A Slow Weekend

Okay -- it's on to the benchwork.  The plan was to have all of the general benchwork in place by the end of the weekend but other priorities stepped up.  The first, of course, was decorating the house for Christmas.  I'm happy to say that all of the outside decorations are up and most of the inside decorations.  The house looks great -- I love this time of year.   There are some new outdoor decorations on the way even as I write this -- more on that later (with pictures).

The second priority -- and one I've been putting off way too long -- was repairing the hole in the train room ceiling.  Several years ago (yes, years) water damage cause a portion of the ceiling to fall in.  It needed to be repaired before I started installing benchwork.  Plan 1 -- go to Lowes and purchase the required parts.  Epic Fail -- you used to be able to purchase individual pieces of the ceiling boards.  I only needed four of them.  Nope -- not any more.  Now you need to purchase a carton (at $60.00) of either 20 or 25 pieces.  And -- it's a special order --  a 3 week wait.  Never mind.  So -- onto Plan 2.  I went in the garage and found the scrap pieces I had squirreled away from when I installed the ceiling.  Here's the result:

Awesome -- no more hole...

With that accomplished -- I had enough time to make a "start" on the L girder benchwork.  I assembled two of the girders.  A photo of the 2nd under construction.

That's it for now.