Tuesday's Toils

We took yesterday "off" from remodeling, but that does not mean that we leisurely sat around and did nothing.  We actually accomplished quite a bit.

We called Wisconsin in the morning and solved our snow removal problem... we hope! We told one company, who wanted $60 each time to snow-blow and shovel our driveway and sidewalk, that their services were no longer needed.  They plowed our driveway a couple of times, missed the sidewalk, and heaped the snow in a five-foot mound in the middle of the front yard.  While people who live around Lambeau Field do that when they want to park cars on their yards for after-snow home games, we do not live close enough to the stadium to be a part of the plow-the-yard crowd. By plowing, they ran over my flower garden, left snow in front of the garage door, and never cleared the sidewalk or the porch.  The whole reason for snow removal is so that the house looks lived-in, and the job they were doing was not giving anyone that impression.  When Rick talked to the owner, he said, "Oh, you really need our snowblower service rather than the snow plow service."  That's where the $60 charge would come in.

We contacted another service that my friend Bonnie uses.  They agreed to come to our house, use a snowblower to remove the snow and shovels to clean up the walk and the porch, and they will charge only $25 - $30 each time.  Since we were paying $40 for the snow plowing, this new service will save us money, and we know that the property will be cleared the way we want it to be cleared.

We completed both grocery shopping and supply shopping yesterday so we would be ready to work again today on the laundry room.

My new desk has a great drawer for the computer.

In the afternoon, we contacted Hudson's to see if my desk had arrived.  We learned that it had, so Rick's brother Steve joined us as we picked it up.  (Thank you, Steve!) It had a couple of small scratches, but for the most part it is in good shape.  After Steve helped us get it home, we went out and ordered glass for the top.  Since the desk is painted, without glass I am afraid it would easily scratch.  The desk is 57 inches long, so we will be able to use it not only as a desk, but also as a craft table and a sewing table.  The middle "drawer" folds down to become a computer desk, and the handy side drawers are already filled with office supplies.

The final task that Rick did yesterday was to check on changing insurance for our car and possibly for our house.  Insurance is a nightmare in Florida.  Citizen's is a state-supported insurance company that most people must use for their homes.  The major insurance companies in the US will not insure property in Florida due to the risk of severe weather.  Car insurance is three and one half times more expensive than it is in Wisconsin because this is a no-fault state.  We currently have Citizen's for the house and All State for the car, but we have begun to explore other options.  Additionally, since we now have Florida as our primary residence, we lost our million-dollar umbrella against lawsuits.  Citizen's used to offer $300,000, but they are cutting back coverage while raising rates, so we now have only $100,000 coverage with an option to buy a "bridge" policy to bring it up to $300,000.  We are not comfortable with this system, so we are starting to look at our options.  Knowledge is power, so it never hurts to find out the facts.

Another panel on the north wall of the laundry room.  Slowly,
but surely, the construction is beginning to look like a room.

Although it looks simple, framing for the
pocket door took a lot of planning.

Today we accomplished four major steps in the laundry room.  The most difficult was in framing the pocket door frame which will separate the kitchen from the laundry room.  Rick spent a long time designing the wall in CAD, and then he build the frame while I cut insulation for the opposite side of the room.  We have limited room, so we just put up furring strips and I cut out 3/4 " insulation board to go between those strips.  We still have some framing to do around the back door (east wall) before we can add the drywall, but we hope to have it completed by the end of the week.

Once the pocket door frame was up, we were able to add the last panel of drywall to the ceiling, and another full sheet of drywall on the garage-facing (north) wall.  Tomorrow will be a drywall day; we should be able to get the rest of the north wall covered, and then we can insulate and cover the south wall behind the washing machine. If we have time, perhaps we can get the moulding cut for around the back door on the east wall so we can complete that wall, too.

We have used a ton of screws to put up the drywall, so I know that the taping of joints and mudding of all the joins and the screws will take us some time.  However, I also have faith that eventually we will reach the point where we can add the garage-to-house door, paint the walls, and even put down some tile to complete the structure of the room.  We still have to purchase the utility sink, the faucet, and the cabinetry if we can find the funds to do that all this year.

Like all other phrases of remodeling, the projects always take more money than anticipated, whether that is 2 x 4s for framing, insulation, additional tools, or more screws.  Gladys will be beautiful when we get her finished, but she certainly has expensive needs and tastes.