Moving Refrigerators, and Other Such Stunts

We had a very busy morning. Began very early with park checks. We have 4 shelter rentals today, and about 200 people showing up, so we wanted to get everything prepared for that, and get out of there before the dog walkers came out.

As we did this, dark clouds with rain sort of made an appearance, but mainly skirted us, and so we were able to get back with nary a few drops to contend with.

Today was moving the refrigerator back into the kitchen.

Yesterday we bought new curtains and hung them. I'll tell you something, you might not think so, but putting up curtains in a room, just makes it feel like home. Every time I went into the kitchen I was stunned thinking, "Is this my kitchen now?" Dennis said he keeps thinking it was someone else's kitchen.

We've been "living" basically in the dining room for two months. The kitchen table has been in there for more than a year--because, I kid you not, the way the kitchen was before was just not the place we wanted to eat in. Bad enough we had to cook in it.

So, we got the dolly out of the shop, brought it up and still wondered how we were going to get the refrigerator up over the now 3" hump that they put on the threshold. I'm not sure why they did it this way, but they put in a piece of wood as a threshold. Looks nice, but we're trying not to stub our toes. Getting the refrigerator over this became a problem, we soon learned, because the dolly wheels were rather small, they were not going to go up over it.

We thought about this for a while. I suggested we turn the refrigerator around, and get it over the threshold, instead.

But, we needed the dolly in the kitchen, or we'd scratch up the new floor.

Meanwhile water drained out of the reservoir in the back of the refrigerator. Yuck. We used an old towel, an older mop and paper towels to clean it up, eventually.

Dennis had an idea. He measured the laundry room window. The dolly would fit through, and so we did what we planned, got the refrigerator up over the hump. Me inside the kitchen. I went to the laundry room window and opened it. Dennis lifted the heavy dolly in, and it just squeaked through. Then, Dennis had to climb up on a ladder, and got in, with just a few scrapes, but we had the dolly in the kitchen. I sort of felt like we were two thirds of The Stooges trying to figure this stuff out. But it worked.

We got the refrigerator leveled, plugged it in. We didn't hear it go on.

Dennis said he remembered that when we'd moved it before, it had to go through some defrost stage, probably because it had been moved, so we didn't panic too much. Eventually it did go on.

I mopped the rest of the floor.

We cleaned the inside of the refrigerator before we moved it, then we got the food all back into it.

After this, we cleaned off our table and chairs and moved those in--a much easier move, believe me!

We're about to have lunch and our first dinner in our new kitchen!

I don't know how many times Dennis kept going into the dining room to get something out of the refrigerator. Ha, ha. It's in the kitchen now!

Kitchen Coming Close to End

Well, this week the nice ceiling fan/light went in. It looked great. If I were able to put up a picture I would. But the comparison to what had been there, well--there is no comparison. The thing made of some sort of bamboo, a throw back to the 60's, was mostly a dust collector that sort of hung over the ugly globe that gave off very little light. I was happy to see the goofy thing sitting over a pot in the yard. Good riddance. My husband called it a yard decoration.

The next day I found a bit more added. The floorboards went in. Jerry--the retired painter who said he used to make $45/hour doing this (and he would have earned it by what he's done just in our kitchen)--had done all the painting, and he caulked along the edges of everything. Beautiful work.

Yesterday the other thing that went in was the cupboard/vent fan/light over the stove. You could do brain surgery with all the available light in this room. The vent wasn't even our idea, and we love it. Planning out where we'll put all our stuff once we can move back in.

Jerry and Dennis had talked about the ugly floor heat vent. It had been black, but was all roughed up and just ugly. So, Jerry had mentioned how a person could take three different colors of spray paint and make it blend in with the floor. Well, I came home and saw he'd done exactly that and boy, you don't even notice its there!

Dennis said he had asked about me being a writer, and--my husband the salesman--told him as much as he could about it, and Jerry wrote down the publisher's site and said he'd have one of his kids go on line for him. I'll probably get a couple of sales out of this. Who knows.

Next week final touches and somehow, some way we'll get a new stove. But the window has to be put in--that may go in tomorrow. It's actually two, and they go up over the sink. And next week they have to finish the cupboards. I hope they'll put on the hardware, but if they don't, I'll do it. But they might just go ahead and do this for us.

We'll be going to Bed, Bath and Beyond this weekend to get some ideas for some additions and curtains that we have to get.

That's all from me for now.