As in all good stories, our story begins with: Once upon a time there was a flower shop.
This flower shop was called Hampson’s Floral and it was for sale. A nice couple, named Karen and Fred, who dreamed of owning their own business bought the flower shop and renamed it Kar-Fre Flowers.
This flower shop had a basement, but the flower shop was also sadly in the flood plain so that basement was constantly filled with several feet of water and could never be used. 
Fred standing next to the outside entrance to Kar-Fre Flowers’ basement. The constant water was a problem so Fred and Karen decided the basement needed to be filled in with gravel.
Kris standing outside the basement opening waiting for the first truck load of gravel.
Fred and the first load of gravel. He would go onto fill the basement by hand with many, many, many trips with a wheelbarrow.
You can just make out the wheelbarrow in the doorway being filled with the next load of gravel. After the basement was filled Karen and Fred added onto Kar-Fre. Where the front sales counter is currently is where the back wall of the flower shop used to be. The addition added a workroom, office, telephone center, bathroom, and new cooler.
The cooler near the end of installation.
The Kar-Fre folks rely on that cooler every day. The front part to house our arrangements and loose fresh flowers for sale. The back part for our deliveries and pre-ordered fresh flowers.
There were always buckets of water being spilled in the cooler and not long ago a section of the floor by the cooler door started to feel spongy when walked on.
Our friend and incredible carpenter Terry Vonderheide and his assistant Steve came to see how they could fix the spongy spot. The first place they checked was the old basement. It seems that our filled basement was still very damp and our cooler was contributing to the problem. Terry and Steve used our crawl space access under the flower cleaning counter.
Steve coming out of the crawl space.
Terry and Steve cut out the spongy part of the floor in front of the cooler after replacing rotting joists underneath.
The next step was to fix the cooler floor. All of fresh flowers had to be put i other coolers and displayed in our cool shop. The shelves and wall separating the two spaces needed to be taken out next. Here I am in the cooler looking at the work.
This morning Terry and Steve took the floor out of the cooler. Once they removed the linoleum they found we had a very wet underlayment as well as mold that had been hiding.
The floor is out, rotten joists are being replaced, vents are being added, and a drain to be certain the water will no longer be an issue. Soon a brand new floor and paint on the walls.
Our saggy, baggy cooler will be a happy, healthy cooler soon!
Leave a Reply