Living Our Dream

Ybor City

Bushnell, FL - Events of Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2012

Ybor (pronounced EE-bor) City was established in 1885 by Vicente Martinez Ybor as a location for his cigar factory. Ybor City was originally an independent town, but it was annexed by Tampa in 1887.

We decided to take a drive to Tampa to check out Ybor City with Pat and Mike. The entire neighborhood has been designated as a National Historic Landmark District, so our intention was to first tour the Ybor City Museum and learn a little about the history, then walk around the area to see some of the historic buildings.

Even though Ybor City is located in an urban area, there is plenty of free, on-street parking. Most of it has a two-hour limit, but there seem to be a lot of spaces available, so you can just move your car to a different location if you need more time. There are also several city lots where you can park longer, but there is a fee for those.

The museum is part of an urban state park and is located in the old bakery that was operated by the Ferlita family. It is supposed to open at 9:00 AM; but when we arrived around 11:00, it was closed. The museum store in a separate building next door was open, and they said they were trying to find out why no one had shown up yet to open the museum itself. We later found out the ranger had car trouble.

While we waited to see if the museum was going to open, we decided to walk down the street toward Centro Ybor. Centro Ybor an entertainment complex with a movie theater, shops and restaurants that is adjacent to Centro Español de Tampa, which was a Latin club that was a cultural, recreational and medical center for early Spanish immigrants.

Centro Ybor

Since the museum wasn't open, we were at a little bit of a disadvantage because we were counting on picking up some of the history of Ybor city at the museum before we walked the streets. Fortunately, there is a Chamber of Commerce Information Center at Centro Ybor where there were a few displays on the history of the area and about cigar making. The lady at the information center also told us about some of the things we should see at that end of town like the Ybor cigar factory. While we were at the information center, we also found out the ranger had gotten to the museum and that it was finally open.

Ybor City Chamber of Commerce Information Center

Vicente Martinez Ybor, who was born in Spain, traveled to the Spanish colony of Cuba in 1832 where he opened a factory that produced world-renowned cigars. Because of his support for Cuban independence, Ybor was forced to flee Cuba for the United States in 1869 where he opened a new cigar factory in Key West.

Ybor had difficulty keeping workers at his factory in Key West because Cuba was so close, the workers could easily return home if they decided to. Also, Ybor also had difficulty with frequent strikes in Key west. For those reasons, Ybor bought 40 acres of palmetto and scrub pine flats in 1885 near the then small town of Tampa on the west coast of Florida.

Statue of Vicente Martinez Ybor

The deep-water port at Tampa was suitable for ships bringing in tobacco from Cuba, and he could obtain enough land to enable him build a company town that included inexpensive housing for his workers so they would not be as likely to return to Cuba. By the time Ybor arrived in Tampa, Henry Plant had also built railroads along Florida's west coast that would enable Ybor to ship his finished cigars north.

Ybor also encouraged others to open cigar factories in his town. This greatly enhanced the vitality of Ybor City because more employers brought in more workers and more workers made better business for everybody. Even though there were other cigar factories, Ybor made sure his was the largest. In fact, the Ybor factory was the largest in the world and covered an entire city block. Since Ybor's factory was only about two blocks from the information center, we headed to the factory before going back to the museum.

Entrance to Ybor Cigar Factory

The cigar industry peaked in 1929. The market crash and the Great Depression that followed reduced the demand for cigars and weakened the cigar industry. The rise in popularity of cigarettes in the 1920s and 1930s didn't help either. As young men headed off to war in the 1940s, cigar making and Ybor City declined even further.

Ybor's factory remained active until after WWII. Then after sitting vacant for a few decades, it was used as gallery space for artists, a festival marketplace, office space and a restaurant. In 2010, the Church of Scientology bought the entire complex, and they currently offer tours to the public.

Paul, Margery, Pat and Mike in front of a tobacco press in the Ybor Cigar Factory

After touring the factory, we walked up East 7th Avenue, which is the main thoroughfare through Ybor City, where we enjoyed seeing the early 1900s architecture. We were hoping for some unique shops, but there are mostly restaurants, night clubs and a few tattoo parlors.

East 7th Avenue in Ybor City

The original residents of Ybor City were primarily from Spain, either directly or by way of Cuba. Soon, however, immigrants from Europe saw opportunities and began moving to Ybor City. Germans were involved in the stone lithography process used to print cigar boxes, a few examples of which are shown at the top of this post. Jews came from eastern Europe and Germany and Sicilians came to learn cigar making or to open other businesses. The bakery where the the State Park's Ybor City Museum is located was owned by Sicilians. 

Ybor City Museum located in the old Ferlita Bakery

Francisco Ferlita built the first bakery on the site in 1896. The original wooden building was destroyed by fire in 1922 and was replaced by the current brick structure. The bakery, which produced 35,000 loaves of Cuban bread a week at its peak, operated until 1973.

Some of the historic buildings in Ybor city were lost to urban renewal in the 1960s and 70s. The remaining residents wanted to preserve their heritage, so they requested a museum. Through a bureaucratic blunder, the fire station where the museum was originally to be located was bulldozed on the very day a celebration was being held in a nearby restaurant to commemorate the designation of the fire station as the new museum. The city fathers substituted the Ferlita Bakery building across the street from the destroyed fire house as the location for the museum.

As we mentioned earlier, one of Ybor's problems at his cigar factory back in Key West was his workers frequently decided to leave and go back to Cuba. In Tampa, Ybor turned to the idea of home ownership in order to give his workers more of a reason to stay. Ybor was able to provide a small house called a casita that the workers could purchase at a reasonable price. Most of these wooden homes were lost to urban renewal, but the state park rescued several casitas and relocated them adjacent to the museum.

We got back to the Ybor City Museum just as the ranger was beginning a tour of one of the casitas.

Cigar factory worker's casita

The casitas were modest shotgun houses one room wide by four rooms deep. Families were large with numerous children and probably grandparents living under the same roof. Small back yards had gardens, chickens and sometimes a pig or even a cow.

Parlor of the casita

After the very interesting guided tour of the casita, we walked through the garden that is between the casitas and the museum.

Ybor City Museum garden

A quick game of checkers in the garden

The museum has an excellent video on the history of Ybor City. After watching that, we checked out some of the displays.

Margery learning about the history of Ybor City

Cigar workers sat at row upon row of benches hand rolling cigars all day. Many factories had up to 1,000 workers, but the Ybor factory had as many as 4,000 at its peak. There was no air conditioning back in those days, and work went on year round. In order to help reduce boredom and increase morale, the factories had readers who sat on a raised platform and read books and the newspaper to the workers.

Cigar workers hand rolling cigars

After our visit to Ybor City, we drove a few miles to the Bahama Breeze in Tampa. Bahama Breeze is one of our favorite chain restaurants because the Caribbean atmosphere and island menu make us feel like we are on vacation.

Bahama Breeze in Tampa

Everyone except Paul had almond-crusted talapia that was served with cinnamon sweet potatoes and a vegetable. Paul had grilled chicken with cilantro crema that was served with mashed potatoes and roasted corn. We shared an appetizer of firecracker shrimp and a chocolate island dessert.

Lunch at Bahama Breeze

It was a great day. We were happy to learn some interesting Florida history, and we enjoyed sharing the day and a delicious meal with Pat and Mike.

Tarpon Springs 2012

Bushnell, FL - Events of Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012

You will notice a new feature in this blog post - captions for the photographs. The ability to add photo captions was just introduced by Typepad, the host of our blog. It is still in the beta stage (meaning it may still have some bugs and inconsistencies), but we decided to try it out. We hope you like the new captions.

Tarpon Springs is one of our favorite places in Florida. It is located along the Anclote River a few miles upstream from the Gulf of Mexico, and it is only about an hour away from where we spend the winter in Bushnell. We always make a point of going to Tarpon Springs at least once while we're in Bushnell, because we love the quaint atmosphere, the interesting shops and the delicious Greek food.

This year, we went to Tarpon Springs with our friends from Pittsburgh, Pat and Mike. This is their first year of full-timing and their first winter in Florida, and they have never been to Tarpon Springs.

Tarpon Springs was originally a location for winter homes back in the 1870s, but when the sponges began to be harvested from the Gulf of Mexico in the 1880s, sponge divers from Greece were recruited to help bring in the bounty. The industry thrived into the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. The waterfront has several historic boats with sponges festooned around the decks just like it would have been back in the day.

Tarpon Springs waterfront

In 1947, a red algae bloom all but wiped out the sponge beds in the area, and many of the sponge boats switched to fishing or shrimping. Today, commercial fishing boats dock across the river.

Commercial fishing boat in Tarpon Springs

The sponge beds have recovered, and there is still some commercial sponge diving going on, but man-made sponges and things like paper towels and micro fiber cloths have largely replaced natural sponges. Tourism is now the primary industry for Tarpon Springs. The quaint shops and Greek restaurants of Tarpon Springs draw visitors from all over.

Many of the shops specialize in sponges. We stopped to look at a few.

Margery checks out sponges

The morning started out cloudy, but it cleared up by the time we got to Tarpon Springs. Since it turned out to be such a nice, sunny morning, there were quite a few shoppers on Docecanese Blvd., which is the main street along the waterfront.

A few of the shops along Dodecanese Blvd.

We usually walk to the Sponge Factory at the eastern end of Dodecanese Blvd.

The Sponge Factory

The Sponge Factory has a good movie that gives a history of the sponge industry in Florida. This year, they have updated the movie and added some more recent footage.

The Sponge Factory also has nice displays of Greek-themed gift items that includes olive oil lotions and soaps and also nautical and marine items such as starfish and seashells.

Margery checks out a sea fan inside the Sponge Factory

Since we planned to be gone most of the day, we took Freeway with us. He got to tour all over Tarpon Springs in his carrier mounted on the shopping cart we bought about a month ago at the RV show. Paul and Freeway took a little break to watch the world go by from a bench outside the Sponge Factory.

Paul and Freeway take a break

The Sponge Exchange is a collection of shops and restaurants located toward the western end of Dodecanese Blvd. where the sponge clearinghouse used to be. We stopped there after leaving the Sponge Factory.

Mike and Pat at the Sponge Exchange

By the time we walked to the Sponge Factory and back and then visited the Sponge Exchange, it was almost 1:00 PM. We were all hungry, so we headed down Athens St. to Costa's where we like to have lunch. Tarpon Springs is a pet-friendly community, and we were able to take Freeway into the restaurant in his canvas carrier. He was a good boy and just napped most of the time.

Costa's Restaurant

Like most of the restaurants in Tarpon Springs, Costa's specializes in Greek cuisine. We ordered a flaming cheese appetizer called saganaki. A slab of cheese is placed on a little iron skillet (like the kind they use for fajitas in Mexican restaurants) and put under the broiler. When the cheese is all bubbly, they bring it to your table, douse it with brandy, set it on fire and serve it to shouts of "Opa!" Opa is a Greek exclamation that seems to mean about the same thing as "hooray" or "yeehaw." The cheese is melted inside and has a toasted, crunchy crust outside. Yum!

Flaming saganaki appetizer - opa!

We all ordered gyros (pronounced YEE-ros) and Greek salad. We also enjoyed baklava for dessert. As usual, the food was excellent as was the company.

Enjoying our gyros

After lunch, we let Freeway stretch his legs along the sidewalk near the restaurant before heading back to Bushnell.

Freeway takes a walk

Freeway is really doing well on walks as long as you keep moving briskly. As soon as you slow down, he thinks it's OK for him to stop altogether. Once he stops, he wants to pick up in his mouth anything that is lying around - cigarette butts, stones, sticks, chewing gum, leaves, you name it. As we mentioned in our last post, we are looking forward to having him learn the "leave it" command in our next puppy class.

Back at Blueberry Hill, we took a few days to relax. Look for our next post to see what we found to do next.

Good Boy, Freeway!

Bushnell, FL - Events of Saturday, Feb. 4 to Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2012

Now that we have finished the refrigerator project and have some time to relax, we figured it was time for an update on Freeway, our new Cavachon puppy. A Cavachon is a hybrid between a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and a Bichon Frise.

We picked Freeway up on January 7th from Royal Puppy Palace in Odessa, FL when he was 8 weeks old. When we first got Freeway, he weighed just about 3¼ pounds. He is now 3 months old, and he has more than doubled his weight. His final weight will probably be 12 to 15 pounds, so he still has more growing to do.

We enrolled Freeway in a puppy class at PetSmart near The Villages. We still remembered some of the training we had done with Molly, our previous dog, although some of that trainer's ideas were a bit strange to say the least...don't motivate with food and a once-a-year bath is adequate...but we happened to meet one of the trainers when we had Freeway at the vet (Banfield, which is located inside PetSmart). The trainer, whose name is Terry, seemed to be very caring and very knowledgeable, so we decided a refresher course with Terry would be a good idea.

Dog training classes are really somewhat of a misnomer. Unless you pay big bucks for specialized, personalized dog training, most group classes are really intended to train the owners. Since the owners spend 24/7 with their pets, they are really the best ones to do the training in the first place; but knowledge is required to do that successfully.

Freeway's class is small. There is a total of only three puppies which makes for lots of individual attention and lots of opportunities to ask questions. The first class was mostly a "get acquainted" session where Terry outlined the basics of the training that would take place. We started working on getting the puppies to sit. Terry also allowed the pups to play together to get to know each other. That's Trixie on the left. she is a toy Fox Terrier. Abbie is on the lap of her owner in the red shirt. We're not sure of her breed, but we think she is a Shih Tzu.

Our homework consisted of continuing to work on the sit command. Even though sit is one of the most basic commands, it is not as easy as you might think to teach it to an active puppy who wants to explore everything in sight. Terry said for puppies this young, sitting for 5 seconds at a time is considered to be a success.

Freeway's potty training is coming right along. He can easily go all night, and he can frequently go several hours at a time. He even sometimes asks to go out; but not always, and he hasn't gotten the hang of ringing the bell to ask to go out either. Therefore, we need to be diligent and watch for the signs he needs to go. His successes always result in enthusiastic praise of "good boy, Freeway!"

We also sometimes watch Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, and we have a couple of his books. One of the things he emphasises is the importance of exercise for dogs. He usually begins his training sessions with walking the dog to burn off excess energy making the dog more receptive to the training. The benefits of exercise were really brought into focus following our first puppy class. During the class, the pups romped and played with each other for about 45 minutes. Freeway was so tuckered out after class, he had little energy left over to look for ways to get into trouble. He usually gets a little hyperactive after dinner, but the evening after the first class, all he wanted to do was nap.

According to Cesar Millan, walking is not only is good exercise for the dog and the humans, it is a natural pack activity. Wild dogs and wolves travel together under the alpha dog's leadership to look for food, and walking helps solidify the humans' role as pack leaders.

Because of the importance of exercise for dogs, we were happy the primary lesson for the second class was walking on a leash. We had been working with Freeway to try to get him used to a collar and leash, so he did fairly well in class. The dog's natural tendency is to pull back and resist the leash, so the important thing we learned was how to encourage him to keep walking by praising him and by stooping down to encourage him when he lagged behind. The instructor also said a little peanut butter on the end of a spoon also would help, but Freeway seems to be doing well without the peanut butter.

After walking the dogs around the PetSmart store, we had a little time for the puppies to play. Terry is great, and you can tell she really loves dogs. She gets right down on the floor with them to join in the play.

We are looking forward to the third class. It will cover the "leave it" command. We have been using that for several weeks already, but we have had only limited success.

Earlier, we mentioned how much Freeway has grown. His weight has more than doubled, and his size has also increased correspondingly. Since we see him every day, we don't notice his size increasing that much, but it was really demonstrated to us the other day when the temperatures took a dive into the low 30s and mid 20s for a couple of nights, and we got out the coat we bought Freeway about a month ago. It had been fairly warm, so we haven't had to use the coat we bought him for the past few weeks. The photo below shows how the coat fit when we tried it on in the store...

...and the next photo shows how it fits now. The coat only goes about half way down Freeway's back, and it looks more like a vest. The Velcro strap under his chest is barely long enough to get fastened.

As another comparison, look at the next photo of Freeway and his size compared to that of his toy the day we picked him up at 8 weeks of age...

...and contrast that to his size now at 3 months of age compared to the same toy.

Another example of his growth is this photo at 8 weeks on the steps of the motor home. We were thrilled he could make it up the first step.

The next photo of Freeway on the steps is at 3 months of age. He can now bound up and down all the steps. We had to work really hard to get him to sit still long enough for a photo.

We'll end this post with Valentine's Day. Since our daughter Lora was a young girl, Paul has given her a pink rose each Valentine's Day. It is a tradition he has continued even though she is now an adult and is married. Sending her flowers now that we are on the road has been a challenge because there aren't any florists near their home, and Paul had a lot of difficulty getting anyone to make the delivery. This year, J. Michael graciously offered to pick up Lora's rose for Paul at a florist near where he works. J. Michael dropped it off in Lora's car after lunch so she would find it after she was done teaching that day.

Margery has always been fond of cut flowers. Paul didn't send her flowers often, but when he did (usually on Valentine's Day), she was always thrilled. One solution to sending flowers while we are on the road is Pro Flowers. They are an online florist that sends flowers by UPS. In the early afternoon, Paul made up an excuse to go out so he could stop by the campground mail room on his way back to see if the flowers had arrived. Sure enough, they were there. Pro Flowers does a nice job of packaging the flowers. They are carefully wrapped to prevent damage, and the stems are in wet Oasis floral foam. Margery was delighted.

We didn't go out to dinner for Valentine's Day. We had plans for the following day to do some sightseeing that included eating out, and we didn't want to cheat on our diet two days in a row. Speaking of our diet, we are going well. Paul is nearing his goal with a weight loss of over 25 pounds, and Margery has lost about 14 pounds.

We did have a special dessert on Valentine's day. We picked up some delicious, no-sugar, double strawberry ice cream at Walmart. We're happy to report the freezer of the new Samsung kept the ice cream hard as a rock. Paul had difficulty scooping it out with a regular spoon, so we'll be looking for a sturdy ice cream scoop in the near future.

As we mentioned, we have plans to do some sightseeing. Stay tuned.

Motor Home Project: Install a New Residential Refrigerator

 Part 4 - In Goes the New

Bushnell, FL - Events of Friday, Feb. 3 to Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012

In our last post, Paul had finished cutting all the maple lumber for the new face frame for our refrigerator cabinet. After test fitting the parts, Paul began the assembly. The face frames of most RV cabinets are assembled with pocket screws. With this technique, holes are drilled at an angle in the back of one piece of wood to accept screws that fasten to the adjoining piece of wood. This joint is not as strong as some cabinet joints; but it is strong enough, and it is easy to do (especially with the dedicated pocket screw equipment the RV manufacturers use).

Since Paul doesn't have access to fancy, dedicated pocket screw machines, he bought a Kreg Jig Mini at Lowe's that is designed to be used with a hand drill. There are also more elaborate versions of pocket screw jigs available that simplify the setup and clamping to the workpiece; but at $20, this basic version is the least expensive. Since this is a tool Paul is not likely to use much in the future and there weren't that many joints to make, Paul was willing to take the extra time to set up the basic version of the jig for each joint to save a little money.

The jig is plastic so it will not mar the wood, and it has a metal insert to guide the drill bit. The jig is firmly clamped to the workpiece at the proper distance back from the edge according to the thickness of the wood being joined, then the pocket hole is drilled with the special drill bit provided in the kit. The position of the stop collar on the drill bit is also determined by the thickness of the wood.

Paul was impressed by the professional-looking results.

After assembly of the face frame, there was another test fitting. In spite of the fact the joints fastened together only with screws and have no glue, the joints stayed tight while Paul maneuvered the rather large, awkward frame into the motor home. Pocket screw joints are typically assembled without glue, but glue could be used along with the screws for maximum strength. However, Paul chose not to use glue in case modifications to the frame were required now or at a later date.

After Paul was sure the new frame fit properly, he sanded it and applied three coats of Minwax Wipe-On Poly finish.

With the new face frame for the refrigerator cabinet complete, Paul removed the false floor that he had temporarily installed so he could put in the modified support for the new drawer that is going under the false floor. This step had to wait for the new frame because the sides of the support attach to the frame.

Throughout the process there were a number of components that had to be installed in order for other parts to be fit, then the first components had to be removed in order to work on something else. Sometimes, the same components had to be installed and removed several times.

Paul devised a way to attach the face frame to the cabinet after the new fridge was set into place by using screwing blocks along the inside edges of the frame. Installing the frame after setting the new fridge into place would prevent any possible damage to the frame when lifting the tall, heavy refrigerator in the narrow hallway. Therefore, the face frame had to be removed again. Then Paul re-installed the false floor for what was to be the final time.

There were a few more details to tend to such as reducing the height of the water line and installing an in-line water filter for the ice maker.

Paul used a Shark Bite ball valve to connect to the existing PEX water pipe. The valve he bought has a Shark Bite connector on the inlet to connect to the existing PEX tubing and ½" female pipe thread on the outlet to connect a threaded adapter for ¼" tubing for the ice maker filter. Shark Bite is a brand name of push-on plumbing fittings. The same fitting will work copper, PVC and PEX tubing (or any combination thereof). The fittings are a little expensive, but they make plumbing a breeze. Just push them on and you're done. There is no soldering, no threads to tighten, no glue, or no crimping. And there were no leaks on the first try!

Then it was finally time to shut down the new Samsung and move it into position in the cabinet opening. We unloaded the food from the Samsung and put it into our own and into several borrowed coolers. After Paul removed the doors and the freezer drawer, Gary and Leroy came over to help with the lifting. Surprisingly, the Samsung with the doors removed seemed a good bit lighter than the old Norcold without its doors.

The next photo shows the Samsung in place. Notice the temporary support under the center of the false floor in front. This was to hold the false floor at the proper level until Paul could get the face frame into place. The frame has a piece of angle iron running across the front to support the floor.

After the new refrigerator was in place, Paul installed the maple frame on the cabinet. Then he re-installed the refrigerator doors. This was a little tricky because with the top of the fridge almost all the way up to the ceiling, it was impossible to get a screwdriver in to install the top screws. Paul tilted the top of the fridge forward while Margery steadied it so he could reach the screws.

We then plugged the fridge back in, started it up and loaded the food back in. In the following few days, Paul hooked up the ice maker, bolted the refrigerator to the floor and made some spacers for inside the cabinet to reduce any tendency of the refrigerator to want to tip as we are making a turn while driving.

With the new refrigerator securely fastened down and operational, Paul went to work finishing the new drawer underneath. During this entire project, Paul missed his table saw so much, he built a make-shift table saw by drilling some small holes in the base plate of his 7¼" circular saw and using some flat-head screws to mount the saw upside down with the blade sticking up through a piece of ½" plywood. He set the plywood on the saw horses he bought and clamped a straight piece of 1 x 4 to the plywood to use for a fence to guide the work piece. It doesn't have near the precision of a good quality table saw (or even an inexpensive table saw for that matter), and the setup for each cut was a bit tedious, but the cuts were more accurate and more repeatable than they would have been holding the circular saw by hand.

The home made table saw was invaluable for making the pieces for the drawer because for the drawer to fit together properly and to operate smoothly, the cuts had to be fairly accurate. The next photo shows Paul in action with his home made table saw getting ready to make a dado cut in one of the drawer side pieces where the drawer bottom will fit. That was something he couldn't even attempt to do with a hand-held saw.

In addition to finishing the drawer, Paul re-installed the furnace vent below the fridge and installed the plastic trim piece at the bottom of the fridge. The next photo shows the completed job.

The installation was a lot of work, but we are very pleased with our new residential refrigerator. One of the best things is the Samsung makes ice much faster than we can use it. We haven't tried ice cream yet, but the frozen food is hard as a rock. Another good thing about the Samsung is it only weighs about 20 pounds more than our old Norcold. Of course, the Samsung will hold a lot more food, so we'll have to be careful not to overload the fridge when we're on the move. Even when the Samsung is relatively full, everything is easy to find. Margery LOVES the deep vegetable fresheners since we always have plenty greens on hand for salads.

With the big job of installing the new refrigerator done, we're looking forward to some relaxation and recreation. We still have to devise a way to hold the refrigerator doors and freezer drawer closed while we're driving; but we have an idea for that, and it can be done later at a more leisurely pace. Enough work for now.

Motor Home Project: Install a Residential Refrigerator

Part 3 - Making Modifications

Bushnell, FL - Events of Sunday, Jan. 29 to Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012

There were a lot of details to tend to before Paul could install the new Samsung residential refrigerator. The first thing he tackled after removing the Norcold was to run a new electric line from the inverter.

We only have two 6-volt house batteries, so we won't be able to run the refrigerator for very long on the inverter, but that isn't a big concern since we don't boondock anymore. However, with the alternator of the motor home charging the house batteries, we're hoping to be able to run the refrigerator while we're driving. If it turns out we can't, it's not that big a deal because we usually only travel less than 4 hours a day. We'll just leave the fridge off because it won't warm up very much in that amount of time. If we have a longer drive, we can always run the generator for a while to make sure the fridge stays cool. Even if we end up not running the fridge while we're driving, Paul still wanted to run the wire from the inverter now while he had easy access to the area behind the fridge because there is also the possibility of adding a second pair of batteries sometime in the future if we decide we want to do that.

There is a receptacle connected to the inverter below the dash. This was a very convenient location to connect a wire to run to the refrigerator area because Paul found a small opening in the firewall right behind that outlet that was sealed by foam. He tapped into the inverter outlet, ran the wire out the opening and under the floor of the motor home along side several other wires. He then found a place where a furnace duct ran up through the floor under the kitchen sink and pushed the wire up along side the furnace duct. Once the wire was under the sink, it was fairly easy to run it behind the cabinet to the refrigerator area.

After he got the wire in position, Paul climbed back under the motor home to zip-tie it into place so it wouldn't sag or rub on anything.

The next job Paul took on was to close off the old refrigerator vents. The back of Norcold needed to be open to the outside air because of the cooling requirements for the coils and because of the fact is has the capability of running on LP gas. The inside face of Norcold was sealed to the cabinetry with weatherstripping to prevent hot or cold outside air from infiltrating into the RV.

Residential refrigerators have cooling fans that draw room air over their coils for cooling and don't require outside ventilation. Leaving the old vents open would have allowed outside air into the motor home since the Samsung would have air space around it and would not be sealed to the cabinetry, so Paul closed the vents off by constructing a box from foam insulation board and foil tape. He attached the box to the inside of the access cover.

The next photo is a view of the cover in place from the inside. Paul later added weatherstripping to cover the small gap around the perimeter of the cover. This arrangement will allow easy access to the plugs and water connection behind the refrigerator from the outside. Also visible to the right in the next photo are the new inverter/shore power electrical outlet (bottom) and the relocated outlet that is for shore power only.

Paul covered the inside opening of the roof vent with another piece of foam board.

Just to be absolutely sure no rain could blow in under the vent cover up on the roof and leak inside, he fashioned a cap out of aluminum flashing to put right over outside of the vent opening. The photo below shows the roof vent with the cover removed.

And the next photo shows the aluminum cap. The cover went back on over the cap.

While we're on the subject of closing up holes, Paul noticed when he was removing the LP gas line that the opening in the floor that the line passed through had not been completely sealed up at the factory. There were several air gaps in the foam sealant down to the storage compartments below. Paul bought a can of spray foam insulation to closed off those gaps. He also used the foam to seal the opening beside the furnace duct and the hole in the firewall where he had run the new electric line from the inverter.

With most of the secondary work done. it was time to determine the exact location for the false floor that the Samsung would sit on. The location is critical because not only did the new refrigerator have to fit properly in the space above the floor, we wanted to maximize the height of the storage drawer below the refrigerator. After many measurements, a lot of calculations and numerous sketches, Paul put in the supports for the new floor.

The old floor was made from treated plywood to resist rot from possible water leaks either from the water line to the ice maker or from an overflowing condensate pan. Paul liked the idea of using treated plywood, so he bought a new piece because the old one was covered with unsightly black adhesive and sealant. The old one was also a little warped. Paul cut the plywood to size and temporarily screwed it into place.

Once the location for the floor was established, Paul could get to work on the new face frame for the refrigerator cabinet. We picked up some maple lumber a few weeks ago at Hardwood Lumber & Millwork down in Lakeland, FL. That was the day we had the brake problem, and the owner of the lumber store even stayed a few minutes late so we could get back to pick up our lumber after getting our brakes repaired.

Hardwood Lumber & Millwork has a fairly large warehouse full of cabinet-grade hardwoods in various thicknesses. They also make custom millwork. There aren't many sources for hardwood lumber in central Florida, and if you need some, Hardwood Lumber & Millwork is a good place to go.

Since picnic tables aren't provided at Blueberry Hill, Paul needed something for a work table so he purchased a pair of inexpensive, lightweight saw horses and used the piece of plywood he bought for the false floor as a table top. The photo below shows Paul setting up to make a cut...

...and actually making the cut.

This is the type of project that causes Paul to really miss his workshop, especially his table saw. He bought a new, carbide-tipped blade with finer teeth for his 7¼" circular saw. The new blade helped make smoother cuts, but doing finish cabinet work with a hand-held 7¼" circular saw still requires a lot of extra sanding and other hand work.

After all the pieces of maple for the face frame were cut, Paul took them inside for a test fit. After some adjustments, the parts were ready for assembly. We'll cover the assembly of the face frame and the installation of the new refrigerator in the next post.