Condo bliss - Haint blue — Captain Father John

This first week back in Stuart has been dedicated to decorating our condo in advance of our guests arrival. This is a 1300 square foot condo. Someday the painting will end. The master bedroom and hallway are complete. The effort to strip (chip) the foil wallpaper off the master bathroom continues. It is so well adhered that we are tearing the wallboard. That will require spackling and priming with Bullseye 123.

We will attempt to prime over the foil wallpaper to avoid removing it. This will save a week of tedious effort. The bedroom set arrived along with the grandfather clock. Priscilla wanted a tall decorative piece In the main entrance. Delivery was scheduled for 10:30 am. At 1:00 pm we received a call advising the delivery truck had broken down. Our furniture was transferred to another truck and arrived at 2:30 pm.

We received a quote from Jim of Panorama Windows to replace the 50″ X 95″ window in the master bedroom. It has a louvered window that cannot open due to the defective installation of the hurricane shutters. The new window will be shatter proof and hurricane proof. The city of Stuart charges $350 for each building permit. Jim is a lifelong Stuart native having moved here with his family from Long Island in 1950 when he was 2 years old. He claims to have done extensive work throughout the Pierpoint condo complex. He comes highly recommended by the condo board so we assume he knows what he is doing. Jim is an avid fisherman and mentioned his fishing buddies are often not available to fish when he has time to go fishing. I told him that whatever day that was, I was available. We shall see.

I painted the ceiling in the lanai Haint blue. For those of you that read our looper blog when we were in Savannah you will remember that Haight blue is very popular in the south. The blue color looks like the sky and evil spirits will rise up through the lanai ceiling before they enter the condo. In our case they will rise up into the condo upstairs. The blue color is also alleged to confuse and repel insects. We shall see. So far I am unaware of any evil spirits entering our condo.

The next upgrade will be Plantation shutters in the kitchen and two bedroom windows.

We also need to replace the blinds in the living room for the lanai. I wonder if we can get remote control electric blinds like the ones we had in our hotel room in Las Vegas. That would be cool. Also on the “A” list is new patio furniture for the lanai. It is a smallish space 6 X 12 so we need to be creative.

To celebrate completing the paint job on the lanai Priscilla and I went sailing on the Indian River in Jensen Beach. We joined the US Sailing Center when we were here in October. We took out a 19′ Flying Scott. We have the choice of numerous sailboats to sail. We found out that the best situation is to see someone coming into the dock with the type of boat you want. They do not have to unrig it and you do not have to rig it. If a miracle happens someone else takes your boat when you return. Today we took a boat that was rigged but had to put her away. It was a beautiful warm and windy afternoon for sailing.

After sailing we headed to the pool for an hour swim before cocktailing on our freshly painted lanai.

So ends week one in Stuart.