For the first time since I got the Diggity Dodge here I have done zero work inside of it. Reason?.....well..."reasons"  actually.   

This is the first weekend we have had no rain and the lawns were in seriously sorry shape.  They absolutely had to get mowed or I would be calling them the fields and neighbor would be thinking I moved out.  

Of course, just when I really really need it...the riding lawn mower goes on the fritz again. It's old....like me.  LOL  After hours…

.......a good venting session.

Today I did both vent jobs, the heat duct vent box and the outside vent for the stove hood.

I tried to recondition the old stove vent out of the warped state using steaming water and putting weights on the vents in a large pan overnight.  It worked somewhat, but not enough for me to be happy with it, it was still stained dirty, and I worried it would just go back to the warped state with time anyway.

So, I ordered two vents…

....turns out to be the least damaged area of all.

I finally decided to tackle the main cab over window by removing the leftover paneling wood, having avoided it all this time because I just knew I was going to find major damage to the frame.  Well.....it looks just fine!  There is no damage around that window except for one little area in the lower right corner that falls into place with the right corner of the cab over that suffered water damage..  I can clean that up with…

Well, I can't blame the previous owners of Diggity Dodge for this one.  It was clearly constructed this way.

The corner with the gaping hole of light in the cab over behind the passenger door was a bit more involved than I had thought.  Originally I thought there was just a rust hole started there.  Nah....that would be much too simple.

Here's the outside of that hole, and the reason for it.  Notice the joining of the corner...the metal track wasn't a flush match over…

Sooo....I was told during a conversation yesterday with someone offline that a simple haphazardly installed bracket for a CB antenna could not possibly have caused so much devastation and damage to the cab over.  I giggled....really....I did.  

Of course, this prompted an official investigation for proof of the matter, including eye witnesses and photographs of the scene.

Can I get a witness??

The investigation provided enough evidence that the accused (the bracket) was…

I THOUGHT....yeah..this is what I get for thinking...

that this was going to be a fairly easy job to do on this heater duct that is crushed by the frame of the couch/bed. Now, looking over this couch and how it is bolted together with no working room anywhere to dismantle it and then get it back together, I decided that was not happening. (I am reminded of Lakota's comment on ablog about an RV being built around a cabinet. I think this RV was built around this couch. LOL)…

I'm going to be heading out to work on the cabover this morning for a bit.  Thunder in the distance, but  it looks like it's going to roll north of me.  Darn...need the rain here.

While I was having my cuppa's this morning I was looking around at upholstery fabrics.  I thought I might stick with color schemes that go with the striping on the RV, blues and teals.

Here's a color combo choice I am mulling over, the dark plain color would be for the main seat…

In my basement...which suffered major water damage when a sump pump gave out during a heavy rainstorm (water seeped in through a crack in a block. The ground could not keep up with the water)

...is a drop ceiling.  The tiles suffered damage with warping from the humidity, so they all had to come down.  I have loads of channeling in the crawl space, and I looked at that and wondered.

It worked!  I screwed this channeling onto both sides of the 2x4 where the ceiling was dropping…

Okay, the hard part of the framing inside is done. Those 2x4's were purely exasperating trying to get them up without a helper. My arms were screaming murderly.

I am going to hafta to do the 2x2's between the 2x4's because of the length of the 2x4 run. As soon as I took down the support lifts the ceiling sank in the middle a bit. So, hopefully the 2x2's will stop that from happening.

I did some toe nailing and did angle brackets on one. And this wood splits easily. I like the…

Hey, I've got a great idea on where to hang the fly swatter for easy reach....let's put a 1" machine screw into the front of the refrigerator and hang it right there!  Easy peasy........

Garsh we're smart....

And you know that antenna that bounces on the cabover when we're traveling?  How irritating!  So let's put a screw in and…

What did that cabover ever do to them to deserve such abuse?

 Now we come to the CB antenna bracket. (this is what my brother said it was for)  Right smack on the edge of the top, screwed in with several large screws and piled on with some sort of sealant that certainly did not work over time.  Inside the camper where that is located, of course..the wood is rotted on the ceiling as well as on the edges.  It did some major damage and contributed very much to the overall…

During the work week, I've made a list of things to take on that don't take a lot of time commitment to finish.  This morning I got two things attended to.

First a bent up vent outside that goes to the water heater control area (I think)  It looks like someone tried to get into it without pulling down the canopy bar.  You can't get the door open with the canopy bar in the upright position.

So I got that all straightened up and back in there correctly.…

This morning I began the 2x2 supports installation. I have one up, it went fairly easy and seems very secure.  There will be a lot of cutting to fit as I go around the walls and such, but that's what a chop saw and measure tape are for. ;-)

My brother and I had been talking about those 2x4's that will go across the top and how to attach them to…

Well, as many silicone implant recipients might tell you....sometimes they get a bad job and suffer leakage....... ;-)

My job today was to tackle the antenna on the roof.  What I discovered was the antenna was really not the cause of the major leaking, it was the wire to it that had a hole separate from the unit almost to the edge of the top.  There was a metal plate on top of some foam rubber stripping, screwed in....and the wire from the antenna was shoved under the plate…

I found the reason that the cabover damage was so extensive and mainly in the corners of the front. The ceiling is dry, the windows are dry...but those bottom corners...what a mess! Both sides of the outside has buckled seals right at the bottom curve. The water was running right down into them and staying trapped there. Rusted screws and seepage was inevitable. I pulled it out, and will get some new sealing strips, install new screws and silicone around them.

Not sure what those strips…

So much water...still in that insulation.

Well, I did some work in Diggity Dodge this morning and concentrated on one area of the ceiling that was a major contributor to the still existing water reservoir of a ceiling.  There is a piece of 2x4 coming out from the wall that just stopped at about 8" and doesn't seem to be attached in any way to any other boards.  It just kind of hangs there like a lone wolf.  This piece was hanging down really bad when I began this project and…