It seemed like a good idea at the time

The first time I opened Lucy’s door I was hit by the smell. Not a good smell, that awful musty smell you get when caravans are locked up for months on end. I thought cleaning it & opening all the windows would freshen it up. Nup. I soon realised a lot of the smell was coming from the cushions & mattresses. I quickly hoyed them all out the door & noticed as I did so, there was mould under the dining cushions. Yuck. We’d have to replace all the cushions. We measured up, took our measurements off to Clark Rubber & found out that foam rubber is priced similarly to printer ink!!!! To replace the 2 single mattresses & the 4 cushions in the dining area was going to cost the best part of $1000. Time to think of plan B which never takes me long. The dining lounges aren’t very big so I figured I could wash them. If it worked, great, if it didn’t I hadn’t lost anything.

I took the cover off, put the cushion in a bath full of water, threw in some liquid laundry detergent & jumped in & started walking up & down. It was just like the episode of I Love Lucy where Ethel & Lucy were treading grapes. Molly thought I was great for entertainment value so I kept going. I think she would loved to have jumped in & helped.

I left the cushion to soak & I turned it over every so often, with great difficulty as it weighed a ton. I replaced the water a few times & threw in some bleach to kill off any mould. Then the fun bit, getting water out of high density foam isn’t easy. I pushed & squeezed & folded the foam as much as possible in the bath, then we carried it out to the back verandah & see-sawed a heavy bench up & down on it. This did take out some of the water. My next idea was to put plastic on it & under it & run over it with the car. Not a bloody drop of water came out, but I’m sure if the neighbours were watching, they were entertained. So we’ve just put it in the sun & any breeze hoping it will dry out.

It seems to have worked so I attacked cushion #2. This time to get the water out we took the table out of my sewing room, covered the cushion with a drop sheet, laid the table on the foam, upside down & stood on it. I should have taken a pic. This worked really well & squished the foam down to about an inch thick. For once I was glad I’d put on weight, lol. With the weather warming up a bit, & the winds we have at the moment, I think this one will dry a lot quicker than the last.