Furniture, Water Softener, and the Old Oak Tree

Monday dawned with a list of chores to complete around the house.  Since we had to wait for the tree service man to arrive, I started the laundry.  Did I mention how much I appreciate all of the hard work Rick did last year to enclose the laundry room?  In this house, instead of having to go down a dozen stairs to a laundry room in the basement, I just take the laundry down one step into the clean, beautifully-tiled laundry room.  What luxury!

I planned to dry-mop the bedroom and to sweep down the cobwebs outside, but remember what I mentioned earlier about plans?  Well, before I could do either of those tasks, the tree service man arrived.  We have used Jeff's service in the past, and he is authorized to evaluate trees for the City of Dunedin to see if the tree warrants removal.

So the huge, old tree gets a pardon from the city.

Jeff took one look at our leaning live oak in the backyard and said, "I can almost guarantee that there is a 99.9% chance that the city will NOT give you a permit to remove that tree."  He declared the huge tree very old but healthy with well-grounded roots holding it in place.  He also reassured us that in the unlikely event that the tree DID fall on the neighbor's house, we would not be liable for the damages.  What hangs over on his property is apparently his problem.  Since the house is currently in an estate trust, and thus vacant, we have no one to worry about at the moment.

Jeff's news has presented us with another turn in the road.  Removal of the tree would have allowed us to build our fence behind it with a straight fence across the back of our lot.  Now we will have to reconsider the configuration of the fence.  I hate the idea of building the fence with a "bump out" to accommodate the tree, leaving it in a no-man's-land between the neighbor's chain-link fence and our vinyl fence, but we may have no choice.  Our other alternative is to build the fence straight across to as near as we can to the tree on either side, and to try to fill in the "gap" with bushes like oleander or hibiscus. Rick wants the bump-out; I need to study the area more. The fence question is something we will have to face this spring.

After Jeff left, we went to the furniture store to try to figure out the sofas.  We had taken some fabric home to see how two Temple sofas would work, and we found a fabric that we liked.  We also selected a fabric that would work for pillows, although neither of us was greatly thrilled with our choices.  Rick, in particular, was very hesitant. He was not sure about the fabric, the cushion construction, or the pillow choice.  I want to stay with a neutral sofa, terra-cotta accents, with yellow and aqua tones for sub-accents.  We found a fabric that would work for the Temple sofas and a terra-cotta --although plain-- fabric for the pillows.  Rather boring, but functional.

I just feared that Rick would not be happy unless we looked at some higher-end sofas.  He found two stores in Tampa that carry Sherrill which is the brand that we have at home in Green Bay.  He reasoned that if we added a couple of hundred dollars more to each sofa, we could have better construction, better fabric, and a better frame than the Temple.  I knew at that point that he was not going to be happy with the Temple unless the Sherrill came in at thousands of dollars more than the Temple.

While we were in the furniture store on Monday we received a call from the plumber that we had asked to the house to give us a bid on a water softener.  The water in Florida is very hard.  Supposedly, Dunedin has the softest water in the area, and that is not saying much!  A water softener will help save our appliances and my skin, so we somewhat feel that it may be a necessity.  When Rick first contacted the plumbing firm, the man he talked to estimated that we could get a softener for between $1400 -$1600 installed.  OK.  We had that in the budget.  They talked about the unit that we wanted, and the man said that he had an identical unit in his house that served him well.

When an estimator came to the house, he declared that we would need a larger unit for the house, and he detailed how we could bring the water from the front of the house where it enters the structure (weird, huh?) to the softener that we want at the back of the garage.  When I asked why two people who were here only part of the year would need a larger unit, I did not hear a logical reply.  When we received the call at the furniture store, the estimator said that he had been able to "just squeak your bid under $2500 at $2495!" Such a deal!  Say what?  He has got to be kidding!  How did a reasonable estimate suddenly increase by $1000, especially when Rick found the original unit that we wanted online for about $500.  Needless to say, we are not going to accept an outrageous bid for a water softener.  We want to go to the plumbing place and asked to see an itemized estimate.  I will not put in a larger unit, and if the majority of the bill is for labor, then we will plumb the whole thing ourselves and have the firm come in to just make the final connection to the whole-house main line.  Another alternative is to call a different plumber for a new estimate.  Did I mention that we hate working with contractors in Florida?

Meanwhile, back to the saga of the sofas.  Today (Tuesday) we decided to wait until Tampa traffic settled down and then visit the furniture stores in the area that handled Sherrill furniture.  Traffic in this area is bad, and it increases even more once the Snowbirds return.  I swear that half of Ontario winters in Dunedin; even the Toronto Blue-Jays have their training camp down here. And traffic going into and out of Tampa each day is horrendous, so we had to wait until at least 9:30 to venture into the city.

The first store was located only 17 miles from our house, so the drive there was not too bad.  We knew the minute that we walked in that the furniture was more upscale than the Temple dealer.  We sat on various sofas, finally finding a couple that "fit" us.  One of the problems with the Temple furniture had been that the sofa we would have purchased was not on the floor, so we could not get a "feel" for it.  For those of you who are less than 5' 5", you know what I am talking about.  I am only 5' 2", so finding a sofa small enough to fit my frame is a real problem.

However, we did find a sofa that we liked.  It is a Henredon which is a step up even from the Sherrill line.  Yes, each sofa will cost us about $350 more than the Temple would have, but we found an excellent fabric, cushion construction that we like, an exceptionally well-built frame, and even pillow fabric that will bring in my terra-cotta, aqua, and yellow.  Rick is happy, and I am happy. We found some other accent pieces, but I did not buy anything more once the tax, fabric protector, and delivery fees were added to the bill.  Was the final total more than we had anticipated?  Yes; however, we reasoned (rationalized?) that we had been willing to spend $2000 to get the tree removed, and since that did not happen, we had some budget money that we could put toward comfortable furniture.  The sofas will take approximately 12 weeks to get here.  I tried to talk the salesman into a "buy one, get one free" scheme, but he did not agree with my desires.  Rick said that if the house someday starts to slide into a sinkhole, I can grab whatever I want, but he is going to drag the sofas out of the front door!

We spent most of the day working on this furniture choice, and I am glad that we are finished with that decision. We did not get home until after 4:00 p.m., but I feel that we spent the day well.

I hear rain outside right now which is far better than the snow I know our family members are experiencing in Wisconsin and Minnesota.  Thursday is Thanksgiving.  The weatherman predicts "the coldest Thanksgiving in a decade" with temperatures "only in the low 50's" the whole day.  I think I can hack that.  We will miss being with family for the holiday, but we will make our own celebration here and take advantage of the day (and day after since I am not crazy enough to ever shop on Black Friday) to just stay at home and relax. After all that we have done in the last four days, I think we deserve a little break.