Fare Well, Nemo

Brief post today.

Nemo Departs

This past Spring/Summer, I thought I had sold Nemo (1997 Audi A4 Quattro) to our friend Garry. After repairing the driver rear bearing and replacing the axle with it, the power steering blew a hose and he lost interest. So, it came back. Truth be told, Nemo never left the driveway; Garry did the repair here. I figured I would do what was needed to get Nemo through smog and then figure out what to do. So, I repaired his exhaust, replaced the catalytic converter, downpipe and O2 sensor. I was ready to take him to Oregon DEQ when  the NewOldHouse purchase happened and so Nemo just kind of sat. Fast forward a few weeks and I get a text from Garry, now living in Idaho. His friend expressed interest. So, I shot some pictures and video with my phone and sent them on. 2 days later, he is here, with a friend, a truck and a tow-dolly. They crawled around on Nemo for a while, took him for a drive.... paid me cash and drove away with him. Just like that, the herd is thinned my one.

Mom Moves

With my Dad's rather sudden decline and then final departure early this month, my Mom lost the person who had eyes on her 24/7. Her health has been an issue for some time, so having her living alone in a somewhat basic assisted-living facility was no longer safe for her or the facility. So, she is moving to a stepped-care facility 4 blocks from here. That move is today (29-Nov). Since her space is significantly reducing, we will move her and her most treasured belongings to the new place. Everything else is moving here, so it can be gone through with heat and beverages and comfortable seating.

NewOldHouse Update

Since my CoViD battle ended, I have returned in earnest to the restoration of the NewOldHouse. When the flooring guys were here last Summer, they removed all of the 1/4-round. As they removed it, they clumped it by room and taped the clumps together. Unfortunately, some of that careful work was undone, and some of the 1/4-round went to the dump. What remains is semi-documented. I have been puzzling-out which pieces go where, re-marking them and then shooting them with BIN primer. Once dry, I set the pieces where they will be re-attached to the baseboard. Prior to priming, they get the nails removed and then a good cleaning. I have a small pile of un-matched pieces and a larger pile of not-yet-attempted pieces. I will be continuing this game next weekend.

Other than playing with 1/4-round, I resolved the canopy catastrophe, consolidating 2 damaged canopies into one viable one. You can see things are back to "normal" in the picture on the right, with the "Jerry" canopy restored. If you look closely, you can see stacks of 1/4-round under the canopy on the left (Phil). I have also cleaned, rust-converted and painted the heat vents. We decided that the original vents could be salvaged, and if they were painted a color that roughly matched the floor, they would sort of disappear into the wood floor. For the most part, this turned out to be correct, though I don't have a good picture to share.

The bathroom progress was temporarily halted by the discovery of the sub-floor damage. Boo crawled back under the house to see how extensive it was.. and it is really quite contained. There are 3 1x4 (sub-floor) boards that rest between the top of the beams and the wood floor which need to be replaced. But even then, the section that needs replacing is only between 2 beams, and the beams themselves are in great condition, showing no damage from the leak.

As part of the preparation for a bunch of mom's stuff appearing here, I tore down the living room stereo equipment and moved it out of the way. While this isn't terribly interesting stuff, it does further prove that life is either Tetris or Monopoly, and today it's Tetris.

With each passing day spent at NewOldHouse, it feels more and more ready for occupancy. Sure, we don't have a functioning bathroom yet, nor will we have a functioning kitchen for some time. Still, we believe that we will be moving into NewOldHouse by the end of January. I guess that's it for today. I know there isn't much car content these days; that is also true of my life, and I feel it. The sooner the house is ready, the sooner I will be back wrenching on Hapy. Thanks, as always, for following along-