August 2016 Elizabeth North Family

Leveling the Bed As you know the queen bed in the middle bedroom upstairs slants down towards the window. The floor is not level at all! My son Travis helped me come up with a solution! We found an old level in the shed and with the help of a leveling app on Travis's phone, we figured out how much rise we needed for the foot legs. We removed the wheels to make it more stable. The left bed leg needed a 4x4 block of wood with a 5" rise and the other 4x4 needed a 3.75" rise. We bought a butterfly drill bit and Kurt drilled holes in the top of the wood block for the leg post to fit into. We may need to perfect our idea next time we are there since we realized if we would have attached furniture sliders on the bottom of the blocks of wood, the bed could more easily be pushed in and out for making the bed. Power Washing the Back and Front Porch My son, Trent, had the idea all on his own to bring our small power washer to the cabin. He told me it would probably do a really good job cleaning the wood on the back porch. He was right! Thank you, Trent!!! New Comforters in West Bedroom New Toaster Two breakfast items we took were bagels and frozen Eggo waffles. Both of these items did not fit into the slots of the toaster without getting stuck and burnt.(The old toaster was NOT discarded and is in the lower cupboard.) We hope you like the new toaster. It has a wide slots, plus a bagel AND frozen setting!

The main project that consumed our week was the mattress project. We successfully replaced 6 very old mattresses and couldn't be happier to have helped make this happen! There is an entire blog entry all about it in the Cabin Journal . I did a little bit of deep cleaning. Since I had my handheld vacuum cleaner, I vacuumed out all the window sills upstairs as well as the ceiling fan in west bedroom. I replaced the two light bulbs in downstairs twin bedroom with LED lights, as well as the lamp by side of full bed downstairs, and the upstairs hall light. (I figured out how to do it, Lissy.) Tiffany and I spent an afternoon in Kamas at the laundromat washing the comforters from both downstairs rooms and middle room upstairs. Somehow the scissors disappeared with all the unpackaging we were doing of platform frame boxes, pillows, and mattress covers. I replaced the scissors with a new pair from grocery store. I also bought a new trash can to replace the broken wicker trash basket in west room. I also bought new bathroom cleaning supplies as I couldn't see that there were any in the cabinets or under sink. We noticed a plastic clip is missing off bottom of the kitchen vacuum which can cause the roller to come out when vacuuming. We will send a new replacement clip when Jon and Shirley go up in another couple weeks. My grandson took a bath one night and had a little plastic hedgehog animal toy. When we took the plug out to drain the bathtub, the toy got sucked right down the drain! The drain plug gets stuck onto the strainer basket, so they both pulled out and we didn't notice. The next morning we went under the cabin and opened up the drains but it was nowhere to be seen. If Shane hadn't cleaned the trap out a couple weeks prior, we might have found it. Travis said the pipes were very clean! One last thing I did was to tidy up the middle bedroom closet. I put the highchair from the closet (which totally blocked access to the closet) out by the trunks since it is easier to get to and because the legs do not fit through the door of the closet to get it in and out at all! I put the vacuum cleaner in the closet. Trivia: Did you know that the old heavy vacuum cleaner with the cool retractable (broken) cord once belonged to Kurt and I? That was our vacuum when we first got married. (Or someone else had the same exact one as us and donated it to the cabin.) The drive doesn't work in it anymore and it is extremely hard to vacuum with. May I have permission to contribute a new vacuum cleaner to the cabin? I am going to keep checking KSL classifieds for a good deal on an Oreck. I love my Oreck. They are lightweight and the best vacuums ever for going under beds! Don't worry, I will get approval from the cabin reps first! Like my dad used to say, (or maybe all parents say it), "Leave it cleaner than you found it!"

DISH DRAINER – It is good to have new dishrack & rainboard. Two suggestions: The drain board needs to be the type made to go over our top mounted sink. And, at least for our family, it needs to be “large” (15 ½ x 19 – like the old one), and the rack a large size, too. For the 10-12 we had at each meal, the new rack was quite inadequate. We looked at every store we could think of & found none that was made for a top mounted sink drain board. Sue & I will look online. We are responsible for overloading & silverware holder got broken. Sorry! Kent measured for W/D at secondary fridge location. Stopped by Heber appliance & found 24” GE model will fit. (Better price elsewhere). Spec sheet pinned to wall above fridge. We will need to figure out how to remove the old fridge. It appears the walls were built around it.