Lately, I have been dreaming of putting things away.
I wake up from dreams of searching for something in drawers or the (one) closet, or of constantly putting stuff away. Small space living adjustment, I guess.
Our small space living learning curve continues into 2014!
Last weekend we found black mold growing under our matress. The plywood frame and half the top layer of our latex matress was spotted black and very damp.
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| Measuring Hypervent in our living room/kitchen |
Quite immediately we needed to learn the best way to treat the matress and plywood in hopes of saving both and then purchase some Hypervent at Fisheries Marine. Hypervent is a plastic Swiss cheese product about 2” thick with an anti-fungal material on one side. It is sandwiched between the plywood and matress and provides a layer of air for circulation. Expensive stuff at $10 a foot!
After reasarching mold abation and calling our mattress store, we decided upon hydrogen peroxide followed by vinegar, sprayed on everything moldy. We then placed our heater and fan 3 feet away for 8 hours until very dry. We had to leave as Shay was having a reaction to the mold, so we vacated for the rest of the day.
Last weekend after picking up the Hypervent, we again tore the bed apart, cleaned and set it all to dry before installing the Hypervent.
Since the bedding and foam take up half the living room, leaving one chair to sit in, we set the portable air cleaner on high and left for the afternoon. On our return we put everything together, nice and dry with airflow underneath now!
We’ll check it next weekend and see how the matress is doing. I hope we don’t have to cut out the backing material to save the latex mattress.
We keep on kicking ourselves, as we should have known better and taken care of this before it became a problem.
The good news is that our storage unit is clean and fairly organized now. In our forced time away form home, we took half the stuff out of the storage unit to access a couple pieces of furniture that Shay wants to sell which was of course, at the back of the unit.
We reorganized quite a bit, so now we have access to files, sailing gear (wishful thinking that!), and tools.
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| Micronesian Nautical Chart |
One of the other forced days out we visited the Burke Museum and found this nautical chart made long ago in Micronesia. It's called a stick chart and it's made from reed or sticks and shells or stones. They were used for navigation. The reeds can depict currents, and the shells islands. This really blows my mind. What sailors they must have been!
As far as sailboat shopping goes, it’s quite depressing. The two boat we were considering seem to be slipping away. Shay is in an indecisive mood these days. Since I have been dealing with a lot of knee and body pain I haven’t really been full of energy and so have been fairly apathetic myself. All in due time, I guess.
I have the beatles song running thru my head, Turn!, Turn!, Turn!.
A time to be cold and a time to rain; a time to sail, a time to dream of sailing in the sun:
A time to be unsure and a time to be confident; and hopefully the time to buy a sailboat will soon come!
Meanwhile we continue with mold patrol.