I sure am missing that relaxing Winter Trip right about now…

As I said, we have had a bit of a busy homecoming here in Sandwich, IL…leaking water pipes, leaking upstairs sink, toilet flushing issues…and Den’s faithful Ol’ Blue truck basically died…Not exactly what we had planned, but we are tackling it one two three four leaks at a time…Oh, and by the way, our blue truck is in two pieces right now…

From what I understand, the truck needs a new fuel pump..and the fuel pump is located on top of the fuel tank, under the truck bed..So what does McGyver do? He invites a few strong backs over, and after taking all of the bolts out of the truck bed, they lift it off…And now Den isn’t sure that is the problem, but  he ordered a new one online…What a royal pain in the arse!! (NOT McGyver, …that blue truck!) I am pushing for a new old truck..Hey, Ol’ Blue is a 1989 model…get over it, McGyver!!

Now to the more important problem…the broken water pipes from our upstairs bathroom, causing it to rain in the kitchen..When we left in November, Den shut off the water upstairs but not downstairs…In February he was concerned so he had Kelly turn off the water there too.  Those thermostat batteries must have died after that, causing our furnace to shut off and leave some water in those pipes. McGyver wasn’t sure just how many leaks we had, but he knew where the “rain” had come down, so he started cutting our drywall at that point..

On the left, you can see our old lathe and plaster ceiling at the bottom..Dennis found the first leak (exploded copper pipe)…then he noticed another one…Then he found a third on the outside wall over our sink…Let me just say that watching poor Dennis working in that little space with a blow torch and solder was very scary!..I made sure we had Sandwich Fire Dept. on speed dial…He got those 3 leaks fixed (up and down the ladder a gazillion times). We have an air compressor in our garage, and to test the newly soldered pipes he dragged the compressor hose from the garage, up on the kitchen roof and into the upstairs bathroom window. Apparently, the pressure of that air finds any other leaks and you can hear the air coming out where there is a crack…I know this because once he hooked up the compressor, my job was to stick my head up there and see if I heard any air rushing…Sure enough, there was yet another leak, but this one was farther down the ceiling. The only thing McGyver could do was cut another hole in our kitchen ceiling…oh joy.

….one more hole to get to the 4th bad boy leak…sheesh!!

 

….hmmmm , maybe we could make a couple trap doors to make it faster to “drop” down into the kitchen for a midnight snack…??

Finally, after a long day for poor McGyver, we HE had fixed all four blown pipes. One more listen after hooking up the air compressor told us they were sealed…The biggest test was turning on the water, and that went just fine…Well, kind of..We also discovered a pipe leaking under our sink in the upstairs bathroom sink…and our toilet needed a new piece for flushing. This required a new PVC pipe under the sink and a trip to the local  hardware store..Luckily, McGyver fixed those items quickly…This whole “coming home” episode has been a real test of endurance for our little love nest here at the Caves…But after some swearing, bitching, raised voices, red faces,  and a few non-descript hand signals, ..we are still together…

On a lighter note, I have decided to do something to show our support for the police officers in our town and everywhere. I have seen on Facebook that a lot of people are involved in showing their support by placing blue lights outside…This is called Project Blue Light, and is a tribute to all police officers, especially those fallen heroes…I put a blue lighted lantern on our front porch and am in the process of getting some blue rope lights for our back deck…

 

 

 

This is a waterproof lantern I got at a store…It has 3 LED lights inside and runs on batteries…Also, it has a timer that automatically turns it on for when you set it, and then turns it off 6 hours later…Lord knows I need something automatic, or I would never remember to turn it off!!

 

 

OK, that’s enough of our traumatic homecoming…We are in recovery mode, and I am a little giddy.. I know that FINALLY our 1970’s kitchen will get a much needed facelift!!!!