Saturday

I trimmed the bird of paradise and weeded the beds. This plant grows like crazy and must be pruned frequently.

I want to put down some fresh mulch but I wanted to weed first. Also, I need to do some touch up painting, which I'll probably do tomorrow because the house is still drying from last night's rain.

Mostly, I just picked up leaves in the back bed.

I raked the side and front yards and trimmed dead branches along the property line.

I pulled grass and weeds from this bed.

It will look better after it recovers.

I got two full bins of debris.

 

Friday

 

I cleaned up the golf cart this morning.

It's been needing it for a while, but it's been too cold.

Looks good.

I had a leftover decorative switch from an earlier project so I decided to swap out the old light switch in the garage for this one. I'll get another one for the switch beside it which is the on/off switch for the garage door opener. I'll get one more for the garage side door switch. I think that will be our last old-style switch.

The old garage side door light

The new one

The new garage door opener switch beside the overhead garage light switch

I picked up some mulch while I was out to cover where the electricians did some digging.

We've got a stucco guy coming next week to modify the column platforms for our new lights.

Thursday

 

I rode to Clearwater Beach after lunch. It was sunny and 74 degrees. 

I shared the lawn at Pier 60 with a ferris wheel as I did my stretching exercises.

Lots of tourists enjoying the weather

The beaches were packed as far as you could see.

Definitely peak season

Intercostal waterway between the city and beach. This picture was taken from the Clearwater causeway tidal bridge near Pier 60.

New daylight adjusting timer. It's an astronomical timer, meaning that once set, it adjusts to the calendar. For example, if the timer is set to come on at dusk, the timer adjusts to the changing time of dusk throughout the year. Accordingly, it adjusts throughout the year as the time of dawn changes. The switch above also works as an on/off button for the other outlet on the exterior of the house where the transformer is plugged in. That way, we can use the outlet for the pressure washer, for example. The switch overrides the timer settings in other words.

My goal today is to watch YouTube videos and learn how to set it up. Currently, it's in the default dusk to dawn setting. I also have the instruction booklet if needed.

The electricians installed a new GFCI outlet for the golf cart. It's on the same line as the timer but operates independently.

They had to redo the pass through in the garage wall. He applied stucco repair around the opening. Once dry, we can paint it.

This is the new stainless steel transformer, and it's plugged in to a new GFCI weather resistant outlet on the outside of the garage, the same as the new outlet at the back of the house. The cover has an innovative hinge: the cover can be opened like a book or from bottom to top. I've got a little touch-up painting to do, but first I lightly scrubbed and rinsed the dirt from the walls. There's always a mess with improvements.

This is the new all brass bullet lamp positioned under the bathroom window to spread light along the front wall on the right of the entrance.

Close up

This lamp on the right of the entrance shines up at the pyramid, accenting the column and upper elements. The electricians had to tunnel under the sidewalk to get the new low-voltage line over to this side of the house.

This lamp on the left of the entrance shines up at the pyramid from the other side. It sits behind the low wall. They had to dig down and then drill through the wall to get the line positioned here. The electrician's goal was to accent the front without shining the light into the dining room window.

This rectangular lamp shines on the side of the garage wall in front of the dining room window. All of the fixtures have LED bulbs. Soon, they will be replaced with 4000k lamps to give a uniform color across the front of the house. Right now, this lamp is 2700k--much too yellow for our house color. The goal with this fixture was to replace the light from the old lamp pole. I think once we have the right light color, it will work, in conjunction with the bullet light on the pyramid. You can see the dirt on the wall that I scrubbed off after taking this picture.

Last, but not least, the electricians installed this whole-house surge suppressor on the electrical panel in the garage. This device will protect the house from electrical surges such as lightning strikes, storm interruptions, and power fluctuations. There was a similar device already on the panel, but it was ancient and it had no light to indicate whether it was working or not. Unfortunately, the only way to tell was to be hit by lightning or remove it and test it. On the new one, if it stops working, the light turns red. They said it was okay to keep the surge protectors on the sprinkler controller and our computer. You can never have too much protection, he said.

Night pictures after making some adjustments

I think my adjustments smoothed out the distribution of light. The column lights once installed will bring out even more of the details.

We like the way lights shoots up and down the wall in addition to outward.

We're in search of a stucco person to modify the light platform on the columns. 

Wednesday

 

The electricians came this morning to remove old fixtures and hang new ones. This is the old one with blue painter's tape draped around it.

The old one is gone. Now, we're going to get the stucco base elongated to accommodate the new fixture.

The side door of the garage fixture is gone.

The new one is hung. It's a shorter version of the entrance lights for the pillars.

This is the old garage light on the front of the house.

The new plate for the new fixture. I painted while the workers were at lunch.

This is the new fixture for the garage.

We'll add some more pictures when the sun goes down. It's the right height.

Looks good.

This GFCI outlet in the backyard was replaced. The old one didn't work.

This is the old lamp pole. It's being removed and will be replaced with a low-voltage flood light on the garage wall and an accent light on the entrance pyramid.

These two accent lights will be removed and replaced with low voltage lights, one on the house wall and one on the entrance pyramid.

We're waiting for the column lights to be installed. We have to have the base elongated first.

The bulbs in the accent lights on the right and left will be changed to 4000k so they will be whiter like the center light in the entranceway. The supply store was out today. The electrician will come back to hang the entrance lights and switch out the bulbs.