August 30, 2019
Dear Everyone:
My General Home Improvement Project is one small step closer to
completion.
Last month I had a dealer come to my place and give me an estimate on
replacing all of the tacky vertical blinds with some really nice
shutters. This week, the new
shutters arrived.
I was a little concerned about the timing on the new windows and new
shutters. I knew that all
the vertical blinds had to be out of the way for the installation of the
new windows. In fact,
“Chester”, the salesman for the windows, offered to come himself and
take down the blinds if it hadn’t been done by the time the windows were
ready.
Last week, the scheduler for the shutters called to tell me that the
shutters were ready and when would be a good time to install them?
We settled on this last Monday “between 1:30 and 3:30”.
She also told me that the installation would only take “a couple
of hours”.
I spent some time on Sunday getting ready for the installation.
That meant moving things away from the windows where it was
practical to do so. Some
things could be moved very quickly and put back just as quickly, such as
a small plastic table that sits in the master bedroom under the window.
I use it each morning to unpack the equipment that I use for my physical
therapy exercises. I also
use it as a folding table when I have laundry fresh from the dryer to
fold and put away in various drawers.
Then there’s the second bedroom, also known as The Really BIG Closet.
It contains everything that just doesn’t fit anywhere else,
including many, many bins of yarn and filing boxes of household records.
I realized that at least one towering shelving unit, situated in front
of a wall next to the window, would have to be moved away from the
window. That meant removing
all of the contents of the shelves and finding places to stack
everything on the floor somewhere.
On Monday “Wiley”, the same person who had come to measure all the
windows, showed up a full 15 minutes early.
He immediately began unloading his truck with quite a few shutter
panels, all cocooned in a kind of plastic wrap known as “shrink wrap”.
That’s because if you pull on it as you wrap it around something,
it stretches a bit. When you
let go of it, the wrap “shrinks” in size and snugly holds whatever until
you unwrap it. They used to
use it at the warehouse where I worked to contain shipments of boxes.
“Wiley” happily spread out some tarps and turned my living room into a
staging area. In no time he
and his trusty wireless screwdriver were mounting the prefabricated
frames in various window openings.
The patio doors took somewhat longer as he first had to mount the new
frame to hold the sliding panels.
The dealer and I had agreed that it was best to get panels that
can slide back and forth past each other, even when the louvers are
open. This means a deeper
frame; and that took longer to assemble and position properly.
All of this might have been easier for “Wiley” if he’d brought a helper
with him; but apparently he prefers to work alone.
In any case, by about 5:00 he was finished and I had beautiful
new shutters on all the windows except the kitchen.
When we were measuring the windows in the first place, the dealer and I
realized that the combination of the arching faucet in the kitchen sink
and the large light fixture directly above it made shutters out of the
question. There just wasn’t
enough room for them.
Further evaluation determined that most of the blinds that they offered
wouldn’t do either. This is
mostly because the new windows to be installed would take up too much
room in the window frame.
So we decided that I would just get some café curtains to cover the
lower part of the window and make do with that.
In the meantime, that shelving unit is back on the wall next to the
newly-shuttered window. And
all that stuff on the floor needs to go back onto the shelves.
For three weeks and then the new windows are scheduled to be
installed. Which means
moving the shelving unit away again.
Or I could just leave all those boxes and bins lying around in stacks on
the floor for the next month.
Of course that means moving them every time I need something on
the other side of this stack or that.
Like the kitchen window, it’s all a Work In Progress…
Love, as always,
Pete
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