Bits and Pieces

I have not written for a few days because we have been busy building walls, running to Lowe's, mudding walls, running to Home Depot, sanding walls, running to Lowe's, painting walls, running to Home Depot, cleaning up, running to Lowe's.  You get the picture.  We make daily (sometimes multiple) trips to the home improvement stores buying all of the bits and pieces that we need to complete a project.  Right now we have so many pieces of projects in our house that we cannot even fit them all in the garage or one room.

I currently have two primed doors drying in the garage, sheets of drywall resting in the middle of the Florida Room, and 6 pieces of 16-foot baseboard moulding lying halfway between my living room and the Florida room.

We also have a ceiling fan/heater for the master bath that awaits installation, and a new light/fan for the master bedroom to replace the wobbling, noisy, scary ceiling fan that will not stop if we hit the wall switch for the light. (The chain to change the speed of the fan and to turn off the fan has long departed the premises.) We bought a new mirror today for the master bathroom.  The non-hygenic medicine cabinet with the chipped mirror is on my list of Most Wanted Things to Dispose Of in Monday's Garbage.  We need to repair the afore-mentioned hole in the wall that the medicine cabinet will leave, but neither of us will miss it in the end, and we may even end up with a more structurally-sound house.

We have a new central vacuum to install, but that has to wait until we have room in the garage to install it!  We also have miles of the baseboard to paint and put in, and then there are the new electrical outlets in the kitchen...  and the list grows daily.

Tonight we went to Lowe's to buy inexpensive blinds for the kitchen.  We have lived since the windows went in with nothing on them, so our house has been less-than-private.  The time for blinds was here since the kitchen faces the street.  In the picture below, the kitchen windows are the bank of three windows next to the garage. Rick installed the blinds (he's getting quite good at this!), and we will worry about shortening them to the proper length later.

Gladys with her new windows.

I took new pictures of the front of Gladys now that the trees in back are down and the new windows are in.  I will publish even more pictures when we get the new front doors installed.  Hopefully that will be this coming Monday.  Debby threw a fit, so we had to wait for the weather to behave before we can take out doors.

New paint for our master bedroom.  I cannot wait
for the new furniture to arrive.

The one thing that we are pleased with is the colors in the master bedroom.  Although pictures do not do it justice, we are happy that everything (so far) coordinates well.  We painted it an icy aqua color, just a shade lighter than the color in the duvet cover. The new bedroom furniture, coming July 10, will have a bench with a cushion that will be a deeper aqua.  We will paint the new master bathroom walls that same deeper aqua. In the end, hopefully the room will come together and will be a haven for us at the end of the long, stressful, busy days.

Our "just right" granite choice... sorry about
the flash reflection in this picture!

Once again, we are at the end of the budget.  We ordered out kitchen cabinets yesterday (River Run Dalton series in a light honey birch).  We also went to Depot Granite to choose a countertop.  We ended up with something called Colonial Gold.  The woman at the company said that they had two different lots of that granite, and that we should go out to the yard to choose which one we liked since each lot is different.  (Mother Nature does not like to duplicate herself!)  When we got to the yard, we actually found three different lots.  One was very dark brown and quite veined with a yellowish-clear part.  We did not like that at all.  One was very light and contained lots of veins of grey, and that also quickly was off our list.  The third is the one that contained a few shades of grey but lots of honey-colored areas, so that is the one that we chose.  Hm-m-m-m. One is too dark, one is too light, and the third was jus-s-s-t right. I think I read Goldilocks one too many times as a kid.

All of the big ticket items that we purchased were planned in the budget, so we are not in trouble...yet.  We need to quite spending, though, and concentrate our time in putting all of the bits and pieces together in their rightful places.  Gladys has certainly gone through a transformation in the two and a half weeks that we have been here, and once we get the rest of the painting, cabinets, doors, and baseboard in place, she will be even better.  Last year we did a lot of the infrastructure (heating, electricity, insulation).  My friend Rose reminded me then that we had to make sure that Gladys had clean underwear before we tried to put a new prom dress on her. The underwear is now clean and new, and she is now patiently standing still for her fittings for her new wardrobe of prom dresses.

Rains and Planes

Tropical Storm Debby is being a tease to Florida, sending blinding waterfalls of rain followed 10 minutes later by blazing, muggy sunshine.  The strong winds seem to be everywhere, however, and some of them continue to destroy homes and to kill people.  We heard last evening of a mother who died when she clung to her three-year-old as a tornado tore them from their home.  They found her a field away from her home, her body still protecting her daughter who is injured but expected to survive.

Stephanie removing garden soil.

Yesterday graced us with sunshine for most of the day even though our neighbors to the north and the east did not fair as well.  While Rick worked on the bedroom wall, Stephanie went out to the front flower garden to remove some of the soil.  We need to have the garden near the porch leveled and some type of platform or pavers installed for Chris and Frank to stand on when they put in the new front doors. We thought they were coming today, but in conversation with Chris this morning, Rick learned that they are going to delay the installation so I do not have 40 mile per hour winds blow through my house as they take out the old door and put in the new ones.  Good plan.

The newly transplanted rose garden behind the garage.
This garden is now visible from the Florida Room.

A blank slate for a new porch.

I had already transplanted some of the rose bushes in the garden away from the door, but in looking at the half-dismantled garden, I decided to transplant the whole rose garden into the back yard.  Stephanie and I then took out the rest of the ugly, crumbling-brick retaining wall and leveled the whole garden.  We took the soil from the garden by 5 gallon pails full to fill in the back corner that floods each time it rains. Now the soil is higher there, the garden is level, and new possibilities open for us since we will have to reconstruct the front porch.  Stephanie suggested a huge front porch that reaches from the double doors all the way to the end of the bedroom wall, going out toward the street.  She said that we could put a nice bench on it under the bedroom window and some flower pots to dress up the whole entrance.  Rick was not too thrilled with the idea of that much concrete-- because, of course, you cannot put in that much concrete in Dunedin without a permit and two inspections.  Honestly, I will bet the Permit to Change the Toilet Paper proposal is on the City Council's agenda as I write this!

The latest in bedroom design: the mudded drywall look!

Rick made progress with the wall, adding drywall to the outside.  It is really beginning to look like a genuine room again.  By the end of the day, he had the whole thing covered in the front, and the back corner by the shower done also.  A tricky part was taking out the old framing from the ceiling.  Overhead work is difficult and really puts a strain on these old bodies of ours!  Naturally, Rick wants to do it all, so he gets the brunt of the work... but also the blame if things don't go right.

Today we took Stephanie to the Tampa Airport.  As we approached Highway 19, our GPS said, "Road closed" and directed us down a different route.  With all of the flooding in the area, we were not about to argue with it.  We got her safely to the airport and on her way with no problems.  She arrived safely in Minneapolis this afternoon and should be home soon in Rochester.  I am sure that her own bed and lots of loving from her cats will be therapeutic before she heads back to work.

After we left the airport, we decided to go further east in Tampa to the vacuum cleaner place to purchase our central vacuum.  I worked all this past semester to come out with a little over $1000 from Cengage Publishing with the sole idea that I would use that money to purchase the vacuum.  The bill for our Simplicity vacuum did, indeed, use the allotted money, so now all we have to do is agree on a place to hang the vacuum and hook it up to the piping that Rick installed last year.  No more shop vac to clean the floors. I think that shop vac (Stephanie called it R2D2 since it looks like the Star Wars character) has a nasty habit of scratching the floors, so I cannot wait to get the new central system up and running. I know, Rick, I know.  Just one more job to add to our ever-expanding list.  If you are a fan of this blog, you know that no day passes without something being done, yet the list seems to get longer instead of shorter, even though our bank account gets lighter by the day.

More work lurks in the back yard.

We went through a couple of squalls and a scary, windy ride over the causeway to get home from Tampa only to discover that the wind had taken down a large branch on the cherry (?) tree in the back yard.  We want to take down the rest of the tree anyway, so God, if you are listening, take the rest of it out tonight, OK? There really is not much left of it, so we would like to start from scratch.

Whoever said, "If only these walls could talk..." really has never renovated an old house.  The walls DO talk, and Gladys told us quite a tale this afternoon.

Berries, birds, and roses... not my vision for this room!

Her story started when we took out the existing bathroom cabinet in the master bath.  Behind it we found two layers of very 1960's wallpaper.  The original was orange and yellow flowers, and the second was blue flowers with green vines on a lovely ivory background. When we took out the toothbrush holder, we discovered the best of all: the lovely print depicted in the picture.  Already Gladys revealed three phases of the master bathroom's life.

The shocking part of the story was the tale of horror she told about workmen chipping away half of her structural cement blocks to fit in the bathroom cabinet.  We can literally knock on the backside of the outside wall, and I shutter to think that that west wall is supporting part of the roof over my head!  We need to fill the cavity with insulation, maybe support of some kind, and drywall over it.  We will install just a mirror in the bathroom and use the cabinet to hold the former contents of the medicine cabinet. These are two more of the sad stories from Gladys' past.

I am sure that Gladys has thousands of stories of good times, too.  Thanksgiving feasts and Christmas celebrations.  Bowling championship games (Jackie, the former owner, won many bowling trophies that we found stored in the garage) and picnics on the patio.  We don't see evidence of them in the structure of the house, but I hope that they outweighed the times that were not so good.

We enjoyed having Stephanie come to visit and hope that Lindsay and Chris can make it here soon.  We want this house to be filled with good memories for the family by making Gladys a strong, secure, snug little house.

Birthday Uninvited Guests

Yesterday was a gloomy, sometimes sprinkling day, so we spent the day working indoors.  Rick focused on getting blinds in the Florida Room and, more importantly, on building the new bathroom wall.  We were lucky enough to still have Stephanie here for a visit because getting the wall up took all three of us to lift it and to position it in the room.  The pictures tell the story better than I can.

Rick securing the new wall to the floor.

We built the frame in the room and then the three of us put it up.  Although the fourteen inches that we moved it out do not make much difference in the master bedroom (which is huge), it will make a world of difference in the tiny 1960's master bath.  We now will have room for the monster cabinet that Rick built.  Imagine... toilet paper and fresh towels all in the room where we need them instead of having to walk down the hall to the main bathroom! We also will have a chance to get rid of the hideous blue sink and eventually to enlarge the master shower. Right now we are content with the blue sink because that is the only place we have to wash out paint brushes and other construction utensils.

The old wall (right) crowded the "throne" while the new
wall gives us room for the cabinet.

     I am so happy that Rick knows what he is doing when it comes to building.  He drew up complete plans in AutoCAD which made cutting and constructing the wall easy.  What was NOT so easy was actually getting it in place and securing it to the rest of the house.
    By the time we went to bed last night, the storms outside had started to intensify.  We heard the rain intermittently through the night and awoke this morning -- Rick's 60th birthday -- to our first encounter with an uninvited guest: Tropical Storm Debby.
     Debby is NOT being a lady.  She is way out in the Gulf, but she is moving very, very slowly toward the Florida panhandle, leaving behind band after band of rain showers to wash up onto shore.  She is not a hurricane yet, but she leaves a mess in her wake anyway.

Lake Anderson at the corner junction of the Florida Room and the guest bedroom.

Our side yard lake as it merges with the Rock Lake in our neighbor's yard.

    Although we are far enough from the Gulf that we have no danger of high tide or floodwater problems, we do have a problem with a very uneven yard that unfortunately slants in too many places toward rather than away from the house, and we had over 5 inches of rain today alone.  The resulting pictures may be hard to see, but look closely, and you will see the flooding in our yard and around our house.
     We also have the unique experience of hearing about tropical storm tornadoes.  These are not the Big Daddy tornadoes like we have in Wisconsin, but these mini-tornadoes can be very destructive.  Some pack as much as 90 mile-an-hour winds, and sadly we learned that one person died today when tornadoes hit inland and leveled five homes.  We also have watched weather reports all day and have seen trees falling on homes and (worse yet) trailers and campers. We are SO glad that we took down that dead Holly tree last week before this weather hit us.
    This afternoon Rick went into our master bedroom with the idea of painting the ceiling only to see a small, damp water spot.  A climb up the ladder to the attic showed no great leaks in the roof (thank you, Lord), so we think the driving rain which seems to come in sheets of water, is somehow slowly getting into the ridge vent.  That will be a problem to deal with once the storms have passed.
     The girls gave Rick money to plant a tree in honor of his 60th birthday.  I think that is a great idea, and since we have to plant a tree anyway, this will be a wonderful opportunity to satisfy the city and to plant a living legacy to him and to all of his hard work on this house and yard.

Sam and his lovely mate, Maude, who came to wish Rick a happy 60th birthday!

    Oh, yes, we also had some other birthday party crashers today.  When Stephanie got up this morning she took out the insulated panel that closes off our front window and was confronted with this pair waiting for some birthday cake.  (Actually, I think they would have preferred some good fish or fresh bugs.)  She screamed which attracted their attention, and they came even closer to the house.  Keep in mind that it is pouring rain outside.  The two dumb birds stood together in the yard, faces to the driving rain, seemingly contemplating the glories of Mother Nature! We decided that this was Sam the wood stork back, and this time he brought his mate which Stephanie named Maude.
     I am sad that the storm is supposed to rage for the rest of the time that Stephanie will be visiting with us. We had planned on doing a few other great things outside, but that will have to wait for a future visit.  Her flight home on Tuesday also concerns me because the winds and rains are still supposed to be with us.  For now, though, we are snug in Gladys, and Steph and I are even with three wins each playing Scrabble.
     Rick did not get to do many fun things for his birthday, but I know with all of the visitors we had today, it is a birthday that he will never forget!
   

Fabulous Flowers

After getting up fairly early this morning, we packed a lunch and headed out for a day of fun.

Pathway toward the Visitor's Center of the
Botanical Gardens in Largo.

Bananas growing on the trees.

Mosaic bench in the Wedding Garden.

Our first stop was the Pinellas County Botanical Gardens and Historic Village in Largo.  The gardens are acres of ponds, wetlands, and other lands filled with trees, shrubs, and flowers.  Since it is a Botanical Garden, most of the species are named, so it is a great resource for what I want to plant later in our yard.  They also have experts to answer questions about how to plant a butterfly garden or a hummingbird garden.

The Gardens contain acres of ponds, streams, and rivers.

The grounds were laid out well, so we enjoyed a stroll through the acreage.  Fortunately, although signs caution people not to feed the alligators, we saw none.  I did see a mama and baby turtle, but they never really surfaced other than their heads, so they blended in too well with the muddy water to get a good picture.  As you can see by the other pictures, though, we were able to see everything from bananas growing on the trees to some magnificent flowers.  I would return next spring to see what we missed as far as the blooming plants go.

 I want these in front of my house!

One of the few birds we were able to see at the Gardens.

Rick was disappointed that we did not see much wildlife.  Geckos and a few birds were all that were present.  Apparently one must get to the gardens very early in order to see lots of birds.  That trip also will have to wait until another time.

After the gardens, we ventured south to the Florida Orange Grove and Winery Company.  This was a return visit as we like their Hurricane 5 and Blueberry wines.  The make award-winning fruit wines, so we picked up a couple of bottles of Coco Polada (coconut/ pineapple wine that tastes similar to a pina colada) and one bottle of White Gold which is a peach wine. (Thank you, Lindsay and Chris.  We used the gift certificate you gave us at Christmas to buy the White Gold wine!)  I cannot wait until Chris and Lindsay can come to visit.  FOG Winery sells both a banana wine and a banana smoothie mix that I am sure Chris will want to try!

We came home via the beaches of Treasure Island, Indian Rock, Bellaire, and Clearwater.  Some people just have way too much money!  I just keep thinking that if I owned any of those mansions on the shore, with my luck a hurricane would wipe it out or I would be miserable because I could not afford a cleaning lady to keep the place spotless. Sadly, most of the beach towns are little more than high-rise motels and condos with a few mansions thrown in for good measure.  The beaches of Clearwater will act as a barrier against the worst that a Gulf hurricane wants to throw our way, so I am glad they are out there as a buffer to all storms except those that come directly up the coast from the south.  Unfortunately, as I write this I know that meteorologists are watching a tropical storm off the coast of South America as it grows and moves north into the Gulf.  Floridians have long learned to take weather forecasts seriously.

When we came home, we noted that our lawn still has not been cut.  Tim was supposed to come on Tuesday, and since this is now Friday, we have given him more than enough chances.  Rick called him up and told him that as of the end of this month, his services were not longer required.  They have billed us incorrectly twice, sent us the wrong contract, and have failed on numerous occasions to please us with the job they do cutting our lawn.  We have made arrangements to work with a different lawn care service starting July 1.

Stephanie is a great photographer, taking a picture of us
having fun in the Botanical Gardens.

Tonight to celebrate Rick's birthday early, we are going to go to The Gallery for haddock.  Friday fish-fry.  I feel like I am back in Wisconsin until I look out the window and see the palm trees sway in the wind.  Today was a beautiful day (high of about 88) with a great breeze to keep us comfortable.  We have worked very hard, so I am happy that Stephanie came down to force us to take the day off.

Windows, Doors, Walls, and Chores

Chris and Frank were able to complete all of the windows yesterday, and they even had time to install the back door that will lead into my laundry room and the garage. They said they would be back next week to complete the other doors.

Frank prying out the old kitchen window.

Exterior view of my kitchen with a very "open air" look to it!

I have to say that I am thrilled with the front (west) windows.  I have a big picture window in the middle of each opening with two side panels that slide to the middle for ventilation.  See Frank and the attached pictures above.

The big excitement of the day again centered around wildlife.  This time a gecko came into the house through the front door and Stephanie started screaming and jumping around like the poor little thing was an alligator.

Rick yelled, "How do we catch him and get him out?"

"Use a broom," I answered, having done so successfully with a gecko that was in the garage.  Rick cornered him near the front door and then used a broom to literally sweep him off his feet and back to the great outdoors.  I really wish I had a movie of the whole adventure! The Keystone Cops or the Three Stooges could not have been any more funny.

No modesty in this master bathroom!

Rick started to remove the wall in the master bedroom yesterday to enlarge the master bath.  What a dusty mess!  We filled the garbage bin with plaster, so I held my breath this morning when the truck pulled up.  They have an automatic arm that lifts and dumps the trash, but the plaster dust that flew out of the top was so great that the driver actually glanced in his rear-view mirror to look.  I know that the city has a weight limit on the garbage in the can, and I suspect that we probably exceeded that limit by a pound or two... or 75!

And the old wall continues to come down.

Stephanie said that our new bed in the guest room was very comfortable, but since she had to sleep on a blow-up mattress on a concrete floor during her last visit in October, a real mattress just had to be an improvement.  Sadly, she woke up with a bad headache, so her first day here has not been great.

Rick spent the first part of the morning ripping down more plaster and wall.  The plaster has a wire mesh that looks like chicken wire behind it, so as he reaches the edges, he has to trim all of that old, rusty wire away. What a pain!

We went to Leader's before lunch and actually ordered out our new master bedroom set.  It is the fun set I described before with the pineapples on the bedposts and pineapples for feet on the dresser.  We will have a white dresser, headboard, mirror, two nightstands, and a chest that will set at the end of the bed. It will fit beautifully in the room.  Other companion pieces are available, but for now I think that will more than take care of my needs.

We came home for lunch and then set out to pick up some blinds for the new windows.  That is the only problem with spending money on new windows... now we need to spend even more money on blinds to cover them!  I must say that the former owner of the house must have found a tremendous sale on wall anchors.  I remember last year removing 38 wall anchors from the Florida room, and today we removed at least 30 more.  I promise that if and when we ever change the blinds we are going to put up tomorrow, we will remove the old wall anchors before we put up new ones!  If you have stock in a company that makes wall anchors, sell.  Jackie does not own this house anymore, so I am sure that sales are down!

Everywhere we look, we have 10 jobs to do.  This year seems even worse than last year, and we seem to get pulled from job to job.  We have to remove the dirt in the front flower garden and put in pavers so Chris and Frank will have something to step on when they put in the new double front doors next week.  All of the windows need washing, and we need to hang blinds in all of them... after the plaster dries from patching anchor holes and after the paint dries from painting the inside of the window openings.

One task that I did complete today was trying to find a way to arrange the living room furniture (or what we have of it right now). Rick made a cocktail table and a TV stand this past year, so they join the couch, two Ikea chairs with footstools, two end tables, and the sofa table.  Stephanie and I rearranged and rearranged furniture this morning until we found something that seems to work.  That's the way it will stay until we can get rid of the Ikea chairs and buy some better stuffed furniture to go along with the couch.  Mind you that once we both go on retirement checks alone, the money for furniture may be years and years away.

We have plans for the rest of the week even though rain is predicted each day.  Tomorrow we would like to see the Botanical Gardens and try to get some pictures to put up in my photo gallery display.  (Steph also helped me pick out a good place for it.)

We want to go down to Florida Orange Grove and Winery in St. Petersburg to get some more wine.  We know that we can buy it locally, but the winery is a fun place to visit.  On Friday we want to try The Gallery for their Friday night fish fry.  Sunday is Rick's birthday, so we will have to come up with something fun then to celebrate him turning the big 6-0!

Funny, we keep getting older, but with all of the improvements we make to Gladys, we are bringing her up to date and giving her a whole new lease on life.

New Windows and Visitors

Yesterday (Tuesday) brought about a complete transformation for part of the house as the window installers (Chris and Frank) came to start the new window installation.  We chose Simenton double-hung windows for most of the house, but since I wanted slide-by windows for the kitchen, we had to go with a different manufacturer called PGT for the hurricane rating on those windows.  That is important since the front of the house -- kitchen and master bedroom -- face west. We chose the same window configuration for the master to make them match and give the house a cohesive look.

Chris removing the old aluminum windows. Say goodbye...

The installers started with the Florida room windows, and since that room has more windows (and more energy loss) than any other room in the house -- perhaps with the exception of the floor-to-ceiling louvers next to the front door -- we were glad they chose that room first.  As you can see by the attached pictures, the transformation of 1960's ugly aluminum to 2012 hurricane-resistant, low-E, double-paned, white vinyl-clad windows was remarkable.  The old windows were so decrepit that they came out quite easily.  I was horrified to see that they were held in by eight tiny little screws, and I think a wish and a prayer.  The new windows are bolted into the cement block structure with 16 three-inch Tapcon screws.  They are going nowhere for generations to come.

The new windows: secure and clean!

Chris was very meticulous in his installation techniques which pleased us both immensely.  We believe the windows are installed securely and will protect us and our children and hopefully grandchildren for many years.

In one day's time, Chris and Frank were able to install the six windows in the Florida room, the two windows in the guest room, and the single windows in each of the bathrooms. Ten windows in one day was more than I expected, but they worked hard and steadily all day long. They plan on completing the three master bedroom windows, the two kitchen windows, the garage window, and one of the four doors they need to install by the end of today.

Sam, the wood stork. What a bird-brain!

While everyone was busy working on the house, we had a new visitor to our yard.  I am surprised because we were making lots of noise, and everyone was running in and out of the house constantly.  Apparently, though, curiosity got the better of this old bird because when I looked out the window, this almost four-foot tall wood stork was walking through the front yard toward the house. I went outside to get some pictures, and as I approached him, the bird actually walked toward me instead of keeping his distance! I snapped some quick shots and then went into the house.

"Don't feed him," Frank said. "If you do, you will never get rid of the damn thing.  He will be in your yard every day."

Now storks either have to the the dumbest or the smartest bird around.  Apparently someone in the neighborhood must have been feeding him because when I looked out the front door, I almost had a heart attack. There he was, standing on my front porch about two feet away from me.  That bird -- I call him Sam -- was huge!  If I stood next to him, his head would be almost even with my shoulders.  I say they are dumb because they are not afraid of humans, and if someone wanted to throttle him, he would be easy prey. (If he keeps visiting my front porch, I may be the one ready to throttle him.  After all, I have a very large crock pot!) I say he may be smart because his approachability probably is what prompted someone around here to feed him.

Stephanie just texted us that she is on the plane on her way to Florida.  While the welcome sign will be out for her and for the window installers today, I certainly do not need any more visits from our literally bird-brained guest of yesterday.

Small Successes

I have been up since 4:45 this morning, awakened by weird nightmares about falling and having my right arm cut off.  I know that the falling nightmare is usually associated with people who feel they do not have control of their lives (or budgets!), so that one I can somewhat understand.  After scrubbing walls all day Sunday, my arm and shoulder ached so much that I think, subconsciously, I wished someone would cut off my right arm.  At any rate, as I rolled over to try to get back to sleep, Rick started to snore, so I knew I was better off out of the bedroom.

I came to the computer and solved one mystery.  I looked up online the owner of the house behind us.  His name was Richard Robert Pusey, and according to city records, he died on February 1, 2012, at age 81.  The house is vacant most of the time apparently because the family is moving things out and trying to sell it. That explains the property agent and the seemingly abandoned nature of the property.  I hope that the house sells to a nice couple who will take care of it. Since it is an estate, it has yet to hit the MLA listings.

When Rick got up, our first order of business was to get the master bathroom sink repaired.  I always wondered why something that looked like a capital J was called a P-trap, but after watching the trap fail due to a large hole in the bottom, Gladys did, indeed, pee out all of the water in the basin.  Maybe the name is descriptive and appropriate after all!

Rick discovered that two trips to the store were necessary because modern replacement parts do not always fit 1960 plumbing configurations.  Market tip: if you have not yet purchased stock in Lowe's and Home Depot, do so now.  With our daily trips there, the value of both corporations is sure to go up.

Rick starting the trim work for the guest room transformation.

The completed paint job.  New windows will be added
in a few days.

After we repaired Gladys' incontinent issues, we were ready to start painting the guest room (which really was what Rick wanted to do from the moment he woke up.) The attached pictures show the results.  What the pictures do not clearly show is that the blue walls really make the blueberries in the cover "pop" from the background. We both love the color of the room and are happy with the results.  We cannot paint the inside window frames yet until we get the new windows installed.  The baseboard, white paint on the closet doors, and a little art on the walls will complete the look. By the way, I do work, too.  I never am shown in the pictures because I am always the photographer behind the lens.


After lunch we went looking for a replacement tree for the yard, and we once again collided with yet another Dunedin dilemma.  The paperwork from the city says that we have to have a tree in before September 31 (yeah, I know...) of this year, so we went to a really nice nursery today.  It was closed but its companion garden center store was open.  We talked to the vice president of the company who told us that even if we planted a crepe myrtle tree today, it still would die.  He suggested that we get an extension on the permit and plant one in January when we come back down.  We went to the city and talked to an engineer named Alan Mayberry.  He told us that if we planted in January and watered until May, the tree probably still would die.  He said that the tree needs water in June - September (the growing season) in order to really establish the root system. So no matter what we do, we are not planning on being here long enough to water the tree and to keep the darn thing alive.  Sigh.  Sometimes this home ownership in two different states really is a problem.  We are not sure what we are going to do because when we leave, we turn off the water to the house.  Even if we asked the neighbors to water for us, we are not sure they are reliable, and we would be asking them to use their water.  While we can pay for the water, Rick is not keen on the idea of imposing on the neighbors. This dilemma has yet to be solved.

Tonight we got the house ready for the window people to come tomorrow.  I am really excited to see what changes will happen to the look, insulation, and security of the house with new doors and windows.  We have been trying to fix, patch, and doll Gladys up.  Now we will give her some new glass(es) so we all can see the world a little more clearly.

The Guest Room

Since Stephanie is coming to visit next week, we have been referring to the guest bedroom as "Stephanie's room"; however, our youngest daughter took exception to that, so we have made a conscious effort to refer to it as a "guest bedroom."  We want to try to keep the second bedroom available only for our immediate family members and perhaps an invited friend, but we do not want our home to become a free hotel for whomever decides to invite him or herself down. That may sound antisocial, and I guess in a way it is, but people would not think of trying to stay in our Green Bay home, so we want to keep the Florida home on the same status. Besides, when Rick really works hard and is overtired, I need another room to escape from the snoring so I can get some sleep too.

The "before" guest bedroom.

We are excited to have Stephanie come, and if nothing else, that has prompted us to do what we can to prepare the room for human habitation.  Rick was up by 6:14 this morning, so we got an early start.  After taking everything out of the room except the bed which we draped in plastic, I armed myself with a bucket of water laced with tri-sodium phosphate (TSP) and a bucket of rinse water.  A couple of minutes later, Rick walked into the room and could see exactly where I had scrubbed and where I had not. The last owner of the house smoked, and by the nicotine stains on the walls, I do not think she heeded the Fire Department's warnings about not smoking in bed.  Stains outlined where every picture had hung in the room, and the juncture of wall and ceiling housed a brown line of nicotine soot.  Also, at one time someone must have dropped or slopped a cup of coffee in the room because two walls were splattered with coffee drippings. How in the world did we ever sleep in that room temporarily last year?  I guess we were just too exhausted at night to notice or to care.

I finished washing three walls before lunch time.  Meanwhile, Rick had removed the baseboard in the room, scraped the offending "paint line" above the old baseboard, and started to patch what needed patching.  We discovered that Gladys has 3.5" baseboards, and the new ones that we can buy are only 3.25".  Without lots of scraping and plastering, the new boards would obviously be a replacement. We also forgot to take out the base shoe in that room, so when we had the floors redone last year, the floor was not polished under the base shoe.  I may need to do some serious scrubbing along the walls in the room.

Although beautiful, the fan does not seem safe.

Another thing that needs our attention is the fan in the room. Rick took a bucket of water just to wash off the layer of dust on the fan blades.  We have a replacement fan that we need to install before Stephanie comes.  While I really like the looks of the old fan, it shimmies more than a stripper dancing to fast music in a cheap bar. Neither of us would want to sleep under the wobbly fan!

A sample of the blue that will adorn the guest room.

Rick was able to paint the ceiling today, and tomorrow we will try to give the room the first coat of wall paint.  We have chosen a blue to make the blueberries in the comforter cover "pop" when you look at it.  I really like the color and think it may be the most dynamic in the whole house.  We would like to add some wooden blinds to match the tan color in the comforter cover also.  Once again, all it takes is time and money.

Gladys' latest surprise.

After a delicious dinner this evening, I went into the master bath to wash my hands.  When I turned off the faucet, I heard a steady stream of water.  Oh-oh.  I called Chief Running Water who looked at the trap under the sink and sort of laughed.  There is a hole that finally has worn through the old pipe.  Please keep in mind that this is the house that had SCOTCH TAPE on all of the drains when we bought the house. Thankfully, we keep a plastic garbage can under the sink, so the dripping water was safely contained in the plastic bag in the garbage can.  Although we could have made another run to Lowe's, we decided that we had other functioning sinks in the house, and this latest disaster can wait until tomorrow.

I look forward to seeing how the guest room will turn out once it is painted.  Obviously, we now face a plumbing job tomorrow as well.  We have worked from sun-up to sun-down, and beyond, every day that we have been here.  We still have a thousand things to do, but that is part of the challenge.

Gladys sometimes gives us gifts and sometimes gives us these little surprises just to see if we are really paying attention to her. We are here for eight more weeks, and something tells me that Gladys will get more than her fair share of attention.