Next up was to tackle the head (bathroom). One of the lovely beige Formica walls was made even uglier due to mildew and rot where it met the floor. Had to take a few pry bars after it and ended up removing two layers of ugly beige Formica (guess it had happened before and they just covered it up). I thought that was the terrible part until I was left to deal with the contact cement residue. I had to put on a respirator and goggles which made me sound like Darth Vader. Spent a lot of time in there with MEK, paper towels and scraper before I decided it just wouldn't work. I'd be there the rest of my life with that approach, plus I could only do it for 10 minutes at a time - as that respirator and my claustrophobia are not a good combination. I was fighting off panic attacks the whole time.
Next approach was to sand it off. So yesterday DJ loaned me a little hand sander and I worked on it while he took Coleen Christmas shopping. I thought I did a pretty good job -- until he got back and inspected. He started laughing and said "Well you got it smooth, but you didn't take off the contact cement". Turns out I had the wrong kind of SAND PAPER! Who knew there were different kinds! So now I got the heavy duty sander and some rougher sand paper and spent about 3 hours torturing myself and the wall until it was just like new wood. (Actually, I'll digress by saying that I would have preferred to just put up new wood, instead of all that sanding, but my supervisor - DJ, thought it a bad idea, and encouraged me to fix it the right way). Anyway, just as I was about to give a victory cheer I turned and got a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I nearly burst into tears! My hair and scalp was covered in sawdust and I mean covered thick! Now this might not sound too bad - but let's recall I was working on the SHOWER STALL!
I had no choice but to fire up the stove, heat water, fill the solar shower bag, and rig up a shower outside in the cockpit. The wind was blowing and it was about 55 degrees, not exactly great conditions for a shampoo! While the water was heating I started cleaning up sawdust that was on nearly everything in the cabin. (Note to self - cover things up with sheets next time!). Anyway, I had a very quick shower, then made a cup of hot cocoa with lots of Peppermint Schnapps and crawled into bed.
Today I'm taking a break from all of that --- and doing a little Christmas baking... as well as washing down every single thing in the main cabin.