Laurie Mustard / Laurie Mustard Productions
The rusty stove before spiffing it up with some ‘stove black’ paint.
It’s getting to be "snug as a bug in a rug time," or as we say here at the Mustardosa, "toasty as a moose in a caboose!"
I’ve now moved from restoring the outside of this dear old 1905 CNR caboose, to spiffing up the inside, making it ready to stifle those cold winter winds by building a roaring fire in the old John Taylor summer kitchen wood stove, and lighting the kerosene lanterns which also add a tremendous amount of heat to any dwelling.
You know what it’s like holding your hand down close over the top of any kerosene lantern — you don’t keep it there for long. Not unless you want to smell yourself cooking.
I’ve also sold the rows of theatre seats I had along each wall and replaced them with the comfy individual chairs I had there in the first place. I’ve also added a gorgeous red restaurant bench, which is very well-padded , and best of all, I managed to fit in a hide-a-bed for those adventurous -40 C sleepovers. The grandkids are going to love it!
Well, they will if they manage to wake up a couple of times overnight and add wood to the stove. Otherwise, chilly toes and nose come morning.
This is no regular hide-a-bed. I luckily stumbled across an ad for a 2008 RV sofa-bed, as new, and just small and light enough (I moved it myself, mattress in) to squeeze through that oh-so-narrow caboose door. Oooh… it was a close one, but I got it done.
It’s also very comfortable to use just as a regular couch — a perfect place winter or summer to set oneself down and read a good book.
Book? That’s one of those things that has pages in it, with words on them. You open it up, read the words and keep going till it says "the end!" You don’t even have to recharge it! Very old-fashioned, but it can be fun.
It doesn’t take a whole lot of work to prepare the inside of a caboose for winter fun: just clean the ashes out of the stove, make sure you have a good supply of wood on hand (I do), lots of kerosene for the lamps, and with the addition of this cosy sofa-bed, a really warm comforter. Almost ready.
One bit of winter prep I haven’t done yet is repair the storm windows and get them installed before those frigid northwest winds start howling through. For those not aware, whether on a caboose or a house, every dwelling used to have an extra set of windows that were taken off for summer and placed back in the fall to create that dead air space that kept the cold from coming through faster than retirees’ cash through a casino.
Without storm windows, there would have been no way to keep a house warm through winter.
True story: The first "successful" golf shot I managed to launch in our yard at about age four, arched up over the garden, through our garage window, and (on the opposing inside wall) through every storm window my Dad had set one against another for summer storage. I guess he figured if one got broken, it would only be the outside one. He obviously didn’t factor in "Tiger" Mustard and his fabulous flailing four iron — that he’d given me to learn how to swing.
Oh dear. I thought he was going to be mighty angry, but he wasn’t, and because he owned the hardware store and repaired windows, off they went and came back as good as new. Whew.
There is one more thing I have to do to help this caboose hold the heat in, and that’s crawl underneath and insulate the floor. Even with the stove cranking out major heat, it can still get a tad nippy on the toes. Next year! Have a great weekend!
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