reason for building a new bed platform is that I can hinge it closer to the head end and use longer gas springs. This would allow it to open far enough to provide easier access to things stored under the bed and be able to install and remove the three drawers whenever needed.
Linda heated up some frozen breaded mock fish fillets for dinner. She made fresh vegan tartar sauce to go with them, boiled some corn-on-the-cob, and roasted some potatoes in the oven. It was a simple but very satisfying meal. After dinner I uploaded more blog posts, getting two of the three that cover the ARRL Field Day event done. That means I am almost through the month of June!