[Begin (tongue-in-cheek) rant] Five weekends in a row! Yes, FIVE weekends in a row of either cooler or windier or rainier weather AND small craft advisories. We had hoped to do some snorkeling or kayaking this weekend. Instead we conducted NOMADS business, worked on taxes, did laundry and cleaned house. Whoopie-doo. [End rant]
On Friday we had to say “See you down the road” to Mark and Lisa and Dallas. Hated to see them go, but we really appreciated them staying an extra week to help move the project along. Then on Saturday we welcomed Tammy and Rodney in to Big Pine Key. We will be transitioning leadership of the team to them this week. We are looking forward to a great final week with a great team.
Lisa and Mark departing. We will really miss Dallas the golden doodle. 🙂
Today was a very busy day. We started the day with Lisa and Barb completing the drywall at Atlantis. They then joined Max, Bill, Mark and Reid down at Art’s house on Summerland Key where everyone was painting and Reid was working on a particularly challenging section of drywall. Anne and Anita were back at Dennis’s caulking and painting the trim that was installed yesterday. They also worked on cleanup, and cleanup of the trailer. After lunch Lisa and Mark joined them back at Dennis’s to get the trailer ready for Jim to move Saturday and install the towel bars, towel ring and toilet paper holder in the bathroom. Back at Art’s the team completed the second coat of paint on the ceiling, and installed the cleats in the floor for the installation of the peninsula cabinets. Dennis’s bathroom is complete. We will need to put another coat of paint on the window trim but most things are complete at his house. Great news for Dennis today is that the contractor is supposed to start the installation of his new windows Monday. Once that is done we will need to trim out the new windows. We are still waiting on the counter tops and exterior doors there. We have a hard working team that accomplished a lot this week. Very thankful for them.
Dennis and Lisa installing towel bars
Dennis’s bathroom finished
Bill made cleats to hold the freestanding cabinets to the floor
Reid worked on repairing this corner
Barb painting
Lisa painting
Mark painting
Some parts of the ceiling were not very easy to reach
Art’s ceiling painted
Tonight we tried a new to us restaurant on Marathon, Burdine’s. Lisa and Mark went here last week and chose this for their last evening with the team. It was very good and everyone seemed to have a great time. Yes, we had key lime pie again, this time fried in a flour tortilla with cinnamon. Very good!
With Jim, the construction coordinator, on vacation this week the task of purchasing and delivering supplies fell on us – the team leaders. We met with Jim before he left and he asked us to go to Home Depot and purchase the cabinets for Art’s house. This is a house we have not worked on before but other volunteer groups have. In fact, a multi-generational group from Minnesota worked on it last week. They put down the vinyl plank flooring and did some painting. Our assignment is to pick up where they left off and finish the house. We had planned to go get the cabinets earlier in the week but stayed busy at Dennis’s house and the Atlantis house. But we digress. So this morning Bill (and his larger pickup truck) and Max headed out to Key West to get cabinets. We, and Jim, had checked the online inventory and found out one of the cabinets, a 9” base, was not in stock and had to be special ordered. The kitchen would not go together correctly without that cabinet.
We met with the kitchen design specialist to start gathering all the other cabinets. She looked at the list and told us the 9” base is not a stock item. Then she went on to tell us that someone else had ordered one and then just a few minutes before had told her they no longer needed it. It was still sitting beside her desk. God works mysteriously, and sometimes with kitchen cabinets.
A kitchen load of cabinets. It is also a full-sized pickup truck load. It’s a good thing Bill and Barb listened to God and came to this project – with the only full sized truck on the team now.
The God-thing cabinet
We were able to get the cabinets installed today. Without that one little God-thing cabinet we would have been delayed no telling how long.
Art’s kitchen before
Art’s kitchen after Bill, Max, Reid and Mark installed the cabinets.
Elsewhere – Anne and Anita worked at Dennis’s cleaning the bathroom and painting trim. Lisa and Barb did some drywall touchup at Atlantis then went to Dennis’s to case and trim a window and the bathroom door. And Reid and Mark redid some of the flooring and installed transitions and baseboard at Art’s.
Barb presented our devotion this morning using Romans 3:21-26. She then read a story about a woman who ran into a stack of items in a store and knocked them over and broke them. When she offered to pay for the broken items, the store manager told her to not worry about it, that the store had insurance for that. Barb reminded us that Jesus provided us grace as our “insurance.”
For the most part today’s work was like yesterday’s. Lisa and Barb spent most of the day finishing drywall at the Atlantis house and the rest of the team worked on plumbing, painting and trim at Dennis’s. His bathroom is almost finished with the painting finished and even the mirror installed over the vanity. This after noon Bill and Max took a ride about 10 minutes south to measure for cabinets and develop a work plan Art’s house on Summerland Key.
RVing With a Purpose 