I think she's done for now.  Minimal amount of "dirtying" for now.  Probably not even noticeable. I'm content.  I think I do prefer the dark blue with white trim, though.  Anyway, here's front-on:

And for laughs, I found an early pic of how she looked before refit to compare to her current look.  Since I had some space onscreen, I threw in how she looked immediately after refit.  It's eerie how close the shade of blue is.  I wasn't going for that at all and I spent almost no time picking the paint--I just wanted to get a good base coat on before any rain (after learning all the paint I had was ruined) so I spent about 5 seconds picking the color:

fixed your image for ya. 

It's looking like a good save you've done there...

Hopefully she'll be good for another few years...

Regards,

Russell

First day of significant rain since the refit.  Seems dry inside.  Of course this was, like, a 20 minute shower, not a daylong deluge.  And the proof is 365 days of season change, expansion and contraction.  But I'll take it.  Beats if it was leaking like a sieve.  I'm really not thrilled with my choice of blue, but it *is* growing on me.  A bit.  Still, I may have to go back for more weathering.  Give me an excuse to get some dark grey stain and put it in a spray bottle to see if I can replicate the effect I got on the original configuration.  (That time I just watered down acrylic paint, but every time after that I tried it, it would immediately clog the nozzle, so I was never able to replicate it.)

So.  The entire back of my neighbors' house is sided in my beloved Hardiplank.  Or I should say "was."  More on that later.  The contractor who did it apparently didn't properly install the flashing around the chimney so water got under the siding and rotted all the wood.  After a person who, I gather, was her father, ripped all the siding off around the chimney, he ripped out all the rotted lumber and plywood and replaced the plywood with particle board.    Then he sprayed a ton of expandable gap-filler foam all over the place before nailing on housewrap.   

Now, I can't mock the foam too much, in that if is a significant structural element of my TARDIS.  But that's a rickety little shed for storing paint and garden tools in, not my house. 

Anyway, then he and his flunky proceeded to try to nail the Hardiplank back on.  Only they were using regular nails and Hardiplank requires special nails.  Also, you have to strip it all the way to the top because you nail the top edge, then you overlap the next board, making it water-resistant and creating a wood siding effect.  The whole while he grumbled about how the stuff was basically drywall and that his daughter should have proper vinyl siding instead of that junk.   

Eventually he decided the project was beyond him and over the past few months a procession of contractors have been by to make estimates--all deriding the Hardiplank and praising the wonders of vinyl siding. 

Now vinyl siding may have come a long way from the 1990s or so, but I think of the stuff as garbage.  It can't be painted.  It can be damaged by the sun.  It gets brittle.  Hail can damage it.  Wind can rip it off relatively easily.  But it isn't my house.  So the past 2 weeks, a contractor has been next door, systematically ripping off all the Hardiplank and replacing it with vinyl siding.  I'll admit, it isn't terrible looking vinyl siding, but it still annoys me a bit.  And the kicker is, it doesn't look like he's going to do anything about the flashing around the chimney.  So 2 years from now--maybe less because now it's particle board instead of plywood--everything's going to be rotten again. 

I basically had to get all that off my chest because I don't have a psychiatrist to tell it to, but I mention it here, because I contemplate scavenging the castoff Hardiplank to line the inside of my TARDIS.  I can glue it up with Liquid Nails or Gorilla Glue Caulk and maybe add some of the proper screws and then I should have a rot-proof interior.  So as the exterior wood rots away I can just plaster on thinset and have an actual police box made out of a concretelike substance.  The only thing being, she's got far more material than I can use, so I don't know if I can just have some of it or not.  I guess I should ask if I want to know.  Opportunity only knocks once...

Bah.  I've been checking up to see how the refit has fared.  It's been...OK.  Although, truth be told, I think I was not noticing some moisture intrusion because I didn't *want* to find moisture intrusion.  It's been miserably wet lately and I couldn't miss it of late so yeah, more work at some point.  But the reason for this post is, I needed something out of the TARDIS so I popped in to find mushrooms growing.  MUSHROOMS.  That's never a good sign.     

If the TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental, there must be mushroom inside...

Ba- DUM!!

You really are a fun guy
(fungi...geddit??!!)

 

Russell

.

I've never really taken with the 1950s police box livery for a TARDIS.  For some reason the blue panes have never worked for me with blue window trim.  But a few weeks ago my TARDIS started nagging me again and now here she is in full "Genevieve" glory:

More rot.  This summer, my TARDIS will be 10.  It's survived a cross-country move and is still standing.  It's been patched with odds and ends, cement board (used for mounting floor and wall tile), mortar, Bondo auto body putty, fiberglass, and who knows what else.  The new fiberglass roof shell helped for awhile, but the corner posts are still getting soggy inside when it rains so it looks like I need more fiberglass (and more time).  I've also got a thriving community of carpenter ants that I'm fighting.  On top of that I found some more rot that needs my attention--when I can make some time.  But it still stands.  And I daresay looks better than the original 1963 prop did after 10 years. 

OK.  Update coming soon.  I moved.  Only 3 miles.  But 3 miles can wreak more terrible havok on a TARDIS than cross country if the box is 3 years older and gets moved by a single 50+ man.  The snow and ice that just happened the week I needed to move the bugger actually worked in my favor, mostly.  I mean once I got the base unfrozen from the ground.  Then it was a lot easier to slide onto a trailer than it would've been on August concrete.  Even so, by the time it was far enough in the trailer, it had lost 3 of the 4 base boards.  And the X/Y dimensions were compromised.  The corner posts broke away from the walls in enough places that keeping it square required much attention to detail (I never put a floor in my TARDIS.  I'd just drop a plywood sheet onto blocks when it was in place.  Solved some problems, but made it much less sturdy.) 

Currently there's bad leakage in at least 1 top corner that runs all the way down and rots wood in that area.  The whole base is badly rotted too.  But I think I can rebuild it.  I have the technology.  Also, I've learned to work with Bondo.  Pictures to come. 

It is getting very close to time to work on the TARDIS.  (Still no pictures, I'm afraid.)  I've picked 2 possible locations for it.  I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.  It is where it is because I have a long narrow lot with a ridge down the center that slopes away--particularly on 1 side.  Leading up to the move, we had a nice patch of freezing rain to coat everything with ice.  This was followed by snow and enough low temps to make even basic driving treacherous.  Driving a 30some year old van, pulling a 2 wheeled trailer was downright crazy. When I was younger I'm sure I could back a 2 wheeled trailer better than I can now and this day was spent going "if I turn the wheels this way, that should make the trailer hitch go...that way, which should turn the back of the trailer..." and then trying and going "DAMMIT!"  So as soon as I had the TARDIS inside the backyard fence I backed the trailer up as well as I could to get it out of the actual driveway, got the bugger unloaded, unhitched the trailer so I could turn it around by hand, and then drove the van out to a place where I could get *it* turned around.  Even that required a judicious use of a shovel, cat litter, and the carpeting I'd ripped out of one of the bedrooms for traction for the van on the snow. 

So now I've got to get it moved to a better spot.  My first choice was straight back, by a little garage, but the other night I was out by the street and realized it would look really nice next to a tin shed that has a solar light pointed at it, much closer to the street.  That said, this is at the bottom of the aforementioned slope and the ground is awfully soft between points A and B.  My original choice is straight and level and has gravel the whole way (even if it is a bit farther away).  So the next thing will be getting her moved.  I would swear that when I built her I was able to lift the whole thing off the ground myself--barely.  But like most of us, the years have made her more fragile and also put on some pounds.  Some wood has rotted away, but that was all relatively light wood.  And I replaced/reinforced those spots with cement board.  I've also added thinset mortar for detail work, weathering, and patching, which adds some weight.  Even the fiberglass top to the roof makes her heavier.  But like I said, the move has also made her unstable. 

So I have to come up with wheels that are robust enough to handle the weight (which I don't actually know) and also able to move easily over gravel/dirt.  And I have to decide whether it is more important to get the move done before adding a bunch more weight to move or to stabilize everything before attempting the move.  Six to one... 

Started renovations.  Haven't taken as many pictures as I should've. And I must confess the new photo size requirements have slowed me from posting the pics I have. The extra step of having to resize photos has been a bridge too far for my updates.  I know, it isn't hard, but that one extra step makes it just enough of a pain that I don't get around to it.  If anyone has an app/tool they like (or if I get around to finding one) I'll figure out an appropriate place to park it and "sticky" it for people.  Anyhow...

...I don't know if it is just time and entropy, but I rather suspect moving to a concrete pad is the culprit--large areas of the bottom of the TARDIS have rotted badly. Actually the other part of the culprit is that the water that intrudes via cracks and flaws in the waterproofing migrates to the bottom, where it collects.  Throw in some carpenter ants, making their home in the wood and she's pretty beat up.  But not lost. 

Manhandling the bugger onto a trailer wreaked havoc on the base.  The base got ripped off on 3 of the 4 sides.  (The remaining side, while horribly rotted, somehow seems still strongly attached.)  On top of everything else, a bird made a nest in one of the POLICE BOX signs. 

Other day I was in to start trimming away glops of expanding spray foam.  Brought in the stepladder and finished the job.  Swept out all the crud and cobwebs.  Scraped away as much rot as I could.  Fixed the "inverted steps" under the POLICE BOX signs.  Did some work on the POLICE BOX signs so they light up better at night.  Managed to damage one of them while doing same.  But it isn't terribly visible.  It contributes to the "altered Barachaki vibe she's developing. 

Next up I added angle braces in the top corners.  My design, with 4x4s in the corner posts and 2x...I dunno, 12's? for the POLICE BOX signs (I later cut out the centers so the POLICE BOX could be backlit), screwed to the 4x4s has made a quite robust box.  But the bottom has been the weak spot.  I didn't put an actual floor in, just a pallet that I could drop a plywood board onto.  So once the base boards rotted (and got ripped off in the move) structural integrity was badly compromised. 

I started addressing this.  I still need to add angle braces to the  bottom, but they are now redundantly tied and cross-braced for added strength. There are some rotted pieces that will need to be replaced.  And the door is presently warped.  But not too badly.  I'll be adding a steel strap/bar later to true that up.

Police boxes were made out of concrete.  Mine is moving in that direction.  I've already used premixed thinset tiling mortar to add texture and fill rotted holes in the exterior.  There's also this Hardibacker cement board you use when tiling.  It's like drywall made of concrete instead of gypsum and paper.  I had some leftover sheets of this laying around that now clad most of the interior of the TARDIS. 

Once bottom crossbraces and/or floor is in, I'll have to look at mounting the wheels.  The TARDIS needs to be moved from its present location (where it was deposited because of the challenges of an amateur driver maneuvering a trailer on a narrow snow covered sloping lot with a rearwheel drive van.  After that there's still a ton of work to be done, but it will be a big leap forward.  Already, it's a big leap forward.  I'd have liked to accomplish more today, but all told, I'm quite happy with what I managed. 

And pictures soon.  I...promise?       

Resizing pictures is a pain. I use Pixlr and Photoshop Elements. Both are free apps and have some decent filters/effects.

Francïs