Well, the holidays and an ice storm have slowed things down around here considerably. We were stuck at home for four days last week because of this:
That's about 3/4" of sleet that then got rained on and turned to a sheet of ice. I couldn't even walk up the driveway. The only thing to do in a situation like this is take the camper off the truck and start working on it!
The rear skirts are rotted and I'm replacing them. I'll start another topic on the skirt replacement later, but this is what it looks like now. I had to leave the truck inside and work around it. I was afraid that if I moved it outside on the driveway, I wouldn't be able to get it back up the incline in front of the garage.
It is soooo nice working indoors when it's freezing cold outside. I have a propane heater to keep it just warm enough to work.
Regarding the garage lighting: I've had a change of plans regarding the type of light fixtures I'm going to use in the garage, so I'll update you all on that.
When the electricians did the wiring, I had them just install 12 temporary sockets in the ceiling, 6 in each bay. My plan at the time was to eventually replace them with 4 ft. T-8 double tube fixtures. I had already priced them out and they were going to be about $50 a fixture, plus the cost of the bulbs. T-8 bulbs of that length run about 32 watts per bulb, so each fixture would pull 64 watts. Not great, but I could live with it. I had ruled out LED's and T-5 fixtures earlier, as they are still too pricey for me to consider.
I started out with regular 60w incandescent bulbs in the temp sockets. The light output was OK, but I was really wanting it just a little brighter in there most of the time. I finally went a bought 100w equivalent CFL's and installed them. Wow! This is great! The light output is just what I wanted, and each bulb only uses 23 watts.
After living with the CFL's for a few weeks and being happy with the amount of light they produced, I told the boss that it just doesn't make sense to spend $50 a fixture to install lights that will use more than double the electricity the CFL's are using. So, I started looking for single-bulb fixtures. I wanted something a little more attractive than the simple ceramic screw-in you might find in closet or a crawl-space. I found these, and they captured my imagination.
They've got a warehouse/industrial look that will look good in the garage, they're durable and should stand up to a whack or two, and they're cheap! Less than $20 each. They are all painted a silver-gray color, but I'm thinking about painting them glossy primary colors: red/green/yellow/blue, three of each color just for fun. What do you think?
:):)
