Another Task Completed...Almost

We had an interesting diversion last evening thanks to the Dunedin Fine Arts Center.  Dunedin is known as an artists' community, and they have a Fine Arts Center that offers a variety of shows, classes, and lectures.  To try something different this winter, Rick and I signed up for a series of four lectures on famous paintings-- the Mona Lisa, The Scream, The Kiss, and American Gothic.  The lectures are conducted by a retired art history professor from the University of Illinois.  The first painting was Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. The professor combined a history of the time at which the painting was done, a biography of the artist, and visuals of other works of the time to discuss the impact that the painting had on the society of the day and on the world at large even today. The lecture was very interesting and informative; it was a nice diversion from our daily routine.

Today dawned windy, rainy, and cold... at least by Florida standards.  We have heard all week that a cold front would be moving through last evening, and today the temperatures only got into the high 60s or low 70s.  Ha!  Lindsay called from Wisconsin the other day and said that they were having a heat wave since the temperature climbed all the way up to 45.  Like everything else, the notion of what is hot or cold is up to the beholder and relative to the surrounding community.

Actually, the rain was fine since Dunedin is dependent on a well for water.  Any rain we get just helps the old water table, and a day such as this certainly makes staying indoors to get some work done much easier.

We decided to use the day to finish prepping the walls for baseboard and then adding said baseboards later in the day.  I started with sanding and painting the dining room and Florida room walls where we had patch-plastered while Rick went into the garage to continue his prep of the area where we are going to relocate the water heater.  I finished my jobs in about an hour and a half with only a minor injury: a skinned knee after too much "walking" around on my knees.  Actually, I ended up with more like a blister on my knee that I did not notice until the skin peeled off.  Ouch! These old knees are definitely not what they used to be.

Rick was skim-coating the cement block walls of the garage in the corner where we want to relocate the water heater.  He figured he had better do it now since this would be the only time he would have access to that corner.  Once the new water heater is installed, the unit certainly is not going to be moved. We want to move the water heater so we have room in the laundry room for a utility sink.

Our thanks goes out to Rick's brother Steve who came to our house twice to help us move new water heaters out of the truck yesterday.  When we opened the first box to check the water heater, we found that it was badly dented and broken on top.  This was strange since the box that it came in was perfectly fine.  We took the first one back to Lowe's and came home with a second unit that passed our inspection in the store.  The second water heater is safely encased in its original box awaiting installation later this month.

The Florida room, complete with baseboard, now
needs only some furniture to make it "home." 

Once we finished with our morning tasks, we took a short break for lunch and then decided to cut and install the baseboard.  Since rain continued to pour from the sky, the weather caused a few problems since we have to open the garage door and occasionally stick baseboard outside off the end of the saw to have room to cut it.  We purchased 16-foot boards so that we would not have to make splices mid-wall.  Thanks to Rick's excellent calculations, (plus one OOOPS!), we only have one wall with a splice in it, and we have very little baseboard left after completing the job.

Cement blocks wrapped in towels make great baseboard
holders until the glue dries!

Our one challenge was the back dining room wall that actually is plaster over a cement block wall.  On the other side of the dining room wall is the laundry room/garage, so that wall was made as an original "outer" wall of the house.  When we took the old baseboard out, we discovered that the original builders had used cut nails to install the baseboard.  Not wanting to drive spikes back into the wall, we opted for contractor's glue instead.  To hold the baseboard in place, we used cement blocks that we found in the garage and yard when we bought the house.  I wrapped the blocks in old towels so they would not scratch the terrazzo floors, so right now my dining room looks a little strange.  The blocks will do their duty until tomorrow.

What a difference baseboard makes! The rooms were freshly painted and clean, but not "finished" until the baseboard was in place.  Gladys had on a new dress, but like all classy ladies, she needed shoes to make the outfit complete.

I still have to finish filling in all of the nail holes, and we have a few crooked-wall places where we'll have to add a bit of filler to make the baseboards perfect, but we can cross off one more large task as we continue to make Gladys a really sassy-looking old doll.