Chasing My Tail

Today is my last day to work on the camper before I prepare for the holidays, so I wanted to make the most of it. I will preface by saying I absolutely despise pausing my work on something and coming back, especially when there's others working with me because stuff I put away is never where I leave it and then I can't find it.

I started the morning by powering up with some caffeine, then ventured outside to see what I could get into. Immediately I noticed there was a lot of leftover trash on the ground from DH and his worker doing the roof and sealing the cap on the RV. 

I opened the camper door and walked in and triaged what needed to be done. The other worker would be here in the next few days to start on the flooring, so I wanted to be sure the flooring in the master closet had a good coat of Kilz on it to block the mildew odor and seal it up. I went to the shop and checked all my usual hidey-holes for my quart of Kilz. Nothing. I checked a few out of the way bins. Nothing. I checked the camper cargo hold, the area where I put the paint in the living area of the RV, in the house. Nothing. 

Aggravated from having searched an hour and found nothing, I grabbed a spray can of Zinsser 123 and attached my spray can trigger to it. This day is not going to beat me, and I sprayed a shot coat of primer in the floor of the closet. 

Well the floor was dirty, so I swept. Got all that dust panned away, and saw my trash was full. Time to grab the big trash can from the road they emptied this morning and clean out the yard and RV. I dumped three garbage cans, cleaned off the trailer we had been using as a staging area, raked the yard around the RV, and got the big trash can pulled up next to the RV door. From there I emptied the trash off of the inside counter, an old ceiling fan, lights (saved all the 12V LED light bulbs), paper, water bottles, rags, dried paint trays and drip cloths. DH and a different worker came by and gathered all the trash I had collected, including the pulled carpet, and hauled it away to the dump.

Now I could see what I was working with. I reattached the air conditioner return vent to the ceiling that I had painted white after searching for 20min for a power drill, then another 10 for the right bit. I sanded the wood putty on the roof next to the ceiling woofer where I screwed it in wrong and made a hole.

Now *sigh* that was done. What can I tear up now?

I started removing light fixtures from the slide area of the living room. I tested them with the voltmeter, but they didn't register I'm guessing because only the 12V was hooked up and it was weak. I took down all 4 light fixtures, taped each wire end individually then taped the wire ends together to protect them from each other and from the paint that would be coming. After I finished with the light fixtures, I took down anything else attached to the wall and threw it away, like curtains, rods, rod holders, and the spice shelf behind the stove.

Next would be the devil wallpaper. The greenish tinted sun faded flower border that was waist height around the living room slide, the kitchen slide, and I later found in the toilet room. 

This stuff was NOT regular wallpaper, I swear it was contact paper. It was super sticky on the back still and took me a little bit to figure out the best way to get it off the wall. A razor was not the answer. It cut the paper and scraped the wall up, gouging the wood paneling behind the paper. I went to the shop to find my wallpaper scraper.

Forty-five minutes later, I had my scraper but not the blades I had JUST bought 6 days ago. I checked everywhere from the house to the shop to on top of the freezer, in cabinets in the RV, the cargo hold. Nothing. Once again. 

I got back at it with my hands and the razor and little by little the sticky, aged paper rolled off in strips. 

I think that's grease the razor is stuck in. All the more reason to get rid of it!

I cleaned up my wallpaper mess and realized that task revealed a lot of screw holes in the wood. Where's my putty?

I took the razor to smooth the edges of the raised wood down, then puttied the holes. 

I had to take a break at this point, my feet were killing me and my back was aching a bit. I sat on the broken bottom stair of the indoor staircase and sipped a Pepsi while I looked at what I had accomplished. 

I took a break from the RV long enough to put some chicken thighs on to cook and make broth for chicken and rice dinner tonight. I helped the kids with a few tasks, then remembered I had originally come inside to find the refrigerator drain hole cleaner kit I bought on Amazon. When we bought the camper, DH's friend told us he had to put a coffee cup under the drip pan 'because it was leaking.' We knew better.

When we first got the camper after thawing the freezer

~So as a sidenote, I LOVE those Asian gadget videos. They're literally like 15-minute advertisements for 40 different gadgets in each one. Usually something to do with cleaning and scrubbing toilets or windows or keeping floors clean or scooter gadgets or accessories to carry your stuff with. Occasionally I will see something on there that is useful to me, however I will say in my future home the shower and toilet will all be in the same room with a communal drain. It seems so much easier to clean the toilet with a shower head right there to spray it off and wash it down!

Back to my post, I *once again* searched for this particular item for at least another 45 minutes. I checked bedrooms and closets, cargo holds, the shop, everywhere. By this point I was ripping pissed that I couldn't find half of the stuff I needed to work and it was wasting my time. Angry and snappy, I went back outside to look around inside the camper. I opened the refrigerator door in the RV to see if maybe I could get away with just pouring some bleach water down a funnel or something.

The damned package stared back at me from the top shelf of the fridge. 

I don't remember putting it in there, but I guess I thought to myself, "Self, we'll put this in here so we don't lose it." 😑

This was the kit I bought.

This is what it came with.

I filled a cleaned gallon ice cream bucket with bleach water, used the syringe and long white straw to break the mold layer on the drain, and piped the hot bleach water directly down the drain tube. 

After a few cycles of the syringe, I put the drain tray back in and tipped the gallon bucket into it to try and run more water in faster. That did not end well, it seems like either the drain hole was still dirty, or it's 'governed' somehow, so I wound up having to soak bleach water up off the floor with the old curtains I had taken down. Well, it smelled clean anyways.

I tried to use the pipe cleaner to clean down the drain, however it stopped about 3 inches in-the same place the drain stopped the straw, so I'm thinking there's a filter or a hard turn at that point. 

I didn't want to spend hours putting 50mL syringes of water in a drain line, so I MacGyver'd a system. I love to engineer stuff to help me.

I put the gallon bucket of water in the freezer on top of the fridge, taped the straw in the bottom of the gallon bucket with painter's tape, took the other end and pulled a suction with the syringe, took the syringe off, then just stuck the straw into the drain line. It siphoned the gallon of bleach water down the drain tube in about 3 minutes. 

After that mess, I cleaned up my tools, shut everything down, and went back in the house, pooped! I have so much left to do to be able to paint, but I want it to be RIGHT before I put that last touch on. 

As an update, DH was able to go a few towns over and pick up that leather recliner. He liked it so much he wants me to find another one for the house, haha! I have the table possibly pending pickup tomorrow, we shall see. 

Oh, and I never did find the damned wallpaper scraper blades. 😒

That's all I've got for now! It's slow going but it IS progress!