Day 4: Bathroom Remodel

 Today was one of those days that sounded simple in concept, but was not so simple in execution.  Today was our day to "take it easy" by completing all of the electrical work: putting up a vented ceiling fan with a light, rewiring the electrical switch box to accept the switches for the new fan and light, providing service for our new room light, and adding a second receptacle box for two more plugs.  Simple, right?  The electrical work took a full eight hours, and we still are not quite finished.

The day actually started with a trip to Home Depot to pick up wire and a few other supplies.  Then we made a side trip to Habitat for Humanity's Restore to drop off the bathroom fan that we had purchased four years ago with the idea that we would someday put it into the main bathroom.  That plan changed when we discovered that the fan would not fit in the limited rafter space.  We also learned that we like the fan we installed a couple of years ago in the master bathroom because it has a fan that turns off on a timer, so we can shower and go in the morning and not have to worry if the fan ran long enough to vent the moisture from the room.  So... Habitat for Humanity's Restore got a brand-new four-year-old fan to resell.  Actually, when we were in the store a woman was in there shopping for bathroom supplies--including a vented fan!  I suspect that the Restore priced and sold the fan within hours of our dropping it off.

When we returned, Rick started working on our new vented, lighted fan.  Thank heavens he knows electrical circuitry because most of the time I had no clue what he was doing.  Once we located where we wanted to hang the fan inside, we went outside to the soffit to cut a hole for the exhaust vent.  Sadly, where we wanted to locate the vent did not work out.  Rick used a jigsaw to cut the hole, only to discover that it was a hole to nowhere since it had beams and cross-beams totally enclosing it.  There was no way that we could feed ductwork to that opening.  Oops!

The "oops" location (left) and the final location of the outside
vent for the fan.  Patching the "oops" will happen later.

We had to move the hole to vent the fan closer to the window than we wanted, but that was the only location that allowed us to snake the ductwork over beams to the soffit.  It is not ideal, but it will do.  I am thrilled that we will have a working, vented fan in both bathrooms.  And as for the "oops" hole? A little Bondo and sanding, and no one will ever know it was there!

Probably the most frustrating part of the day was trying to get the flexible ductwork over the end of the outside vent.  The expandable ductwork kept unraveling as the sharp edges threatened to cut Rick's fingers to shreds.  Finally, he was able to get the ductwork in place and securely fastened into place.

Three days after closing on Gladys six years ago, we had much of the electrical work updated.  At that time, the electricians put a junction box up in the attic for a "someday" bathroom fan, and they ran the wire back to the main electrical box.  It has rested there, undisturbed, until today. We were very, very glad that this pre-planning allowed us to complete what we did today.

The new fan also will provide light in the tub
since it is located just outside the tub area.

The fan is located near the toilet so it can help
to eliminate unwanted fragrances also!

Fishing wires back and forth from the switch box up to the fan is not fun, especially when we had our blown-in insulation falling on our heads like a mid-winter snowstorm.  I did say, however, that I was thankful what fell was the new, white insulation that we had blown into the attic a few years ago after we had had the gross, brown, smelly old insulation removed.  That was the second time today that we were glad we had a little foresight years ago to make today's task easier.

Fishing new electrical lines to the switch took
some time, but it was worth it in the end.

The weather cooperated today also.  Being in the attic is no fun, but our temperatures today only got into the mid-70s, so opening up access and being in the attic was tolerable.  I would not have wanted to do this job on a 90+ degree day.

Setting up a two gang box to accept the two switches for the fan and light and a main switch for the main bathroom light took a little time.  We had to take out old wires, run new wires, and try to get everything to fit in the right cavities in the walls.

In the process, we came across three thick wires that used to provide the "juice" to run Gladys' original ceiling heating system.  We were almost positive that the wires were all dead and disconnected from the breaker box, but Rick tested them one last time before he cut them down. He is not dead, so the wires must have been so.

Our temporary light is not pretty, but it will serve its purpose.

When we took the soffit down a couple of days ago, we also eliminated the only lights to the bathroom.  Until we can figure out the logistics of our vanity, the new vanity top (which we have not yet chosen), the sink and faucet, the location of the mirror, and finally the dimensions of the lights we just ordered, we cannot set up the permanent electrical box for the main light.  So for now, Rick just put up a temporary light.  By doing so, we know the switch works, and we can have light if we need it.

Thankfully, once Rick was done with the always-scary job of connecting the new electrical components to a new breaker in the electrical panel, we were relieved to learn that everything worked just fine.  The correct switches turned on the correct lights or fans, the new receptacle was live and provided power, and nothing popped or burned in the process!

We still have to add the wires for a second receptacle box.  We have the materials, but we ran out of both time and energy today to complete that part of the plan.

Today took much longer and was more difficult than we had imagined.  Figuring out what wires had to go where, painstakingly wiring everything correctly, and doing much of the work overhead, left Rick exhausted.  We are happy with the results, but this job again goes into the category of never wanting to do this again.

Tomorrow is Sunday.  I plan to sleep late, go to church, have a relaxing lunch, and spending the day as it was originally intended to be: a day of rest.

Day 3: Bathroom Remodel

As the title suggests, today was the third day of our labor to remodel the bathroom.  And as is true for those of us who did little physical labor this summer, Day 3 brought on weariness with the force of a Mack truck going 90 miles an hour.  One moment we both felt pretty good, and then BAM, the energy was gone.

Having done several of these projects before, we know that this is the turning point and that each day we will be a bit less weary.  Our bodies just have to get used to expending energy and moving in ways that we have not done for a while.  Rick has a badly bruised ankle from a run-in with a crowbar and a new scratch across his torso from who knows what, but so far we have had no signs of blood.  I will take that as a good omen.

Since tomorrow a "cold front" is supposed to come through which should drop our temperatures down to the high 70s/ low 80s, ( yes, my Wisconsin friends, I know, I know...), we decided to get as much of the walls down today as we could so we could work in the attic with the electricity and fan tomorrow while it is "cool" out. Anyway, that was the plan.

The "before" picture which shows the walls we worked
to remove today.

Rick decided to tackle the tile around the bathtub.  His goal was to get as much of the tile into the dumpster as possible so the city could pick it up today and bring us a new one for the weekend.  He started his effort with the small wall next to the closet door where the tile wraps around the corner into the tile that surrounds the tub.  He immediately hit three inches of tile, plaster, and wire, all backed by triple studs around the closet door! To make matters worse, we think that this same plaster and wire configuration is under the upper part of the wall also.  Fun.

With much effort, that wall came down, and I hauled it to the dumpster. Then Rick moved on to the wall with the plumbing.  Once again, lots of structure behind the wall gave the builders plenty of surface on which to staple the wire.  Crowbars, small sledge hammers, and lots of pounding slowly surrendered the walls.  Rick was trying to be careful around the bath fixtures, but they were hanging on to the plaster with all of their might.

At last the plumbing was free from the wall, and Rick turned his attention to the back wall.  He had cut out and removed a large section of the wall.  He gave me a big piece to lay aside until he could help me carry it out to the dumpster.  When I went to place it in the corner, I discovered another nasty surprise.

Remember yesterday when I wrote, "Water has always been the enemy of any structure, and Gladys is no exception. " Ah, yes.  I still believe it today.  As I went to set the tile section down, I noticed that the rosin paper on the floor was soaking wet.  I looked down and discovered a puddle at the door, a flooded closet, and a silent, sneaky stream carefully making its way down the floor next to the tub.  I said the words my husband hates to hear: "Rick, we have a problem."

It turns out that the 56-year-old plumbing did not care for his rough treatment around the hot and cold faucets, so both of them decided to spring a not-so-slow leak.  We did not notice it at first because as the water slid down the copper pipes and decided to puddle under the tub.  When the cavity under the tub sufficiently filled to the depth of about two inches, the water overflowed into the closet and bathroom, through the wall under his desk in the guest room, and under the plastic door into the hallway.  What a mess! 

The open wall shows the newly capped pipes that
leaked under the tub and partially across two rooms.

We used every garage towel we owned to mop up the water.  The bathroom was a particular mess because the water was mixed in with plaster dust which turned to a muddy sand.  We lined the hallway with drop cloths, so they, too, were soggy at the door. 

Needless to say, we drastically altered our plans for the day.  Of course, we searched our "plumbing" box and could not find the caps that we needed to cut and to cap off the leaking pipes.  Rick shut off the water to the house.  While he went to the store to buy plumbing supplies, I switched into clean-up mode to take debris to the dumpster, to remove and bag all the soggy rosin paper, and to mop up the puddles throughout the house.  I actually did not discover the flood in the den until I went in there for scissors to cut the old rosin paper.  I hate water!

Naturally, the access to get under the tub is tucked away
tightly in the small bathroom closet.

We certainly did not make the progress with the walls that we had hoped to make today, but I guess that is OK, too.  We both are weary enough that the water crisis was just enough to make us both willing to quit for the day. What does Annie sing?  The sun will come up tomorrow.  We'll deal with the bathroom then.

Day 2: Bathroom Remodel

We started work today by 7:15 (just as the sun was rising!) and we finished at 3:15.  I will admit, though, that we spent part of the day shopping both at Lowe's and Home Depot to get electrical and plumbing supplies as well as seven sheets of drywall.

Sadly, we had started work, so we were both dusty and dirty when we had to break for supplies.  With a work scarf on my head and plaster dust on my shoulders, I am sure that I presented quite a sight at the store.  Thankfully, we could hang around all the aisles with the contractors, so they looked just as bad as we did!

We removed the upper part of the wall and all
of the lower tile except for the area behind the toilet.

Our main focus today was to finish the lower part of the wall we started yesterday and to remove the north wall that contains the hallway door.  By doing so, we would expose the wiring for the switch and for the lights.  Rick also wanted to get the soffit removed, and we were able to accomplish all of that today.

We have learned that if we can get a long crowbar behind the layer of tile/ plaster/ wire mesh, we can pry off fairly large chunks at a time.  We were able to do that this morning, so the lower part of the vanity wall was down much more quickly than we had expected.  While Rick did most of the prying and muscle work, I did a lot of hauling large chunks and buckets of debris to the dumpster.  We have the dumpster about half full now.

The upper, rough-plastered walls are fairly easy to remove since they have a drywall backing instead of a plaster and wire backing.  When Rick was completing the upper part of the wall that he started yesterday, though, he came upon a nasty surprise.  Water has always been the enemy of any structure, and Gladys is no exception.  We know that at one point she had a tile roof which eventually leaked.  While the roof was changed almost 15 years ago, the damage from the leak remained in the wall above the toilet.  What we found was not water stains, but rather black mold.

Black mold coats the corner drywall above the toilet
as a result of a leaky roof over a decade ago.

Since my immune system is still compromised, Rick would not let me get near the mold or help him remove it.  Thank God for the Internet which gave us some good ideas on how to rid a house of black mold.  One of the things we purchased at the store was a commercial product to spray on surfaces that contain black mold.  Rick started by removing the moldy surfaces and then spraying what was left with the chemicals to kill and seal the area from further mold growth.  He also sprayed all of the wood that he could not remove.  We were fortunate that the moldy area was fairly small (probably 16 x 30 inches) and that we were able to stop the mold before it spread further.  Thankfully, new drywall will solve lots of problems!

Rick exposed all of the electrical connections
on the north wall next to the door.

The drywalled upper walls also made getting to the electrical connections on the north side of the room not difficult at all.  Since the tiled lower wall was fairly narrow, we also were able to remove it in a couple of large chunks.  Thankfully, the wall right next to the door jambs came out in large pieces, so we did not have to get near the jambs with any prying tools. Whew!  That was a relief!

As he suspected, Rick found that most of the wires were dry and needed replacing, so he started to pull out the old wires.  We will replace the whole system with new 14/2 grounded wire so we know we are secure.  Once that wall was exposed, Rick moved on to the soffit.

Rick works on removing the structure that supported the soffit
above the vanity.

Naturally, the blown-in insulation that we had put into the attic a few years ago made a wonderful mess.  I currently have three full bags of insulation that Rick scooped out of the hole he cut into the front of the soffit.

 I often wonder why the builders of the 60s were so enamored with soffits.  While they do provide a convenient place to hide ductwork and electrical wires, they also waste a lot of room and make a space look and feel smaller.  We had removed a soffit in Gladys' kitchen a few years ago and found no duct work and only a couple of small electrical wires in the whole thing.  I gained lots of cupboard space by using that area for taller kitchen cabinets.

We used 6 mil plastic stapled to the rafters to
temporarily seal off the attic and to hold the insulation
in place.

The same wasted space was evident as we began to remove the bathroom soffit today.  The cavity was hollow since the ductwork already was above the rafters in the attic, and the only things inside the soffit in addition to lots of insulation were the wires for the  two 1960's "tulip" lights which hung over the vanity.

Since the soffits were overhead work, they were a pain to remove, but by mid-afternoon, they were all in the dumpster. The tulip lights followed in short order.  The result is a room that is visually taller and seemingly more spacious.

We are happy with the progress we have made thus far.  Tomorrow Rick will replace all of the wires and will temporarily set up a small light so we can see what we are doing as we continue to remodel the last room in Gladys.

Day 1: Bathroom Remodel

The one 1960's room left in Gladys is the pink and white tiled bathroom.  While we have made some progress in modernizing it by putting in a new window, a new toilet, a new vanity and adding solid-core interior doors, we know that we still have much to change.

The "before" picture showing our 1960's
pink bathroom.  Thank God the floors are
terrazzo so we don't have to change them also!

The pink tub will be a chore to remove, but
out it must go.

We want to take down all of the tile and the "sculpted" (read "ugly") upper walls, remove the soffit, change the lights, and remove the rusting cast iron tub. We plan to drywall all of the walls, add a new Stirling tub and surround with Kohler fixtures, add a new granite vanity top, and add a Kohler sink and faucet.  We will complete the room with a new toilet paper holder, and towel bars.  Of course, if you know my husband, you know that those also will come from Kohler.

With the vanity removed, we covered the floor with paper
to save it from damage.

Anyone who remodels knows that prep is just as important as the job itself.  We started our work this morning at 7:30, and we spent the next hour and a half just prepping the area.  We removed the vanity to its temporary home in the Florida room.  The old countertop and sink now reside in the garage.  The closet and hallway door lean against the guest room wall for now, and the mirror is face-down on the guest room bed.  Everything in the closet is packed in tubs or bags secured under the long hallway table in the living room.  Whew!  That was just the clean-out.

Six mil plastic with red zippers attached allow
us to try to keep the dust in the bathroom while
still having access to the room from the hall.

We tried something new this remodeling job: we bought a kit to make a zippered door for the room.  So far it seems to be working well; we'll see how it holds out for the next week or so.  We knew that removing all of the tile and plaster would be dusty, and we were SO right!  Rick bought a grinder which does help to cut "bite-sized" chunked of wall loose, but chipping them down is still a glorious mess.

To help with the dust control, we opened the window and put a small fan in it to exhaust the dusty air in the room.  It must be working, because as you can see from the picture, the fan face left a dusty reminder of just where we located it.

The dusty circle on the screen shows where the fan stood.

We worked until noon to remove the part of the tile wall where the vanity once stood.  We will gain inches in the room since behind the tile we find a thick layer of plaster and wire mesh.  The blade on the grinder cuts in an inch and a half, and it never touches the wire mesh!  This will be a messy, heavy, difficult job.

The wall "before" ...

and after our first day of work.

We called for a dumpster for the debris, and the man at Waste Management for the city said that they would deliver it this afternoon.  Yeah, right.  I had just stepped out of the shower and was drying off as Rick entered the shower.  Suddenly I heard the city truck in our driveway.  Since neither of us was wearing much, we could not go outside to tell him where to place the dumpster, so, of course, it is so far away from our garage that we can barely get both the car and the truck in our driveway.  Sigh.  If the truck had been 10 minutes earlier or later, one of us would have been able to direct him.  Timing is everything.

I am glad that Rick has an appointment with the allergist this afternoon.  If not, I am sure that he would still be in the bathroom working.  As it is, we did enough for the first day.  Now that we have the dumpster, I will be able to transport the debris outside as Rick continues to tear down the walls.

This job is going to take some time, but the results will be a totally updated Gladys in the end. If I still have the energy to do so, I will post our second day's efforts tomorrow evening.

Electrically Charged

We have been in Dunedin one week as of yesterday, and thankfully we have crossed off quite a few things on our "to do" list.  While last week was a lot of planning and calling, this week has started to be a week of doing those tasks.

We took Sunday off.  After being reacquainted with friends at church, we spent a delightful afternoon with my nephew and his new bride at their home.  We brought them some goodies from Wisconsin, and they treated us to a wonderful meal.  Thanks, Rachel and Jon!

Yesterday was one of those days where we worked hard but had little to visibly show for our labors other than the afore-mentioned items crossed off the list.  Rick started the day in old clothes so he could spray insecticide all around the perimeter of the house.  He always says that if people left Florida for a time, it would totally revert back to the jungle in about 18 months.  Just being gone five months this summer allowed every bug and spider within a 10 mile radius to try to take up residence at our house.  Thankfully, most stayed outside, so we are just fighting the webs and insects that are crawling around outside.  For those of you interested, we have not seen any mosquitoes.  Zika is not in the area and poses no danger to us.

While I tied more branches of the spreading bougainvillea to the trellis by the fence, Rick sprayed a different kind of insecticide to the gardenia tree in the back yard.  The tree is trying to bloom again, but something is making a smorgasbord of the leaves on that tree.  Hopefully the spray we bought at the nursery will help.  It seemed to have a positive effect on the tree when I used it last year.

More outside work included adding fertilizer to our bottle brush tree in the back.  I also fertilized the flowers planted under the Florida room windows.  I hope they don't grow too much, though, or they will block the windows!

Our last task yesterday was to prep the garage for the work we had done today.  The electricians arrived early this morning to move the electrical mast and service on the house from the back to the north side.  We needed to have the service moved because the wires originally were over where we want to add a roof and lanai to the slab.  Codes state that electrical wires must be at least 10 feet above any aluminum structure, so the wires had to be moved before we can move forward on the lanai.

The new meter box awaits installation on the
north wall of the house.

The gutted meter box hangs next to the cable box.
By the end of the day, the meter box was gone and
the service in the mast above it was moved to the
new location.

We were without electricity most of the day, and I found watching Rick very interesting. He is so addicted to researching any question that pops into his head, that being without his trusty computer almost drove him nuts.  I say "almost" because he still had his wireless connection on his iPhone, so he continued to research what he wanted even without a full screen on his computer.  (Yes, we know that we could have run the computers on battery, but we chose not to do that.  Had Rick not had a phone, however, I think that the computer batteries would been quite worn down by now.

One of the two electricians inserts the new mast
through the roof to connect to the new box.

The removed box left a BIG hole to patch.

At the end of the day, we had the meter box removed from the back of the house and a new box and meter installed on the north side.  We asked the electricians to put the connections from the breaker box to the new box inside the garage to avoid having that conduit on the outside of the house.  The cool thing is that we now have a meter and shut off outside the house, and we also have room for eight new breakers (16 circuits) in the outside box.  The electrician told me that if we want any new electrical service outside (like lights...  or a fancy outdoor kitchen...or perhaps an electric fireplace???), we can use this outside box.  Smile!

The new mast and wire location sits securely behind the garbage
cans on the north side of the house.

The new box easily is accessible to those who
want to read the meter.

The connections between the two boxes runs along the back of the garage.

We still have to get the cable box moved from the back wall.  (That's another story in itself!) Then we will be able to patch and paint the wall in preparation for it to be a nice wall inside our someday lanai.

Scrubbing, Planting, Planning, Oh My!

Yesterday was supposed to be a "down day" since we did not have too much scheduled on our calendar.  Yeah, sure.

We hauled out the hose yesterday, filled a bucket with soapy water, and Rick took out the long-handled soft scrub brush that we had used to wash our last gigantic truck.  We learned last year that the brush also is just about the right size to reach the underside of the soffits and the peaks of the house (when standing on a ladder) so that we can give Gladys a bath.  And scrubbing she needed, indeed!

While I mentioned earlier that the inside of the house seemed to be critter- and insect-free, the same could not be said for the outside of the house.  Spiders had a field-day while we were gone for the summer.  We have webs and left-over spider lunches everywhere.  Since the front is the most visible, we decided to start with that side of the house.  Florida is sandy, so dirt and sand fly everywhere.  Rick spent the morning scrubbing while I followed with the hose to spray the walls, soffits, and windows down.  The result is a cobweb free front of the house that has clean windows and screens and looks about a quarter of a shade lighter in color.  Amazing what a bath will do!  Naturally, we still have the south, east, and north sides of the house to complete, and the fence needs a good bath also.  Another day...

Yesterday afternoon the Schwan's man arrived.  We love Schwan's food, so we saved the majority of our small freezer in the refrigerator for the food that we had preordered before we left Wisconsin.  We were happy to see him come, and he was very happy that we were back.  Let's just say that what we did yesterday was probably one of his larger orders of the day; however, the freezer is full and we will be enjoying the food for many meals.  In fact, I just baked some Schwan's Southern Style biscuits to go with our meal tonight.

This morning a representative from an insulated roofing system firm for a lanai came to give us an estimate.  His company usually builds the "cages" around swimming pools, but they do lanais also.  He was excited because our request for an insulated roof was a small, easy job set up on a square footprint.  This afternoon we received his bid.  Let's just say that we are NOT excited about the price.  His bid came in about $1500- $2000 more than I had anticipated.  His lanai roof system is not in our budget.  That might be all right, though, since we had never heard of the system he was selling, and it was not the system that Rick had researched this past summer.

We know that we can install the roof and the screen walls ourselves, and that is probably what we eventually will do.  We can get the materials for the lanai at a fraction of the cost of having it installed for us, and we think we can do just as good of a job. The gutters may give us a little trouble, but that, too, can be overcome with a little thought and planning.

Two workers start to dig the hole for the first tree as Rick sets
up his SawsAll.  A stake to the right marks the spot for the
second tree.

Right after the lanai roof man left, a truck from Palm Trees Direct pulled up.  We now have two new additions to our yard: two fairly good sized foxtail palms.  They are the start of the second phase of our front yard landscaping.  Rick and I took stakes, strings, and tape measures yesterday to plan where we wanted the two trees.  We had the stakes in place where we wanted each tree planted.

Rick saws through one of three roots that had to
be removed for the first tree.

As expected, since one of the trees needed to be near to where the old bottle brush tree had been located, the landscape people hit roots as they started to dig the hole.  Rick brought out his SawsAll, popped in a new pruning blade, and made short work of the three roots that were in the way.  The landscape workers who were digging the holes were very grateful for the saw and for Rick's help.  He made a miserable job much easier for them, and we ended up with the trees located where we wanted them to be.

I was impressed with how carefully the woman on the two-person crew positioned the trees and made sure that the berm around each tree was high enough to hold the necessary water.  The younger man of the crew cleaned up around each berm, and before they left, the woman showed us how to water the trees each morning.  If we follow instructions, we should have two healthy trees when we leave in May.

Now the front yard does not look quite so bare with two new
foxtail palms to adorn it.

Later this year, if our money holds out, I may put in the garden under the bedroom windows behind the trees.  I also want to plan a garden with the palms anchoring both ends, but I may not do that garden until the trees have had a year to establish themselves.  To everything there is a season... and I cannot be impatient with my plans.

We have made great progress this week, taking in bids, setting up Gladys, scrubbing her inside and out, and learning what we can and cannot do this year.  And as a reward for being a strong, sturdy, leak-free structure, we bought Gladys some new trees to make her even more beautiful.

Busily Going Broke

Is this really only Wednesday?  I cannot believe that we have only been in Florida for a day and a half, and we have accomplished what I thought would take us at least a week.  In the process, we also have spent or committed to spend quite a bit of money.

Yesterday afternoon we took a trip to Eden Nursery where we had purchased our bottle brush tree.  It suffered this past summer from the heat and lack of enough water (although the locals said it rained quite often here), so we went to buy some fertilizer to try to save it.  We got advice on how to trim our bushes and on how to effectively treat the bottle brush tree.  I trimmed the dead branches last night, and tomorrow we will take time to fertilize it around the drip line.  I have been trying to water it each day to keep it going, and my attention to it seems to have helped.  It is far from lush and healthy, but with some love, it may flourish yet.

After trimming, our bottle brush tree looks
thin but better.

After our nursery visit, we traveled to Seminole to Palm Trees Direct to buy the foxtail palm trees for our front yard.  We picked out two trees that matched in height, and they were 1/3 the price than were the foxtail palms at the nursery.  These folks specialize in palm trees, so their inventory is always full and healthy, and they are experts at planting them the right way.  They called today to schedule delivery and planting.  They are coming on Friday to add the foxtail palms to our front yard.

Yesterday afternoon, in addition to trimming the bottle brush tree, I also trimmed the gardenia tree and the lemon/lime bushes in front of the Florida room windows.  Lastly, I tied the bougainvillea onto the trellis by the live oak tree.  I planted two little bougainvillea bushes last spring with the hopes that they would thrive through the summer.  They did. We purposely planted the bougainvillea to fill in the space between the tree and the fence, knowing that bougainvillea love to climb structures.  As I tied up the branches, I remembered (painfully!) that bougainvillea have large thorns.  Ouch!  I am happy, though, that the thorns will keep critters from trying to climb through the gap in our fence.

The gardenia tree is about to bloom with
beautiful white flowers.

The bougainvillea frame the live oak tree.

Today started with me tackling the overgrown bushes in the front yard.  The may bush at the side of the house was overgrown with tall weeds, and it badly needed reshaping.  I think that it will bloom this year with its white flowers now that it has had a "haircut."

The may bush once again has a rounded apperance.

From there, I moved on to the bushes in the front garden which have grown at least a foot since we left in May.  Once I cut them back, I could actually start to see the slower-growing crotons behind them.  The front garden actually looks civilized again!

The "before" picture of the front garden.

The "after" picture which allows the back
bushes to peek through to the front.

The final outdoor task, which I completed just before the sun made the job too hot to handle, was to weed the areas around the stepping stones which temporarily make up our front walk.  Now the house looks like someone actually lives here.  I cannot wait to get the pavers in so that job will disappear before next year.

The cleaned-up path to our front door.

A major step forward happened this morning when Arry's Roofing Service came out to give us a bid on a new roof.  Dave, the estimator, was wonderful.  He gave us our options, made some suggestions, and put together a bid for a new shingled roof with a moved kitchen vent, a new sloped roof for the Florida room, and a solar-powered roof vent to keep the air moving freely through the attic.  We were pleased that the bid came in at a reasonable price that was within our budget.  Arby's is booked out for a couple months, so we probably will get our new roof sometime in December.

Dave also gave us a lead for a company that could install an insulated lanai roof.  Rick set up an appointment for an estimate from that company.  They will be here on Friday.

The last bid of the day came from a local electrical company who agreed to move the electrical mast on our house.  Before we can add a lanai roof, we have to move the overhead wires.  We need to move the mast and the wires before we have the new roof put in since the mast will leave a hole in the roof.  By moving the mast, we also will be able to take the meter off the back wall of the house.  That will give us a smooth, blank wall in our future lanai, making that porch much more inviting.

Rick has done an incredible job of researching what needs to be coordinated and calling in all of these contractors for bids.  So we have taken care of the landscaping, roof, electrical service, and lanai... all within the last two days.  We have committed a lot of remodeling money, but by the time we leave in May, we once again will make drastic changes to Gladys.  I hope she appreciates the cost and effort.

Home in the South

The great thing about having a home in Wisconsin and a home in Florida is that no matter where we spend a season, we are always "home".  We traveled down to our Florida home (Gladys) this past weekend.

We arose at 2:58 on Saturday morning and were heading out of Green Bay by 3:40.  We drove as far as Racine before stopping for breakfast at America's most well-known restaurant: McDonalds.  Thankfully, traffic in Milwaukee was light, and we had an equally easy trip through Chicago.  We were pleased to learn that the navigation on our new truck works very well.  We paid for a map upgrade last month, and we found that the system kept us on track all the way south.  The upgrade was well worth the money.

While we love not having the dual tires on the truck, we miss the large 84 gallon (regular plus auxiliary) gas tank that we had on the old truck. Having only a 26 gallon gas tank forced us to "fill up" at least twice a day.  The old truck was diesel, so at least this gasoline truck made filling up easy.

We packed sandwiches for lunch, so we stopped by a wayside near Rend Lake in Illinois.  I am attaching pictures because this was probably the prettiest wayside that I have ever used.

The wayside had beautiful views of Rend Lake.

Lots of lawn offered plenty of space to walk and
to stretch our legs.

A covered bridge allowed weary travelers to walk a path to get
a better view of Rend Lake.

We spent the night in Clarksville, TN, and got an early start the next morning.  Nashville usually gives us weather trouble, but we had sunshine the entire trip down.  Rick drove most of the day as I battled a killer headache.

We experienced construction at various points on our route, but we had very little delays except for a stretch just south of Atlanta, GA.  We also found that traffic was more heavy in that area.  With all of the evacuees from Hurricane Matthew, we wondered if some of the traffic were those evacuees returning to the east coast to learn what was left of their homes.

Cotton was growing in the fields as we drove through southern Georgia. Our goal was to travel to Lake City, and we pulled into that city very tired but safe on Sunday afternoon. Our hotel was clean and comfortable, but since it was located near the highway, we had traffic noise all night.  We saw many trailer parks in Georgia or northern Florida located right next to the highway.  I wonder how they can tolerate the constant traffic noise.  I think that would drive me crazy!

Our front garden needs a bit of trimming.  

For some reason, the front bushes grew much more
tall than the crotons in the back.  Time to trim!

We arrived home by 10:40 on Monday morning.  Gladys is in good shape.  We received no damage from Hurricane Hermoine earlier this summer.  The only chore that immediately presented itself was lots of overgrown shrubbery.  That chore, though, I can handle.

This past winter we cancelled our pest control service and Rick started spraying the house instead.  We were a little worried that we might find the place crawling away since we no longer had anyone come to spray around the house this summer; however, we found the house virtually bug-free.  Yippee! Our system works!

Everything works the way we had hoped it would.  The car started right away, the refrigerator purred to life after we plugged it in, and the water flowed with no leaks when we turned it back on.  Even the cable re-connect was not much of a hassle.

While we miss family and friends, we were welcomed back warmly by our neighbors down here.