I'm always on the lookout for free or next to free stuff to complete the remodel that I am reluctantly doing on a second abode that we own. I
troll carefully search craigslist for a good refrigerator, a stove and washer dryer for the kitchen every day. I refuse to wait until the last minute because I know it takes time to find the right appliances at the right price.
I also try to find anything I can at Restore that I can reuse in the house. I recently found a small bathroom window and I have already purchased some kitchen lights. But I haven't found any insulation and I need some more for the bathroom.
The insulation in the bathroom is R-11. Not enough for two outside corner walls. I was reading up on insulation and 1" of styrofoam equals R-5. So if I could find 1" styrofoam sheets I could just add them between the studs on top of the current fiberglass and upgrade to about R-16. Good idea !!??
I found some on craigslist for $4 a sheet, 1" thick,about 30"x80".But another listing was for $1 for an entire pallet of styrofoam sheets. Yes, $1 for the whole pallet. There were about 60 sheets on the pallet and they were smaller than the $4 sheets but still very usable. But...they were 60 miles away. Pffft, we travel 52 miles, one way, 3 times a week to work on the house. Piece of cake, or piece of styrofoam cake.
After deciding to purchase a pallet to test and see if it was a solution I called and scheduled a pick up for Thursday. No rain, bearable humidity and an easy interstate drive. One pallet would fit in the back of the truck and I had tiedowns. The person I talked to said the pallets were wrapped. I assumed that meant wrapped in plastic and didn't take a tarp. Bad idea!!
So Sweetiepie and I took off for the pick up. I don't know if you know anyone who has dementia but routine and repetition are what keeps them happy. Lately Sweetiepie wants to listen to his music in the truck when we are traveling back and forth to the other house, aka "the country estate". His current favorite is Roy Orbison. Now, I do like Roy Boy, as he calls him, but 2.5 times the tape each way is an overload of Roy for me. He has a cassette player in the truck (1995 Toyota) and a single tape that I taped for him from a cd.But if it keeps him happy, then it is worth it.
The styrofoam was on a wooden pallet and it had ONE black strip of strapping around the entire lot. Of course for use in a warehouse you only needed to keep it all on the pallet. Not enough tie down for I-85. So the two guys that got the pallet from the warehouse tied the pallet down with my straps for me and I tipped them $5 and told them to have a cold one on me, they deserved one for being out in the heat to tie down my styrofoam. And off we went. Me, SweetiePie and Roy.
I only got about 2 blocks away before the top two pieces broke at the strap and flew away. I immediately pulled over, assessed the situation and decided that rope would be the answer. Luckily, :), I was at a Restore store and went in to purchase rope. Wouldn't you know it, no rope in the entire place. I purchased a sheet for $1.50 and thought I would rip it up and use it for tie downs. After about 30 minutes of tieing and pulling and getting everything just so, we took off.
Again we went about 2 blocks and more styrofoam broke and the sheet started coming off. Grrrrrr what to do? So I pulled into a parking lot of a laundromat and pondered what to do. The base of the pallet was on the truck bed. If I could get the pallet on its side and have the pallet break the force of the wind I could keep it from breaking and flying free. Easier said than done. A single person with a pallet of styrofoam and trying to turn it on its side. And of course I had on white pants. It was a site to behold. A very kind gentleman that was hanging out at the laundromat helped me get down from the truck and helped me with the tie downs. Bless his heart!
I got the pallet on its side but the styrofoam looked like a row of dominoes with a black strap around it. But...I knew the wind would not catch the styrofoam so I proceeded to tie down the heck out of that pallet. I'm sure cars behind me were expecting it to tumble down any minute. So of course they wanted to be really close to the tailgate so they could SEE the styrofoam really close up.
In the end I opted not to take the interstate and took the back roads home. It was a nice drive since most of the way the speed limit was 45 and traffic wasn't too bad. I did pull over twice to let traffic pass when there were over a dozen cars behind me. I took my camera to take pics of everything but didn't take any. I was busy.
We left home at 11am and we got home at 7pm. I was about to scream, pull my hair out and I'm pretty sure my blood pressure was off the charts. We had to listen to Roy both ways and since it took so long to get home it was about 10 repeats of Roy. "Only the Lonely, Working for the Man, Pretty Woman".
