Sunday

 

After John got back from jogging this morning, I rode my bike to world-famous Clearwater Beach.

It's about 9 miles, and it took me about 50 minutes.

They had three rows of canopies set up for tourists.

I rode a mile or so down the boardwalk.

What a beautiful beach!

Heading home from the beach to the causeway, looking east at downtown Clearwater over the sound.

Back at home, Toby gave his endorsement of the room arrangement.

Our new mayo substitute from Trader Joe's. It has zero cholesterol, zero fat of any kind. It has a strong garlic flavor, but when paired with mustard, it works really well as a sandwich condiment.

Today's house project was to spray paint the central vacuum outlets which have yellowed.

I measured the outlet and cut out a pattern on an old pizza box.

Then stuck it up around the outlet and painted.

After 5 coats, it looks pretty good.

Another one in the hall. Before I painted I used the hand-held vacuum to suck debris out of the tubes in the wall, an indication that maybe a central vacuum system isn't the best option for vacuuming. Great in theory, not in practice. It does put all the noise out in the garage, so it's quiet inside while you vacuum. However, you have to lug a long and heavy hose through the house, and it gets caught on the corners and acts like a saw on the corner bead of the wall or door frames.

Better.

Last one in the primary suite.

Pretty good.

Now they don't stick out. Perhaps one day, we'll remove the vacuum from the garage and seal all the tubes and remove the outlets from the wall and repair the wallboard, but for now, this is a simple and easy fix.

I'm wondering what sort of table might work best in the eat-in kitchen. This one is bar height (tall). It's only 24 inches wide and 47 inches long. The top is high-gloss white and the support is polished chrome.

Here's a customer picture. I don't know if this is the right shape for that space or not. Round tables are too wide. So this one is about as narrow as I could find.

Here's a picture of the space it would need to go in. Ignore all the clutter in the background. We would keep the metal counter height stools for the kitchen bar.

These two stools are adjustable in height and get really good reviews for comfort and looks. They come in white, gray, or black with polished chrome base.