I wish we had kept the welding machine Cordell gave us. We gave it to his nieces husband, Doofer, after Cordell died & just found out that Doofer died (he wasn't even all that old). There's a guy in town nicknamed Rusty who welds stuff, but he's often busy working at the local tire shop.
My friend did some work on my brother's truck & has it running nicely. Broke several tools trying to get an O2 sensor off. Managed to get 1 off but not the other. Got some new rear struts & stuff, stopped the engine from misfiring, etc. My brother woke me up freaking out bc he couldn't find the control arms he'd bought to put on the truck but I could have sworn they'd already been put on. He tore the house up looking for them (leaving a mess in his wake that I have to clean up bc he won't do it). I visited the friend briefly on my way back from the grocery store then realized I forgot to get my medicine & had to go back. He injured his back at work & has an MRI scheduled Thursday. My brother got some rotisserie chickens & ate one at the friend's house & brought the other one home and stuffed it in the fridge. I dissected it and bagged the meat up & threw away the bones (in containers so the cats can't get them).
Today my mother decided she wanted salad but we don't have lettuce or anything to make it with so after dinner I had to go to the store to get her some apple walnut salads. I also picked up some milk.
I've been planning to work on my back door because it's getting worse & I want to get it replaced before the weather gets even colder. It looks like there was no flashing under the threshold and there is at least a 1" drop from the threshold to the outside sill (both the wood under the threshold & the sill are rotted). Bottom of the door is rotted, pet door fell out & the wood where it used to be is rotted. I need to prep the new door for installation so it will be ready to go up. I'm thinking I can pop the hinge pins out to make the slab easier to manage when I cut the hole for the pet door (which was supposed to come with a template but didn't). If it were a wood door it would be simpler but it's steel clad (although the mfr said it could be cut). The blades for cutting metal aren't designed to go around corners & the pet door has rounded corners. I'm thinking I could use a dremel tool with cutting blade for metal to cut through the steel cladding & then use the jigsaw to cut the wood. I plan to drill holes in all 4 corners to make it easier to cut. I'll clamp a board to the underside of the door to try to prevent the steel from pushing out when it is drilled. I'm thinking of drilling most of the way through & then flipping it over and drilling form the other side. If I make a template & do the measurements right it should line up. Or, I could just take a go with the metal cutting blade on the jigsaw (after drilling the holes).
Right now my door doesn't have a proper header-- it has a 2x4 on uneven king studs with a 1" drop from right to left. I'm going to make a new header out of 2x6s adhered together & instead of putting it right over the door, I'm going to put it up near the ceiling (bc there's electrical in the way down lower). I'll add new king studs next to the current ones, then I'll trim the cripples to allow for the new header (it's going to be a little tricky because they have electrical wires running through them and sort of glued in tight-- will have to shut off electrical while working on them. I'm going to have to see if the wires can be removed at least temporarily so I can run them through the king studs. Then I need to raise & adjust the old header so it is level & high enough for the door to clear the finished floor. Right now the door scrapes the subfloor but part of that is because it's crooked.
I'm going to have to cut out portions of the floor underneath the door & patch it. On the houserepairtalk forum someone suggested using a 2x4 or 2x6 underneath the threshold. Still trying to figure out what to do for the door sill. I'm going to add a sill pan & some house wrap tape/flashing. I'm pretty sure there's no z-channel or flashing on top of the door either so I will need to remedy that. I'm going to add an awning so I'll have to add blocking to support it when I'm working on the header. It's a lot of work & I still need to work on my bathroom floor but the bathroom floor won't affect the heating of the house but this back door is affecting it.
I'm going to paint the supports for the awning soon-- got the paint but need to get my painter's tape & sanding block from my friend-- also need to get my jigsaw, nail gun, and compressor back. He keeps telling me my compressor is in there somewhere but I haven't seen it & I'm worried it got stolen & he's afraid to tell me.