Round Lake Wrap-Up
I really love my kids, but sometimes they can work me to death. Almost.
For my final day here in Round Lake, I:
- Screwed three upper-level cabinets to the wall, the ceiling, and each other.
- Screwed three floor-level cabinets to the wall and each other.
- Built (out of four pre-finished pieces, two lengths of 1×2, some corner brackets and the requisite screws) and installed a dishwasher cabinet / enclosure.
I also went with Eve on a parts run to Lowes to *get* said corner brackets and a stick of drywall corner bead so they can extend their kitchen soffit to match their new upper-level cabinets.
And screwing those cabinets to the wall wasn’t a piece of cake, either. The cabinets are made of a hardwood and I was using three-inch drywall screws. Even with a screw gun and drilled pilot holes, holding the cabinet up while screwing it in made me sweat – especially the screws into the ceiling.
But I’m proud of what we accomplished while I was here. We took out all the old cabinets, tore out, replaced, primed and color-painted one wall of drywall, painted the remaining parts of the kitchen that hadn’t yet been updated to the new color, installed a completely new hardwood floor, built custom countertops for all the cabinets, assembled eight new cabinets (they had already put together, and temporarily installed, an additional seven on the other side of the kitchen), and installed seven of them. I don’t envy them for what remains to be done, but we did a heck of a lot of work in the last 10 days.
Then, of course, I had to gather all of *my* tools that had become intermingled with *their* tools, sort everything out, load the tools in the tote, load all the stuff in the truck, unload some of the stuff from the truck, reload stuff a different way…
I almost donated a 100-foot extension cord to them, because about two thirds of it had gotten buried under all the cartons that the cabinets came in, as well as the pallet it all came on and a bunch of other stuff. I *did* manage to dig it out, though.
I also discovered that not only does stuff grow on any horizontal surface in this house (in other words, things get placed anywhere and everywhere) but that it also grows on vertical surfaces: my motorcycle trailer had a ladder and some plywood leaning against it that I had to move before I could get it out of the garage.
Then there was the effort to load the Honda on the trailer. I got it up on the trailer just fine, and strapped down, and all buttoned up. Then I hooked the safety cables to the truck and looked for the electrical connector. Naturally, it was *under* the Honda’s front tire. So I had to unstrap the bike, back it up about 8 inches, hope it didn’t fall over, move the wiring, put the bike back in the cradle, resecure it, and recheck everything – again.
It wasn’t all blood, sweat and tears. I got my motorcycle ride with Jen and Laurie, we had dinner with Jen, Tim and Matt, and we also had dinner with Danielle – another of Char’s friends. We did forego the bicycle ride we had planned, but the kitchen project took precedence.
I told both Eve and Rick that, while I honestly and truly enjoyed working with them on their project, I’m ready to go back to being just a lazy, traveling vacationer.
Until I get to Texas.
The Peripatetic Traveler 
With all this practical experience in screwing things up, you should run for Congress.
No.