Tuesday, June 24, 2014

More Projects

We're still cranking on house projects while dodging the daily thunderstorms. The main one this week was a bit of a redo. When we first moved in, there was a hall closet that was seriously misconfigured. The rods were too close to the wall for a standard hanger to fit, and were so close to the floor that Debbie's long dresses were all puddled up on the carpet. Simple enough to fix, thinks us. We decided we only needed closet rod on one side anyway, so we ripped everything out and put up a rod and shelf on one side and pantry shelving on the other. We've hung hundreds of feet of Closetmaid, so this should be easy, right? Heh. The "walls" are only 2x2's and the thinnest paneling that you can buy. No way the paneling would support the vertical rails once we started loading things up. That meant we had to position the rails on the studs, but that put them too far in from the ends. It worked as long as we were careful to keep things balanced. At the time we had about 100 other things to do, so we just decided to live with it for now and fix it when we got a round tuit.

A mere two years later:


We pulled everything back out, screwed 1/2" B/C plywood right over the paneling, slapped on a bit of paint, et voilĂ ! Now we have a wall sturdy enough to put things together correctly. And while we had everything pulled out, I decided to do something about the nicotine-stained ceiling:


When it's all done, we now have and extra four feet of closet space:


And repeat on the other side:


And rehang the shelves and fill with Stuff:


A neighbor somehow acquired a display rack from the local Sweetbay when it shut down. She thought she would use it for something, but never did. She gave it to us a couple months ago along with a bunch of cuttings from her plants. It fits perfectly on the back wall and makes a great can shelf:


We now have enough space to do mega-Sam's-Club shopping and have a place for everything. Even the super-giant-sized tub of animal crackers!!

Speaking of new plants, the rain is really making everything jump:

Lantana planted a year or so ago.

My parents' hibiscus that we are plant-sitting for the summer.

No clue what this is. Even the googles couldn't help.

One person told us this was angel wing begonia, another said it was dragon wing begonia. What came up on the googles for either of those looked nothing like this until I added the word "spotted". This is a spotted dragon wing begonia.

Variegated kiwi vine? A bit upright for something called a vine. We'll see.

Some random plant from Home Depot. It was stuck in a pot with other plants and wasn't looking too healthy, but we planted it anyway. Now it's going like crazy.

Gardenia.

Variegated philodendron.

Hollyhocks, recently relocated. These should have set flower a long time ago, so I relocated them to a spot with more sun to see if that helps.

Some sort of miniature iris that pops up all over this part of the park.

Coleus

Rose bush of unknown type. 
Ginger, growing a couple inches a day.

Spider plant

Agave, plumeria and aloe.

American beautyberry.
We also managed to kick out a couple outdoor projects as well:

One dumpster-dived rusty wire rack + one can Rustoleum navy blue paint = one serviceable end table-ish dohicky.
More Rustoleum navy blue paint applied to the peeling, multicolored light pole, and it now goes with the siding.
We got a bit of a surprise when we began seriously cleaning up the light pole: the glass was clear, not frosted. It took about a half a bottle of Windex to find that out, but the scum eventually came off. Now I just have to find the little rod with the dingleballs on either end to go through the hole (like this), and the light pole will be good to go.

Well, off to start work on the next project.

Friday, June 13, 2014

Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th is on a Friday this month. It's a full moon as well, which means it's the day for teenagers everywhere to run off into the woods, consume massive amounts of alcohol, lose their virginity, then be gruesomely murdered. By a werewolf.

I'm doing this because right now it's raining. Again. Or maybe I should say, "Still." At least all our transplants are loving this weather. Everything seems to have taken hold and is doing well. We've made some other changes in between rainstorms, but we haven't had a chance to take any pictures. So instead, here's what our view from our porch has been for the last few days:



Last weekend, we had enough time and dry weather to finally get the coat closet roughed in enough for us to start using it. We still need something smaller for the paper recycling (the big blue thing sticking out in the room), and the whole Florida room needs paint and paneling, but for now, it'll do:


That mostly clears out the closet part of our pantry/hall closet. Because our walls are nothing but 2x2's and paneling, I wasn't able to put up the shelf and rod correctly when we first moved in; now with it mostly empty, we're going to beef up the wall the rod and shelf are attached to and position the brackets correctly. If the rain gives us a break, we can probably get that cranked out this weekend. (Big "if" at this point.) Then most of my clothes will get moved out of the bedroom closet into the hall closet, making the bedroom closet somewhat less crammed full. Fun, fun, fun!

Yesterday, I spent most of the day on the road, driving back over to Lake Mary to pick up the new lenses for my glasses, drop off/pick up stuff for Debbie at her office, and hit one of my doctors for my quarterly check-up. News was less than ideal, which, in keeping with our wonderful medical-industrial complex, means spending more money I don't have just to confirm that indeed, I'm gonna die someday, just like everyone else. (I don't recall if I ever said, but I have yet-another chronic, life-shortening disease. No treatment needed for decades, but it must be constantly tracked. For reasons. Please hand your credit card to the lady behind the window. See you in three months.)

Anyway, it's lunch time.