2WannaBRetireesinPanama: DIY PROJECT ON A RAINY DAY AT LAKE ANNA

Labor Day weekend became a bit laborious for Ray and I while at the lake house. But then again, it was a cloudy morning and rain was expected (from Hurricane Isaac, but the weathermen were remaining mum about it all) on and off for the weekend. So it only made sense that if three out of four lake house owners were up for a home improvement project, well, we should just go for it and do it. The other home owner was entertaining her boyfriend and his children who were to arrive sometime that morning, so there wasn’t any way for her to commit. And we all understood. We knew going into the project of laying down a “peel and stick” tile floor on the screened-in porch that there would be three of us doing the job. At Lowe’s Home Improvement Store, we had a $100 gift card. That paid for a new umbrella that was on sale (we went with the red stripe one instead of the boring solid green), chemicals to kill weeds in the yard, paint samples, bleach for the fountain (we usually get at Dollar Store but since it was there…), some goof off for spilled paint and perhaps a small part of the linoleum squares we bought for the porch. It was great to have this gift card. We have held onto it for three years or so when a cousin of one of the homeowners (the very same one with the boyfriend) spent a vacation week at our lake house and gave us the card as a thank you gift.

I called us “3 Broke Girls and a Guy” while tiling, because we have to come up with frugal ways to make the house look nice. We don’t want to go overboard with it since it is a lake house that gets lived in and used by four people and three or four dogs. And this is when we don’t have company. I have also submitted pictures of the yard here at the lake house to the DIY show “Yard Crashers”. Maybe they will come and redo the backyard for us. We could be on tv and get the yard “prettied up”.

The other thing I realized is that the homeowner that had this flooring idea just re-did her bathroom vanity here at the lake house when it was a rainy weekend. Perhaps, since rainy season is for six months in Panama, I should recruit her to visit often. Then Ray and I can get many home improvement projects done quicker!