Happy Easter

Happy Easter to all who are reading this blog.  After a busy day yesterday, we had a much more relaxing, although still very productive, day today.

It all started with a doorbell.  As I have mentioned earlier, we have a Michael Healy palm tree doorbell that needed to have a better foundation on which to work.  So we bought a plaque on which to fasten it.  Of course, since the plaque is wooden, it had to be painted before we could mount it outside.  And if a newly painted plaque was going to be fastened to the wall, common sense just tells one that the wall should be painted also.  We had one gallon of the house paint that we want to use when we totally repaint the house next year, and Rick said that the entryway of the house really should be painted before we add tile to the front porch.  Do you see a pattern here?  Remodeling is like playing dominoes since one project is dependent on another project and creates still another project.

Saturday morning Rick started by hand-scrubbing the entryway and the north wall of the bedroom to prepare for the paint.  The doorbell plaque somewhat blends into the wall now since both are painted the same color, and that was our intention.  We want the doorbell to be the focus, not the plaque behind it.

The safely mounted doorbell.

Since the stucco on this house is 53 years old, we encountered some places that needed scraping, patching, and a little tender loving care.  As the pictures show, we now have a bright entryway with a secure doorbell.

However, that was not enough labor for one day.  While we were looking at the tile that we want to put on the front porch, Rick decided to see if the concrete sidewalk, which must be cut back before we can put the tile on porch, could be easily cracked.  Before I could say anything, he took a sledgehammer and hit a raised corner of the sidewalk.  Wham! Crack! Thunk!  The corner of the sidewalk slab separated from the poured slab.  Many whacks and sore muscles later, the large slab next to the porch was gone, the concrete was carried to the driveway, and from there we put it into the back of the truck. Tomorrow Rick and Steve will take the concrete to a recycling center before we attack the next section of the sidewalk.

The sidewalk disappears under the power of the
sledgehammer we borrowed from Steve and Chris.

After the concrete was safely nestled under the tonneau cover of the truck, our next stop was Home Depot to get some patio blocks so that guests would not have to slog through the mud to get to our front door should the weather get soggy.  Since my friend Bonnie is coming for a visit next week, I hope that we have a walkway that will keep everyone high and dry.  (Bonnie, just envision being a kid and hopping from stone to stone to cross a pond in case we run into some stormy weather.)

Stepping  stone patio blocks lead from the front door to the
driveway at Gladys.

More labor resulted in a painted entryway that is clean, bright, and cheerful.  Once we get the whole house painted, I think that it will be stunning, especially when we add green shutters to the front windows.

Rick adds Honeysuckle yellow to the north wall of Gladys.

The completed paint (for now) for Gladys.  The tile on the
porch will come next.

One sad fact we learned yesterday was that Elijah Crawford, the owner of Eli's, died on March 14.  Eli's is a tiny cook-shack that is only open on Fridays and Saturdays.  It is known for miles around as the best place in Pinellas County to get barbecued pork, beef, sausage, or chicken. Thankfully, Eli passed along his recipes and his cooking techniques to his family members before he died.  Rick and I only met him once, and he was quite a character.  He was 73 this year, and his memory will live on each time the neighborhood is permeated with the smell of his divine cooking.

Today started out with a "sunrise" service (7:30 a.m.) to celebrate Easter.  The church was not as crowded as I thought it would be, but I am sure that the Easter breakfast and the later service were well attended.  We did not stay for breakfast after the service since I wanted to get home to clean the house before our guests today.

Once I got home, I received news that my mother was in the hospital in Wisconsin.  Phone calls assured me that she was all right for now, and she actually went home today; however, she needs to return to the hospital on Tuesday for medical tests.  If she needs me home, we will make arrangements to return to Wisconsin earlier than scheduled.

I spent the rest of the morning cleaning the house while Rick took care of some more little projects.  He finished caulking some more of the baseboard, added quarter round at the doorways, edged the countertop in the bathroom, and helped with the vacuuming of the house.

Our guests for Easter were Steve and Chris.  They arrived at 4:00 p.m., and we had both an enjoyable dinner and discussion afterward.  They are getting ready to return to Wisconsin on Wednesday, so I really appreciated that they offered to bring a fruit salad and key lime pie while they were also packing up their home.  The key lime pie was delicious, especially so because Chris took one of the key limes that they have growing on their tree, and she sliced it so that each pie piece had its own key lime slice on top.

We'll miss their advice, companionship, and help when they leave, but that also has us thinking about our own return to Wisconsin in a few more weeks. We are not ready to leave yet, but time and circumstances will somewhat dictate our future actions.

Pratfalls and Paint

With the laundry room finally finished, we discovered yesterday that we actually had some time on our hands to get out of the house and to rediscover the world beyond Lowe's and Home Depot. We wanted to visit the library, to pick up a few groceries, to run to the Post Office, and to do a little shopping. One of our destinations was to drop by Kohl's Department Store.

We have been hearing from Lindsay about the almost daily snowstorms, cold weather, and icy conditions in Wisconsin, and perhaps that made us too confident down here.  I really enjoy not having to deal with the snow and ice, but that did not stop me from falling flat on my face (quite literally) as I walked from the car to Kohl's.  Kohl's has a large inclined area painted yellow to accommodate the elderly and those in wheelchairs.  What I did not notice was that the yellow area extended beyond the gently sloping concrete to also include a curb bordering that incline.  So I plowed forward, totally not seeing the curb, and tripping with all of the grace of a giraffe on roller blades.

For those of you born pre-1960, remember how Dick Van Dyke used to trip over chairs and fall, all arms and legs going in every direction?  I imagine that is how I looked when I took my fall. The title of this blog says "Pratfall," and that is not really accurate since a pratfall denotes someone falling on her behind.  Nope.  Not me.  I fell flat on my face, managing to twist my back and skin my knee before my palms. then chin, nose, and eyeglasses made contact with the concrete.  My wrenched back gave me most of the pain last night, and bless the makers of Aleve for helping me sleep last night. My knees are still skinned, my glasses are terribly scratched, but at least my back is better tonight, so my dignity, I think, will be the only casualty of this fall.

I have to admit that I rolled out of bed a little stiff this morning, but that is OK since I did not have to rush off to work.  We decided to go to the grocery store this morning, and that was a very wise decision.  We picked up the few things we needed for Easter and got out of there before the families with 16 people coming over for brunch descended on the place.

We brought the groceries home and then headed for Largo since we got a call that the tile we ordered for the front porch had arrived.  We were surprised because we had only ordered the tile on Monday.  We picked up the tile, more thin-set, and more Latte grout, stopped at the drug store on our way home, and still made it back to Gladys by 1:00 p.m.

One of the purchases we had made for Gladys was a palm tree shaped doorbell by Michael Healy.  If you are not familiar with him, look him up on the Internet.  We have a maple leaf doorbell in Wisconsin, Lindsay has a Lady Bug bell on her house, and we could not resist the palm tree for Gladys.  Unfortunately, the original door bell for this house had very short wires which meant that the palm tree was very awkwardly hanging without a solid base.  Rick decided to take a wooden plaque, paint it to match the house, and solder new wires through the wood so that the doorbell could sit recessed into the wood.  I know that sounds confusing, so you'll just have to wait until the completed pictures to see the results.

Rick paints the first coat of Honeysuckle around the doors.

See, I work too!

Rick soldered the wires, mounted the primed wooden base to the wall, and then decided that he needed to paint the white primed stucco around the doors.  We have only one gallon of the paint ("Honeysuckle") that we want to use on Gladys with the intension of bringing down 8 more gallons when we return in the fall.  If we buy the paint in Wisconsin, we can save almost $250, so that is worth hauling down.  However, we have enough to get started, and that is what we did today.  The pictures tell the story better than I can.  I actually made Rick take a picture of ME working since most of the pictures show him hard at work.  I DO help; however, I am usually the one who is behind the camera.

The "door wall" is painted the first coat of the final color.  The bedroom wall (to the right in the pictures) is now primed with a stucco masonry sealer. Tomorrow we will put the first coat of paint on the wall next to the door where the doorbell will reside, and we will paint coat one on the bedroom wall.  A second coat of yellow Honeysuckle on everything probably be as far as we go this year.

Rick took this picture of the completed paint
job around the door.  Typical man!  He could have
picked up the ladder and paint before he took
this shot!

Next fall, we will finish putting this new yellow "party dress" on Gladys.  She then will start to look like she is ready for the prom, and if I can somehow afford a few flowers for her, she might start to look like the grand old doll we know she can be.

Plumbing Results

The Dunedin Plumbing Truck pulled up to our house bright and early, as promised, this morning to check out Gladys' old pipes.  The good news is that we have cast iron pipes rather than a cheap composite pipe that is cardboard coated in tar paper. More good news is that the pipes are not disturbed by tree roots in any way.  The bad news is that the iron pipes are now 53 years old, so they are rough and corroded inside, and they will fail sometime within the next five to ten years.

As we watched the camera snake through the pipes, we noticed a couple of rough places where paper could get caught, but on the whole the pipes were open and not narrowed too badly.  One place seemed to dip down a bit and collect water, so that is a watch area for the future.

We also learned that while our new Kohler toilets are great for being a 1.4 gallon flush that saves water, they are not the best choice for sending enough water down the pipes.  Jim, the plumber, recommended Gerber toilets as the best choice for a good-flushing toilet.  Who knew?  I have never heard of Gerber toilets since I only associate that name with baby food. Hey, maybe Gerber has both ends covered!

We did find out where the pipe comes out of the house in front of the master bedroom, and we also learned that our kitchen pipes backtrack away from the main city connection and Y into the main house connection somewhere under the master bedroom floor. Strange. It's good to know where the pipes come out of the house since here in Florida they are only buried about a foot deep. Now I know where to avoid digging when I try to plant bushes someday under the bedroom windows.

Disturbed dirt in front of the master bedroom windows
indicate where the pipes come out of the house.

Jim told us that our plumbing was not a question of IF the pipes will need replacing, but WHEN the pipes will need replacing.  He suggested that when that time comes, we expose the pipes ourselves, cut out the part of the driveway where the pipes run under it to give them access to lay the new pipe, and have everything ready for them to just disconnect the old, pull it up, and replace it with PVC pipes.  He said that they will pull all of the permits and will have the job inspected to keep the city happy, but that if we do the prep work ourselves, we can save probably one-third of the total cost.

Shiny, new hose connections now give us no
excuse not to wash the car and truck!

While Jim was here, we also had him replace the hose bibs on the house.  We have three hose connections outside, and every one of them leaked.  The one on the front of the house dripped so badly that Rick finally put a cap on it.  Since Jim was already here, we avoided another service call expense by having him replace the faucets.  We again learned something: the connections are all 1/2 inch instead of 3/4 inch connections which is why the hoses do not have a super amount of water coming out of the hose.  Additionally, we learned that if you have old plumbing that needs unscrewing from outside the house, the trick is to heat the connections thoroughly.  Once heated, they easily unscrew without damaging the copper pipes coming out of the house. We both are thrilled to now have three hose connections that actually work without leaking.  They did not cost us that much, and Jim had the total replacement job done in half an hour.

This was another educational day for us as we gained new insight to how plumbing works in Florida, and especially to how plumbing was installed in this subdivision 50+ years ago.  I have always said that knowledge is power, and this knowledge will help us better determine when we need to take further action on our plumbing here.  When that time comes, we also now know what we must do to make the job as easy and as cost effective as possible. An old ad campaign for the power company talked about living smarter, and that is what we try to do as we continue to make Gladys a wonderful old home.

It's a Wash!

We have spent the last three days working on completing the laundry room.  Rick lamented to me today, "You know, that's the only thing we have done this year."  I looked at him to see if his brain had totally drained out of his left ear.

"Yeah, that's right," I said. "Think about it: we have built a total addition onto this house.  I think that is pretty good progress in the past eight weeks!"  He admitted, once I put it that way, that what I said was true.

Our race into the home stretch started on Sunday when we put up the bullnose baseboard around the room.  The south wall gave us a little trouble because of a false panel that we needed to put in to access the plumbing, but Rick solved that by moving the panel up just a bit so the full bullnose tile fit in place. He did a great job of being very careful with the thin-set, so clean-up afterward was at a minimum.

Spacers keep the bullnose in line as the "baseboard" goes
into the laundry room.

Grouting of the bullnose came on Monday, and then it was just a matter of waiting for everything to dry.  I know that if we had had the tile professionally done, they would have put down the tile and grouted it all in the same day.  Nowhere (online or on the packages themselves) does it say that the thin-set and the grout should go down on the same day.  The tile should set for at least 24 hours to dry before the grout is added, so I actually am glad that we did this job ourselves, even though we were unsure about the outcome.  Is it professionally perfect?  No, but is there such a thing as any job being professionally perfect?

The completed room, bullnose and all!

Yesterday afternoon, as we were waiting for the grout to dry, we ventured out to look for tile for the front porch.  We thought that we had found some good tile at Home Depot, but when we went to get the bullnose to match, we found that the bullnose was far FROM a match.  The tile looked almost brown, and the bullnose was decidedly gray.  We learned that people can go to Home Depot to get matched sets of tiles from the same dye lots, but the bullnose had no dye-lot numbers stamped on the boxes anywhere.  So we started our search by taking the bullnose back to Home Depot for a refund, and then we were off to ProSource to see what they might have in outdoor, non-slip tile.

Keith waited on us again, and he showed us a variety of possibilities.  Once again, we ended up with a DalTile, this one called Egyptian Beige.  The tile has a rough texture and we were able to get it in 13 x 13 tile that will not overwhelm our 5 x 7 foot porch.  The great thing about ProSource is that they will assure us that all of the tile and bullnose come from the same dye lot, so it will all match.  The DalTile is made in the United States instead of China, (yes!) and it is much thicker than what we were going to get from Home Depot.  That, also, is reassuring that this tile will last as long as we will own the house.  We took along a sample of the yellow paint that we want to use on the house next year, so for now everything will coordinate well.  Earlier we had somewhat selected some pavers for the new front side walk, but now that we have changed tile, we will have to wait until the Egyptian Beige comes in to see if the pavers will work with that.  The samples from the paver company were free, so we are not out any money at this point.

 One of the things I have tried to do this week in my "down time" is to  take the warp I counted out for my loom and actually put it ON the loom.  Generally dressing the loom is not my most favorite activity, and it has truthfully been years since I last warped the loom.  As I got into this one, I found out that I should have bought one more lease stick to help the yarn get on the back beam, and I should have let Rick do the actual threading of the yarn through the reed.  As it is, I am slowly making progress on the warping job, and I am determined not to let this beat me.  Rick is a naysayer, telling me that the fabric I propose to weave will not work, so we shall see...

My half-warped loom.  This is NOT the usual way to do this,
but I am short a little equipment, so this is improvised.

As we were looking at the laundry room yesterday afternoon, I made another discovery.  I closed the pocket door just to see how the room looked with the door closed, and I learned that the door did not clear the top of the bullnose.  Oh, oh.  Neither of us had thought of that, but the bullnose prevented the door from closing by at least a quarter inch.  Darn!  Rick's solution?  If we cannot adjust the tile, then we must adjust the door.  His orbital sander and a few moments resulted in a curved door bottom corner that allows the door to close.  The great part is that no one notices the missing corner of the door because it is in the wall when opened, and hidden by kitchen baseboard when closed.  (He's so smart.)

Rick "adjusts" the corner of the door to clear the bullnose
tile so the door closes completely.

This morning while I stayed home to clean the house before the Board of Health closed us down, Rick ran to Home Depot to get the sealer for the grout.  He put that on as soon as he got home so that it would have time to dry before Steve and Chris came over to help us move the washer and dryer back into the laundry room.  A big THANK YOU to Steve who helped muscle the washer and dryer back into place and then painstakingly stayed to help Rick get them both level.  Short of a hurricane taking off the roof and sucking them up, those two machines are not moving.  Rick also hooked up my utility sink, so the wonderful sound of laundry spinning in the washer serenades me as I write this.

It's a wash... and a load in the dryer in the wonderfully
balanced machines back in the new laundry room.

While the twerpy little tune that the washer and dryer play to signal the end of the cycle generally irritates me, I have to admit that after going without laundry facilities for the past two weeks, they have a particularly sweet sound right now.

Look, Ma, It's a Floor!

Last night was the first major thunderstorm we have had in the last three months.  Weird.  As a Wisconsin person, I am used to blizzards this time of year, but certainly not a good, old-fashioned, mid-August- thunder- and- lightening gully-washer. We had two major downpours, and everyone in the city was rejoicing because we need the water to fill refill the area's water table. Dunedin relies on a well, so if the rain does not come down, the water bills go up!

Well, maybe not EVERYONE was happy about the rain because today was the Dunedin Tour of Historical Homes.  The Historical Society sponsored nine "vintage homes" that people who had purchased tickets could tour.  That was our treat today after laying down the perimeter tile this morning.

The day started early with us mixing up the first batch of thin-set for the tiles.  We did not mix enough, but we did get the wall next to the kitchen completed.  The second batch of thin-set took Rick down the south wall, where the washer and dryer will rest, and onto the back wall.  Then darn!  We ran out of thin-set AGAIN with just one and a half-tile to go.  A third batch of thin-set completed the room; now it just rests and sets until mid-morning tomorrow when we can grout the whole room.

The second batch of thin-set goes onto the floor as Rick lays
down the previously cut tile.

The tour of historic homes was interesting, upsetting, an frustrating.  The interesting part came in when the first home we tried to see on Victoria Drive posted a sign that said it had been removed from the tour.  Darn!  These are the 1900 - 1930 mansions that millionaires from the North came down to the coastline to build as vacation homes.  However, the sign informed us that two other properties on Victoria Drive would be open for a tour.  The next house was the upsetting house. This is a huge, worn-out, three-story mansion built in 1898.  As we entered, the sight of massive ceilings, wide, dark woodwork, intricate wood panels and wainscoting, and a unique triple fireplace (one central chimney with a fireplace that opens into three different rooms) greeted us.  The floors were all wood, and with a good sanding and staining, they would have been beautiful.  Sadly, we were informed that the new owners of the house decided to tear it down.  All of the electricity is in conduits on the visible inside walls in the house.  When the new owners conferred with an architect, they learned that enclosing the electrical wiring within the wall was impossible.

They elected to do a "gentle tear-down" whereby the woodwork, corbels, doors, windows, fireplace mantels, floors, and a million other details of a fine, old mansion will be gently removed and sold to the highest bidder.  The proceeds from the sale will be donated to the Historical Society. This is sad because this house had seven bedrooms on the second floor and three bedrooms on the third floor.  I am sure, at the time, that the third-story bedrooms (accessible by the "back staircase" from the kitchen) was for the servants.  The tear-down of this house is heart-breaking because the house itself, while worn, has so much masterful craftsmanship going for it.  The woman who told us about the impending destruction, though, said that the new owners plan to build a house that will "be appropriate for the neighborhood."

While a couple of the houses worked hard to retain the period features, the frustrating part of the tour came from the two or three houses on the tour that retained their traditional, period-appropriate exteriors (think large porches, floor to ceiling windows, and wooden shutters), but the interiors were either a mish-mash of period and new decor, or the interiors were thoroughly modernized.  One house in particular, that was build in 1913, retained almost nothing of the original interior.  We see the house often from Weaver Park, so that one was a true disappointment, especially since it is now owned by the city and taken care of by the Historical Society!

The completed tile rests until tomorrow when
we will grout the whole room.  We'll use
bullnose tile instead of baseboard in this room
to keep it waterproof.

Molding around the door helps the room have
a finished look. (A fresh coat of paint on the
door will soon make it look even better!)

After the tour, we came back to Gladys for a late lunch, and then Rick cut and put up the molding around the doors while I took out the spacers and washed down the new tile floor.  Tomorrow, after church, we will grout the room and let that dry in preparation for the bullnose tile on Monday.  Hopefully, by Tuesday of next week, we'll actually be able to get the washer and dryer back into the room, thus restoring it to its true purpose.

Tiles and Toilets

Anyone who has even attempted even a simple remodeling job will tell you that rarely, if ever, does the job go as planned, and never does the job take as short a time as one would like.  That seems to be the truth of this laundry room floor, too.

We had hoped yesterday to get all of the perimeter tile cut and in place so that today we could grout the whole room. That was not to be.  We started early, and by 1:00 p.m. Rick had all of the tiles cut.  Our neighbor, Jim, who is a contractor, owns a tile saw that he let us borrow. We are eternally grateful for the loan since this is a job that did not quite meet Rick's expectations that we could have all of the tile cut and laid down in a weekend's time.  That was just not going to happen.

Those of you who know my husband know that he has an incredible talent to visualize a task from its inception to its termination. He can see each step in his mind, so as he mentally runs through the job, he is playing the task in fast-forward, thus leading to his drastic underestimation of how long a particular task will take to complete.

Since he had cut all of the tile to size by early afternoon, we proceeded to mix up a batch of thin-set to lay the tile.  I thought that we had put in enough powder to the mix, and unfortunately Rick listened to me.  I figured he would check the mix as he did the previous day, and he said that he did, but this time we miscalculated the mix.  After it cured for the required 15 minutes, we mixed it again and Rick put down the first tile.  That's when I head him say, "(Expletive deleted), we're going to have to throw out this whole batch of mix.  It's like whipped cream... way too weak.  If we use it, the tile will never stick."

We picked up and cleaned off the tile he had tried to put down; he then scraped up the mix, and we dumped it all into a large, heavy-duty, black, yard garbage bag.  At about the same time, I noticed that I was totally out of energy, which generally means that I should go check my blood.  For some reason, my blood sugar dropped to 35 (normal is 80 - 120), so I had to take a little break to get some sugar back into my system.  Thankfully, Lindsay and Christopher had sent me a box of Hughes Chocolates from Oshkosh (incidentally, the best chocolate in the world), and a couple of pieces of that was all I needed to get back to as normal as I ever can be.

Rick measures tiles for the cut.

The cut tile loosely fitted onto the floor.

The cut tile are stacked and ready to be installed.

By the time I came back to reality and we had cleaned up the bad mix, we were pushing 3:00 p.m.  We decided to call it a day since laying the tile would lead us into the dinner hour, and, truthfully, Rick was tired by that time.  So the new plan was to get up today, mix a new batch of thin-set, and have the tile down by the end of the day so we could grout tomorrow.  That would only push the schedule back by one day because then we could add door casing and put up the bull-nose baseboard on Sunday, grout the bull-nose on Monday, clean the room up and re-install the washer and dryer by Tuesday, and celebrate a long, long project done.  Dunedin is a very Scottish community, so I can almost hear the poet Robert Burns saying as he wrote, "The best laid schemes of mice and men/ go often awry..."

I got up this morning and dragged my tired self into the shower.  We live very near the Dunedin water tower, so our water pressure and drainage has always been excellent. I got into the shower and soon noticed that I was standing in about three inches of water!  Oh, oh.  Standing water in a house is never a good thing, no matter where it is.  I called Rick as I quickly rinsed off, and he did a double-check of the rest of the house.  We had water draining out of the bottom of both toilets, and a water back-up in the bathtub.  (Expletive deleted!)

Our leaking toilet in the master bathroom. Thank
heaven that we added legs to the bathroom
cabinet just to protect it from this kind of disaster!

We called Dunedin Plumbing who told us we had to call the City of Dunedin to check their right-of-way plumbing before they would come in.  Dunedin sent a very nice guy named Rich out who scoped our connection.  He told us that Gladys shares a double Y-connection drain pipe with the neighbors, and that the problem definitely was not in that part of the plumbing system. So Rick called Dunedin Plumbing back, and they said they can fit us into the schedule this afternoon.  Great!  I was able to use the toilet this morning, but why Rick has not watered a bush in the backyard yet is beyond me!

Our next stop this morning has to be a coin-operated laundromat both to wash all of our clothes and sheets and to find a public restroom! Hopefully, by the end of the day we will be back in business with the plumbing, and Gladys will have ALL of her pipes cleaned out.

========================================================================

Post Script: Dunedin Plumbing just left.  The plumbing had drained and the toilets flushed fine by the time he got here.  This situation is sort of like the child who runs a 104 fever until minutes before the doctor enters the room and thinks you are a crazy, hysterical parent since the child's temperature is now normal. The plumber did say that the pipes from this house are now 53 years old, and that they may have started to badly corrode which would lead to paper flushed down the toilet clogging the drain.  After enough pressure builds up behind it, the clog clears and all is fine... for a while.

The result of this story is that Dunedin Plumbing will come back next Thursday morning to run a camera down the pipes to see what is going on.  Poor Gladys; just like people over the age of 50, she is due for her first colonoscopy.  We need to find out what is going on with the pipes and if there are any breaks or narrowing.  The scope will cost us $250 (on top of the $89 service call today), and if they have to dig up the yard and replace pipes, that could run anywhere from $3000 - $5000 dollars!  Worst-case scenario would be problems with pipes under the house which would mean even more money along with the destruction of our wonderful terrazzo floors.

For anyone who is charmed with the idea of owning an old house with character, think again.  Yes, dolling up Gladys with cosmetic changes like paint and tile floors is all fine and good, but all of the unseen infrastructure changes are the real budget suckers of home ownership. Gladys will survive, but I am not sure that our bank account will after this adventure.

Laying the Floor

I had a wonderful day for my birthday yesterday.  The sun was shining, the temps were warm, and we did NOT spend all day laying tile.  In the evening, Rick took me out for dinner: New York style pizza and New York Raspberry Cheesecake for dessert.  Yum!

This past Monday, Steve came over and he and Rick spread the leveling compound on the laundry room floor.  Yesterday Rick checked for level and found that we still had a high spot near the north wall and a low gully down the center of the floor, so he and I (but mostly he) put two more bags full of leveling compound down. Then he quit so we could do some shopping in the afternoon for my birthday.

The "before" laundry room floor complete
with corner stains where the old water
heater used to rest.

Rick (out the back door) and Steve take care of
most of the uneven floor with leveling compound.

The floor after the second layer of leveling
compound.  Once this cures, we add tile!

Sadly, we ended up buying a single round placemat in bright orange for the center of the dining room table, but nothing else.  I actually told Rick I wanted some new pot holders for my birthday, but everything we found was too big, too stiff, or too thin.  Why can't anyone make a good, old-fashioned, well-cushioned pot holder anymore?  We also looked for a new rolling pin, and that, too, was elusive. Ah, well, the hunt continues...

Today we got into actually laying the tile on the floor.  Of course, I made it more difficult by wanting tile in a diagonal pattern, but I have to live with this for a long time, and tile on the diagonal makes a narrow room look more spacious.  Rick said that laying tile was the most difficult job he has ever done, and that is really saying something considering I have seen him install patio doors, re-roof our Wisconsin house, install full picture windows, move water heaters and re-plumb them, and completely build the afore-mentioned laundry room.  The pictures show the progress we have made so far.

The tile floor after the first day.  Tomorrow we need to make
all of the cuts and finish installing the floor.

I like the way the north wall turned out. Most
of the "cuts" will be under the washer and dryer
on the south wall when we are finished.

The floor will rest for tonight, and tomorrow we can tackle the cuts.  I imagine the measuring and the cutting will take the whole morning, but perhaps we can finish laying the rest of the tile by tomorrow evening.  That will leave the grout job for Friday, and I may be able to get my washer and dryer back into place by this weekend.

Tonight we are attending our last Art Center presentation. the painting under discussion will be Wood's "American Gothic."  We both are looking forward to an relaxing evening out.

Further Progress on the List

The floor men that we were waiting for on Friday never came, so Rick ended up scraping up the bleach by himself. We were a little irritated because once again we had to call them to get any answers.  What happened to the notion of customer service -- that is, doing whatever one can do for the good of the customer? We understand that contractors get busy, that our job was just a little job, and that sometimes the schedule does not work out as planned. (Rarely does our daily schedule meet Rick's expectations, and that drives him nuts.)  However, I do not believe that a little common courtesy is out of line.  When the floor men got delayed, a simple call to say they were not coming and could we scrape up the bleach so they could finish the job the following day I feel would not have been too much to ask.  Apparently, though, I am old and just expecting too much out of the following generation of workers.

When they finally did come on Saturday, we were pleased with the results.  Rob and another man came, and Rob looked at the bad patch job in the terrazzo in our master bathroom. He said he could do better than what was in there, so he chipped out the patches and redid them.  He also finished the work at the front door.  The match is so good in the master bathroom that we cannot even see where it is patched.  Unfortunately, he missed two spots, but neither are in the doorway, so from outside the bathroom, neither are visible.  Since this is the master bath, we are not going to worry about them; what we have now is much better than what we had before.  The patch job on the front door is a little light, but that, too, will darken with time.  We have to put in base shoe yet to complete that floor; then a new coat of paint on the sill will totally finish the job.  The paint job on the sill, however, has to wait until the weather is a bit warmer so I can leave the door open for a while.

More good news is that Rob looked at the 15 foot stain across the living room doorway that leads to the Florida Room. He said that they have a new process whereby they make a poultice that they lay down on bad stains and cover it with plastic.  They let it sit for two days to "draw out" the oils in the stains, and then come in to re-polish the floor. If we could get rid of the stain (visible to Rick's right in the picture below), that would greatly improve the look of the floor.  We plan on calling them back in to do that as soon as we finish laying down the laundry room floor this week.

Rick putting together his new office chair.  Hm-m-m. My birthday
is tomorrow, but HE is getting a new chair.  Something is wrong
here...

Yesterday we went into Tampa to go to the grand opening of the Container Store and to check to see if Ikea had the mirror we wanted for the bathroom.  The Container Store was fun, but it got crowded very quickly.  We found a blue bungee office chair for Rick, and a small wastebasket for the laundry room at the store.  The picture below shows Rick assembling the chair.  It works well for him because it is on casters, and it is higher than the old chair he was using.  Since the desk for his computer is raised a bit, the new chair fits him well.

Success!  The new chair which is really comfortable.

Rick is currently painting door casing to finish the doors in the laundry room.  We made some progress by adding baseboard to the kitchen and by adding a quarter-round piece to the pocket door to finish that off from the kitchen side.  The glory of a house is not in the large structures but rather in the details.  If you don't believe me, go visit any house that you consider gorgeous.  You will find you are attracted to that house because of the ornate molding, the carved staircase, or the little vase with the rose that adds just the perfect spot of color on a table.  The rest is good, but the details talk to the emotional senses.

Another item that we purchased yesterday was a new mirror for the bathroom.  We have been tolerating the original medicine cabinets with a glass mirror hung between them in the main bathroom since we bought this house.  The cabinets were old, rusty, and just plain gross, so I never used them.  The last time we visited Ikea, they offered a mirror that would fit the space if we removed all of the 1960 originals.  Yesterday Ikea had the mirror in stock, so home it came with us.  The pictures below show the progression of the remodel as we took the old out, added insulation to the wall, and hung the new mirror.  While the new sleek mirror makes the rest of the bathroom look even more dated, for now it will suffice.

The old mirrored medicine  cabinets with a mirror
mounted between them. 

Going....

going, gone!

The new, single mirror in the old main bathroom
is much cleaner and easier to keep clean!

Interestingly enough, we learned that the Magic Curb still works!  When we first moved into this house, my neighbor lady told us that if we did not want something, to put it out to the curb, and it will disappear like magic.  She was right.  We got rid of loads of stuff that we tore out of the house.  Last night I put out the old medicine cabinets, the metal braces that held the mirror in between them, and the middle mirror itself.  Within an hour, I looked out the kitchen window as a man in a pick-up truck was loading the medicine cabinets into the bed of the truck.  He took everything but the middle mirror, and that promptly found its way into the large garbage can as soon as he left. After garbage pick-up today, we no longer have to put up with the old bathroom mirrors or cabinets.

We have only a few hundred dollars left in our remodeling budget for this winter, and Rick commented today that running out of money may be a good thing.  That will allow us both to relax and start to enjoy Gladys.  We have enjoyed watching her transformation from a run-down, filthy, infested home into a very comfortable, clean, livable structure, but that has taken a lot of work.  On the path to relaxing, I actually took some time this weekend to count out a warp for the table loom that we brought down.  I want to weave some fabric to use as a pillow in our bedroom, so I have the warp (the yarn that a person puts on the loom) counted out.  From there, I will take the yarns and "dress" the loom with it.  Then I'll use the same pattern of colors in the same order for the weft (the yarns that go across the warp to weave a fabric).  The result will be an interesting little plaid material in the teal and white of our bedroom. Perhaps I can get to that sometime next week.

The warp on the warping board, ready to be transferred to
the loom.

Tomorrow is my birthday.  When I talked to my sister Sue today, she asked me what I had planned.  I had to honestly tell her that since Rick's brother Steve came over this morning to help him move the washer and dryer into the garage so we could lay down the leveling compound today, that tomorrow we probably would be laying tile.  Ah, well, activity keeps one young... so maybe this birthday I actually will grow younger!

Waiting for the Floormen

I'll start this blog by sharing a few more of our garden and Epcot pictures.  I would love to have the money to do some gardening and landscaping of Gladys (curb-appeal she does NOT have!), but that is in the budget for about...h-m-m... maybe 2016.  For now, plain is all that the neighbors get.  I just go out, see everyone else's garden, and dream.  With that said, perhaps that is why I do enjoyed the topiaries and the garden fun at Epcot.

"Flowers" made of flowers line the banks of a lagoon in Epcot.

This butterfly of flowers is visible from one of the bridges
in the World Showcase.

Captain Hook brought back childhood memories.

Peter Pan stands hight over the crowds on the top
of a building.

Lady looks disgusted by the attention and the flowers that
she received from The Tramp.

Our budget this year, however, is limited to a few small projects.  Rick and I sat down today and made a new list of what we have to complete both inside and outside the house.  To support my opening paragraph, the "outside" work we have listed involves things like patching the holes in the house, painting the house and windowsills, and repairing the fascia boards.  Landscaping did not even make an honorable mention on the list.

The bleach at the front door will make Gladys beautiful again.

We actually got a start on the new list.  Yesterday the flooring folks from the Finish Line Floors came in to grind down and to polish the floors where the old doors were removed.  The kitchen doorway is now fine, but the living room floor under the old door was badly stained, so they ended up grinding down part of the floor and then adding a thick layer of bleach over the surface.  That has sat overnight, and we are currently waiting for the workers to return today to remove the bleach and to patch the holes  by the doorway before they finish and polish it.  I have to admit that what they did yesterday really helped to clean up a messy-looking strip, so I am excited to have them return to finish the job.  Right now, the bubbled up bleach across the front of the door just looks silly; however, like all old dames, I suppose Gladys deserves a good peroxide rinse once in a while, too.

Rick adds cement to the old dryer vent hole
to make the garage wall secure.

While we are waiting for them to appear, Rick took care of cutting the moulding for around the door in the kitchen.  He also mixed up some cement to patch the two "holes" in the house.  The first hole was where the former owners of the house had drilled through the back of the house to vent the clothes dryer.  That vent was all fine and good except that it was highly illegal since it positioned the dryer right in front of the electrical box.  When we moved the dryer back from the garage onto the platform for the washer and dryer, we just stuffed tin foil into the hole and taped it shut until now.  (Yes, duct tape does work well for a myriad of problems!)  Rick  put up a temporary board on the outside of the house to hold in the cement that he used from the inside of the garage to fill the hole.  Once that dries, he will be able to add stucco to the outside of the house and mud over the inside of the garage where the hole used to be.

The other hole was the one the electrician drilled from the garage into the kitchen wall to put in an outlet box for the repositioned refrigerator.  As noted earlier in this blog, when we added cabinets to the kitchen, the outlet was both too low and too far to the left, so Rick had to cut a new hole and run a new line to the refrigerator. Now both walls are solid and will prevent the admission of any two, four, six, or eight-legged creatures from entering the garage or kitchen of Gladys.

We are happy with what we have accomplished so far.  We still have to complete the floor and the doorways in the laundry room.  Small projects that will fit within the budget still need our attention this year, but we are almost at a point where we can stop the hard work and can enjoy the sunshine and the downtime that await us here in Florida.

Impressions of Epcot

Since we have been official residents of Florida since last October, we finally decided to use our status to our advantage by purchasing resident-only weekday season-long Disney tickets.  I am almost 59 and Rick is 60, yet neither of us has ever been to Disney World.  We changed that fact yesterday.

We arose at 5:00 a.m. to make the drive through Tampa before the worst of the rush-hour traffic, and I have to admit that we had no trouble with highway congestion either going to Disney or coming home yesterday.  Disney World is about an hour and 40 minute straight drive from Dunedin on I-4 through Florida. While we were not speeding along at normal highway limits every second of the day, we also never came to a complete stop on the highways either.  Always moving is a good thing...

We arrived at Disney early, so we were able to park in the first non-handicapped reserved row of the lot.  Epcot was our park of choice for the day as it was supposed to have the least number of visitors on this particular Wednesday.  We exchanged our AAA plastic ticket vouchers for an official Disney season pass which, to our great disappointment, is a credit-card sized pass made of heavy paper.  The ticket agent assured us that we could get it replaced if we started to wear out the cardboard one she gave us.

Donald Duck with some lucky little girl.

After getting tickets, we entered our first line of the day.  We were second in line after a family of five, and we stood in that line FREEZING in the 52 degree windy conditions.  We both were in jeans and had fleece jackets.  I really felt sorry for the idiots who were in short-sleeved shirts, shorts, and flip-flops. Didn't they check the weather reports for the day?  It was predicted to only get to 72 yesterday, and sadly, the weathermen were incorrect.  I don't believe it ever got even that warm, and we won't talk about the wind-chill factor that accompanied the temperatures.  The good thing was that we had sunshine for most of the day, so that did help warm things up by late morning. (Yeah, I know.  I should not complain since everyone in Wisconsin is dealing with sub-40 temperatures and tons of snow.)

After we entered the park, we were able to get onto most rides with little problem.  The only truly long line we encountered was at Spaceship Earth which is the ride inside the iconic "golfball" geodesic dome of Epcot.  That line added to our temperature discomfort since we were outside again for quite a while. The ride was interesting, however, and in the end the pictures that the ride took of us as we started were added to a computer program to show us how our personal lives would be in the future.  That was a cute, fun addition to the ride.

Overall, I had a good time but Rick was disappointed.  He felt that many of the attractions were outdated, especially since Disney's premiere showcase in Epcot was Futureworld.  "Presentworld" might be a better name for it since much of the technology presented and many of the rides were definitely not cutting-edge presentations of the future.

The iconic image of Epcot, shot from within the park.

We did enjoy the topiaries of the park, and that is what the majority of our pictures concern.  The gardens, also, were spectacular.  Each evening, an army of gardeners must toil through the night to keep the gardens in full bloom and weed-free.

Winnie the Pooh, sneaking into a back door.
See, Lindsay, he is real!

Tigger follows Winnie, closely guarded by
Disney "cast members."

One disappointment was not being able to get a good picture of Winnie the Pooh.  Lindsay and Chris are decorating their nursery with Pooh, so we said that we would like to get a picture of the character.  We actually found him sneaking into the back door of one of the shops in the United Kingdom area, but the camera was being temperamental, so we only got the backside of Pooh and a side view of Tigger.  We'll have to try again when we visit the Magic Kingdom.  We were able to get some good shots of the Pooh and Friends topiaries, though. Unfortunately, shopping for Pooh baby items in the gift shops also was a disappointment.  Apparently, Disney only has limited rights to the Pooh merchandise, so next to nothing was available.  We did not make any purchases of Pooh onesies or other items.

The topiaries were great.  Here Winnie the
Pooh poses with his balloon.

Piglet takes a ride on Eeyore who enjoys
munching on the delicious flowers.

Following the advice of the Unofficial Disney Guide Book, we purposely ate early and had no trouble finding tables at which to sit.  We rejected many of the restaurants who were serving large, expensive, not-to-our-tastes meals.  We settled both for lunch and for dinner at the same restaurant, and while we were served plenty of food that actually tasted very good, it should have been good for the price!  Each meal cost us approximately $20.00, and that was without drinks of any kind.

The crowds were tolerable in my estimation, and since this was a weekday and we were at Epcot rather than the Magic Kingdom, we did not see a great many children. With the exception of one shop in the French area of the World Showcase, everyone was very polite.  We had trouble getting waited on in the French pastry shop where we stopped for a mid-afternoon snack, and that just further enhanced Rick's opinion that the French are rude.  That being said, when we finally did get our pastries, they tasted delicious.

Daisy Duck gets ready to serve the badminton
shuttle to Donald...

who poses ready for the return.

Rick was questioning if the decision to buy season passes was the right decision.  He actually ended up with a headache and not feeling well yesterday, so I think that may have soured his mood a bit.  I enjoyed myself.  The walk certainly was good for our health, and even with sore feet by the end of the day, I felt great getting out and seeing something new.

Our season passes are good for one year.  We can go to any of the four parks, and although we are blacked out of weekends, most of the summer, and during the traditional Spring Break days, that is fine with us.  We would not want to go during any of those times anyway as they are the peak attendance times of the year.

In April, we plan to go back to the parks for a couple of days, staying overnight in a nearby (not on the Disney grounds) hotel.  We want to take some wildlife shots at Animal Kingdom and have a good time at Disney's Hollywood Studio park.  Hopefully, the next time we go the weather will be a little warmer without being intolerably hot.  But this is Florida, and like Wisconsin, the weather changes on an hourly basis.

Beauty from God

Since this is Sunday, I will share some of God's wonderful creations that we found in the Botanical Gardens.  I hope that someday I can add some of the same beauty to Gladys' yard.

This one is a rare white bird of paradise!

Florida is home to gorgeous orchids.

I hope that you have enjoyed this view of what Florida has blooming in March.  We may blow up some of these pictures and use them to decorate the inside of Gladys until we have the money to spruce up the outside also.  Have a great week, everyone!