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!