Rains and Planes

Tropical Storm Debby is being a tease to Florida, sending blinding waterfalls of rain followed 10 minutes later by blazing, muggy sunshine.  The strong winds seem to be everywhere, however, and some of them continue to destroy homes and to kill people.  We heard last evening of a mother who died when she clung to her three-year-old as a tornado tore them from their home.  They found her a field away from her home, her body still protecting her daughter who is injured but expected to survive.

Stephanie removing garden soil.

Yesterday graced us with sunshine for most of the day even though our neighbors to the north and the east did not fair as well.  While Rick worked on the bedroom wall, Stephanie went out to the front flower garden to remove some of the soil.  We need to have the garden near the porch leveled and some type of platform or pavers installed for Chris and Frank to stand on when they put in the new front doors. We thought they were coming today, but in conversation with Chris this morning, Rick learned that they are going to delay the installation so I do not have 40 mile per hour winds blow through my house as they take out the old door and put in the new ones.  Good plan.

The newly transplanted rose garden behind the garage.
This garden is now visible from the Florida Room.

A blank slate for a new porch.

I had already transplanted some of the rose bushes in the garden away from the door, but in looking at the half-dismantled garden, I decided to transplant the whole rose garden into the back yard.  Stephanie and I then took out the rest of the ugly, crumbling-brick retaining wall and leveled the whole garden.  We took the soil from the garden by 5 gallon pails full to fill in the back corner that floods each time it rains. Now the soil is higher there, the garden is level, and new possibilities open for us since we will have to reconstruct the front porch.  Stephanie suggested a huge front porch that reaches from the double doors all the way to the end of the bedroom wall, going out toward the street.  She said that we could put a nice bench on it under the bedroom window and some flower pots to dress up the whole entrance.  Rick was not too thrilled with the idea of that much concrete-- because, of course, you cannot put in that much concrete in Dunedin without a permit and two inspections.  Honestly, I will bet the Permit to Change the Toilet Paper proposal is on the City Council's agenda as I write this!

The latest in bedroom design: the mudded drywall look!

Rick made progress with the wall, adding drywall to the outside.  It is really beginning to look like a genuine room again.  By the end of the day, he had the whole thing covered in the front, and the back corner by the shower done also.  A tricky part was taking out the old framing from the ceiling.  Overhead work is difficult and really puts a strain on these old bodies of ours!  Naturally, Rick wants to do it all, so he gets the brunt of the work... but also the blame if things don't go right.

Today we took Stephanie to the Tampa Airport.  As we approached Highway 19, our GPS said, "Road closed" and directed us down a different route.  With all of the flooding in the area, we were not about to argue with it.  We got her safely to the airport and on her way with no problems.  She arrived safely in Minneapolis this afternoon and should be home soon in Rochester.  I am sure that her own bed and lots of loving from her cats will be therapeutic before she heads back to work.

After we left the airport, we decided to go further east in Tampa to the vacuum cleaner place to purchase our central vacuum.  I worked all this past semester to come out with a little over $1000 from Cengage Publishing with the sole idea that I would use that money to purchase the vacuum.  The bill for our Simplicity vacuum did, indeed, use the allotted money, so now all we have to do is agree on a place to hang the vacuum and hook it up to the piping that Rick installed last year.  No more shop vac to clean the floors. I think that shop vac (Stephanie called it R2D2 since it looks like the Star Wars character) has a nasty habit of scratching the floors, so I cannot wait to get the new central system up and running. I know, Rick, I know.  Just one more job to add to our ever-expanding list.  If you are a fan of this blog, you know that no day passes without something being done, yet the list seems to get longer instead of shorter, even though our bank account gets lighter by the day.

More work lurks in the back yard.

We went through a couple of squalls and a scary, windy ride over the causeway to get home from Tampa only to discover that the wind had taken down a large branch on the cherry (?) tree in the back yard.  We want to take down the rest of the tree anyway, so God, if you are listening, take the rest of it out tonight, OK? There really is not much left of it, so we would like to start from scratch.

Whoever said, "If only these walls could talk..." really has never renovated an old house.  The walls DO talk, and Gladys told us quite a tale this afternoon.

Berries, birds, and roses... not my vision for this room!

Her story started when we took out the existing bathroom cabinet in the master bath.  Behind it we found two layers of very 1960's wallpaper.  The original was orange and yellow flowers, and the second was blue flowers with green vines on a lovely ivory background. When we took out the toothbrush holder, we discovered the best of all: the lovely print depicted in the picture.  Already Gladys revealed three phases of the master bathroom's life.

The shocking part of the story was the tale of horror she told about workmen chipping away half of her structural cement blocks to fit in the bathroom cabinet.  We can literally knock on the backside of the outside wall, and I shutter to think that that west wall is supporting part of the roof over my head!  We need to fill the cavity with insulation, maybe support of some kind, and drywall over it.  We will install just a mirror in the bathroom and use the cabinet to hold the former contents of the medicine cabinet. These are two more of the sad stories from Gladys' past.

I am sure that Gladys has thousands of stories of good times, too.  Thanksgiving feasts and Christmas celebrations.  Bowling championship games (Jackie, the former owner, won many bowling trophies that we found stored in the garage) and picnics on the patio.  We don't see evidence of them in the structure of the house, but I hope that they outweighed the times that were not so good.

We enjoyed having Stephanie come to visit and hope that Lindsay and Chris can make it here soon.  We want this house to be filled with good memories for the family by making Gladys a strong, secure, snug little house.