CAMEO HOME IMPROVEMENTS

Wednesday, November 28 – Saturday we went to Pub Fiction with Carrie and the gang to watch Ohio State (12-0) beat Michigan and Virginia Tech beat Virginia. Too bad OSU is ineligible to go to a bowl this year. Who knows, they may have been selected to play in the BCS National Championship game.

On Tuesday, Paul took on one of his planned 5^th wheel “up-grades."   We have been unable to use our Direct TV DVR recorder because it needs 2-wires running in from the satellite dish. Our Cameo is only pre-wired with one TV jack.

Paul's been researching the best way to add a second line and decided the simplest approach was to just add a dual TV jack on the outside of the 5^th wheel, drill through the wall into the entertainment area and add an entirely new 2-wire TV outlet.

After careful planning and measuring, Paul was faced with the most difficult part of this project, getting the nerve to drill through the 5^th wheel's exterior wall. He first drilled a small pilot hole figuring if he did screw-up it would be easier to patch.

Here goes nothing.

Whew! That went well.

With a 1/2” drill bit now in his drill, he preceded to drill two side-by-side holes through the exterior wall of the trailer. He was then able to fish the TV coax cable through the wall from the weather-proof outlet to the Direct TV DVR Receiver.

He caulked the outlet and holes with silicone caulk to prevent leaks and screwed the outlet to the exterior wall of the 5^th wheel.

He had to remove the TV to get to the rear of the entertainment center. With Marsha's help, that was pretty easy. We did carefully mark the wires so we could easily get them back in the proper position when finished.

The wire was then fished up through the holes already drilled in the entertainment center to the shelf where the DVR was located.

With that job out of the way and since we had the TV off the wall, this was a good time to add a 110-volt receptacle to the mantle like area under the TV. This gives Marsha a nice area for displaying her electronic picture frames and holiday decorations.

This required cutting a hole in the front panel, adding an electrical box, wiring in a receptacle, and finishing it off with a cover plate. A pretty straight forward receptacle installation especially since 110 wiring was already present in the entertainment center.

Now to connect all those wires back to the TV.  DONE! No sweat!

With that completed, another project was to add a 110-volt receptacle in the bathroom. We have one on the rear splash area of the sink, but Paul wanted a second receptacle on the side of the sink cabinet.

Adding a second receptacle meant fishing a wire from the existing receptacle down through the wall to a new electrical box under the sink cabinet. Then a wire was ran over to the side of the cabinet where a new outlet was installed in a hole cut in the cabinet side.

This was a little tougher installation requiring “stiff-old” Paul to once again practice his contortionist positions under a tiny bathroom vanity in a small RV bathroom surrounded with hundreds of tools.

With a minor amount of swearing, he pulled it off with a limited amount of frustration. That's enough for one day!

Marsha was pretty smart choosing to go to the nearby laundry mat (called Washateria here in Texas) while Paul struggled in the bathroom. Smart girl!

Wait, Marsha found one more job. Because the bed is in front of the mirrored closet doors, Marsha can't see what her entire ensemble looks like before she heads out the door.

So we looked around and found the perfect spot for her new mirror. We put it on the back of the bathroom door. All she has to do is remove the two towels when she wants to see herself and…wala…full length mirror.

That's not the end of Paul's projects, so stop back and see what's next :-)

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!