Today was a busy day without a lot of focus. I found that I’d start something in the house (getting the new hot tub hooked up with Home Assistant), then I’d need something (an outdoor WiFi electrical switch) from the garage. While searching in the garage, I’d find some plumbing parts (brass thread adapters) that I knew I’d need for another project, so I’d relocate them to my plumbing parts bin, and on the way I’d see something unrelated (nibbler for cutting metal roofing material) that would remind me of another project (enclosure for my new electrical service panel) which then reminded me that I still need to get the networking equipment off of the old electrical supply so I can finally shut it down for good which would remind me that the propane water heater in the outdoor shower needs a new power supply line for its control circuitry which reminded me that I burned a lot of propane filling the hot tub yesterday and I need to check my propane supply as I also need to bend a lot of PVC pipe for the chicken run using a propane burner…
We also had some good friends visiting from Maui — people who I thought were unlikely to ever get to see our place but who were on island to visit family and made the long trek out here. We got to show off everything we’ve done, visit with dear friends, and meet someone new. We walked along the mauka road to show them the back of the property, and I encountered the hibiscus above. (We also had an equally gorgeous one on our back deck, but I failed to photograph it before it faded.)
Next, we re-arranged the house. The house is small, but the biggest room has been used as the bedroom since well before we bought the place. That doesn’t make as much sense for our uses, so we moved the bed out of the great room.
This is our new living room. The television — which we use but rarely and mostly for watching films — will be on a mount which will retract it up to the ceiling when not in use. The table under the windows is HA’s massage table. She’s a massage therapist par excellence but has been limited by lack of space since we moved.
The house was originally a three bedroom house (in less than 900 square feet!), but a wall has been taken out between two of the bedrooms and that space was used as a living room with my office in one corner. Now, the largest of the bedrooms is, again, being used as a bedroom. My office is in the middle-size bedroom and will be separated from our actual bedroom by curtains. The smallest bedroom is serving both as a closet and as HA’s office.
The tube leading under the covers isn’t a fart pipe — as my mother-in-law called it — but part of the BedJet that keeps my feet warm.
The television will go away and be mounted on the ceiling in the now-living room.
I think we’re going to like the new arrangement a lot. Luna seemed pretty nervous at all the changes, but she seems to be getting used to it. My next big indoor project is re-wiring what HA calls “mission control” — the collection of monitors and servers and printers and a scanner that runs all the telephone services and electrical load management here. It’s a mess, and desperately wants some attention. I was told that it can sometimes rain heavily for days at a time, so I kept putting off the re-organization for the promised rainy days. Instead, the weather has been beautiful and my desk has suffered.
—2p