Yesterday the weather was wonderful, sunny, warm, a light breeze, couldn’t ask for better.
Attila finished the transplanting, it makes the front of the house look more finished, prettier.
I spent my day trying to get the smell of mildew out of the backing on the naugahyde cushion bottoms. These are the original 1977 cushions, foam and fabric. On the inside of the naugahyde there is a date stamp, March 16 1977. These cushions have seen a lot of wear, and spent a lot of time in a damp environment. I tried various things, including bleach, to remove the smell, but it was persistent, it wouldn’t budge. The cushions were left with the backing opened to the air and sunshine, all that can be done has been done to them. The mildew itself is dead, and the spores are gone, so it is safe enough. The cushions have just a whiff of mildew about them, we will live with that until we can afford new cushions, which won’t be any time soon, if ever.
We made a shopping foray to the building centre yesterday and bought three 2″ vents with bug screens. These will be installed on the vertical fronts of the three benches in the trailer, to provide ventilation, which will theoretically prevent moisture from building up inside the benches, and deter any future development of mould or mildew. I measured and marked where I wanted the vents, and Attila installed them today.
In theory, we have the dampness problems in Iris resolved, with the new roof vent, the cleaning, and the bench vents.
The walls need one more good scrubbing, then it is time to load our gear into Iris. My day was spent with a brush, a bucket of soapy water, and a cloth. I scrubbed the walls and ceiling, and got most of it done and rinsed. Scrubbing a ceiling is pretty hard work for me, as I have degenerating disks in my neck and accommodating that triples the amount of time it takes to do the scrubbing. There is a patch of ceiling by the door that still needs scrubbing, but that is for another day.
When the walls were dry, I moved on to curtains. Iris was built in 1977, she is 39 years old, and all her parts are original, down to the cushions and the curtains. I washed the curtains because they smelled musty. When the washing cycle was done, they still smelled musty, so I washed them again. Upon hanging them on the line to dry I discovered that two panels had disintegrated, and the rest were shedding fibres at an alarming rate. These curtains have seen better days.
The upshot was that I sorted through all the fabrics in the linen closet and found nine passably similar tea towels that would have to fill in as curtains until we have new cushions made for the trailer (which may be never). I ran to Walmart and picked up some cafe curtain clips, came home and ironed the tea towels, then equipped the towels with curtain clips. The new “curtains” are light, bright, and cheerful, if a bit mismatched and haphazard. As soon as the walls dried I installed the new curtains. Now Iris is ready for the cushions to be brought in from the back porch.
Fortunately we have everything we need to outfit Iris, as we had two homes, and saved what could be used in a trailer when we downsized to Mist Cottage. The value of the contents will be close to nothing, as most of our gear could be picked up at the dump, we require clean and functional only. In fact, a lot of what we have was garnered from various dumps where they display usable discarded items free for pickup. Lets face it, in Muskoka what seasonal people throw out is up market from anything we could afford to buy new. Rich people throw away nice things.
The weather is supposed to turn cooler tonight, and we are to get much needed rain. I am relieved to have completed the projects in Iris so that her cushions can go back in and won’t be sitting on the porch when the rain arrives. I was finished just in time, as I placed the last cushion in place, the clouds were rolling in.
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Worldly Distractions
Weather
14°C
Date: 8:00 AM EDT Thursday 12 May 2016
Condition: Mostly Cloudy
Pressure: 102.0 kPa
Tendency: rising
Visibility: 24 km
Temperature: 13.8°C
Dewpoint: 3.6°C
Humidity: 50%
Wind: SE 5 km/h
24°C
Date: 7:00 PM EDT Thursday 12 May 2016
Condition: Mostly Cloudy
Pressure: 101.2 kPa
Tendency: falling
Visibility: 24 km
Temperature: 23.5°C
Dewpoint: 7.4°C
Humidity: 35%
Wind: NE 3 km/h
Quote
“As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life – so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.”
M. Cartmill
Maggie, when I came back to this entry this morning, I read the your quote. Thanks for brightening my Friday!
I found it delightful too Wendy!