This is what the upstairs bathroom now looks like. Until today, it was my storage room. It has hardy backer board on the floor, as this will be tiled using the same tiles as downstairs. I probably won’t be finishing it this time, as I need to put a toilet, sink and shower in, and run the pipes through the wall to the technical area, which will be challenging. The reason I started, is that this room still had all kind of gaps to outside, making multiple entrances for Paper Wasps. I took out around 50 nests, some of which can be seen below

Although I’m not here to code, it can’t be helped that I have to do a little bug fixing sometimes. So I’ve set up a little offline upstairs, with 3 displays and a printer.

Which also came in handy to print my car insurance. Drove the truck to Canyon lake today to fill it up. It still drives well and driving a truck does make you feel more like you “own the road” then when driving a Toyota Yaris.

Although it looked great for a few months, after that, the Big Bend Wall paper vinyl started to come off, due to high temperature variations. I had put it back last time I was here, but not well enough. Arnoud did a better job early this year, but the damage was already done; the vinyl had shrunk and it didn’t look great anymore.

Lois and Kirsten (Bull Creative) were sweet enough to reprint the wallpaper on a high tac material, which I brought with me this trip. The old wallpaper was pulled off and the new wallpaper is now on. It looks best at night, as during the day, the light reflects on the shiny wallpaper and creates a hot spot.

I messed up a bit with the wallpaper; to the right of the support beam, I accidentally swapped tile 5 and 6 ☺️ To cover it up, I added the vertical cedar strip, that hides those two don’t match on the edges.

When I get tired of this picture, I will put a matte new wallpaper in, as that works better, not reflecting light from the Window on the left.

According to April, my Hill Country Premier Lodging contact, Ozuye will probably be popular for people attending weddings in the area. As I don’t have any tall closets that would allow hanging up a dress or a suit, I was advised to get a clothes rack. As you know by now, I’m kinda handy with excess cedar, so I made this one from cedar and the extension rod I did not need for the curtains.

This is the last wall that still needed a stain coating. From the previous year, the cedar had turned grey completely, but with a fresh coat of stain, all is good again.

The stairs leading up to the deck have also been stained now. It’s beautiful weather today; I took my run along the old mail route, and enjoyed the sun.

Until today, the ceiling the hallway was some pieces of cardboard. But now it’s all drywalled and painted, so it has a more finished look. A second layer of paint will be put soon.

(Ahead warning; this post will bore the pants off non techies. For the non techies: It works now, so the answer is Trådfri.)

I’ve been adding more and more IKEA trådfri smart lighting gadgets, but also have had frequent issues; trådfri or not trådfri was often the question. At first, I blamed the gateway and thought it had died on me. The flickering lights would indicate no internet connection, yet all my other devices were connected sharing the same WiFi. Resetting Router or Gateway did sometimes help, but not always and in the end not at all anymore. So I googled it, and found hints that the IKEA gateway does not like all routers. Mine in particular, is an LTE/3G router, and one of the features is that it resets itself daily. So daily, the Ikea gateway would lose internet connection. Ikea suggests you assign a permanent IP address to the gateway, but my LTE router has no such option. To counter the IKEA gateway losing connection and not regaining after the router was back up, I added a timer switch, that would switch off the Ikea gateway every night for 15 minutes, and then power it back up again. That worked for a while. But as I arrived this time, I could not get the gateway to connect at all; it simply would reset itself after trying to connect. So more drastic measures were required; I bought a second router (also giving me the advantage of being able to use both 2.4 and 5GHz and connect more devices using Ethernet) and disabled the LTE Router’s WiFi. The new router hooks up to the LTE router with a UTP cable, and the new router does NAT from the 192.168.0.X to the 10.0.0.X range. My Ikea Tradfri gateway now connects to the new router, that acts as a DHCP server for the gateway (and all other devices in the home using either WiFi or ethernet.)

Ikea and the new router get along well so far; I’ve had no issues for the last 4 days. (other than Siri not always understanding me, but maybe we should blame my accent for that).
Two days ago, during a thunderstorm, we lost power for 15 minutes, but as power came back on, so did the gateway. So now, most things works with voice control, or iOS App or physical remotes in Ozuye Lodge. I can unlock the door with my Applewatch or by  Phone, and invite users with access from a certain day/time to another certain day/time. Yelling “Hey Siri, open the door” from outside won’t work; only on approved personal devices, Siri can be used to unlock the door. Remember the three beer bottles that make the lights over the bar? They are Pecan Porter, Devil’s Backbone and Blood&Honey. Siri now understands commands like “Hey Siri, bar lights 50%” but you can also single them out by name; “Hey Siri, Blood and Honey 5%” dims only the Blood & Honey light to 5%. So next time someone  at the bar has had too much to drink, you can just switch off their light. I will try add instructions to the smart mirror, so everyone that visits can learn which commands are possible.

Oh, and I managed to get all remotes and dimmers operational again. Ikea just doesn’t always deliver fresh batteries so I had to replace 3 that were pretty new.

Anyone who reads is, is likely welcome. But now this confirmed by a doormat, with a horse theme, which seems fitting considering the Subdivision is called Stallion Springs, and the street Appaloosa drive.

I thought about putting it outside, but changed my mind as a thunderstorm soaked the doormat. That would make the deck underneath rot.

My brother Karel gave me a set of special lightbulbs for my birthday; they are 99 LED lights, that flicker in a vertical pattern, making it look like there is an actual fire in it. So I mounted a fixture and put one in. As a picture would not do to justice, here’s a tiny video

They are good for making dark corners into cosy corners.

“Ik ruik niet alleen sterk” (“I don’t just smell strong”) is what I might say in Dutch, after singlehandedly getting both a washer and dryer off the truck, up the hill, up the stairs, and into the technical room.
Originally I had planned to make the technical room two feet less wide, but I’m glad I decided to make it wider, making the bathroom a little smaller. If I had not done that, the washer and dryer would have had to be placed in the bathroom, which does not look nice.

They are not hooked up yet, I need to get the right outlet for the dryer, some flexible pipe, and some plumbing stuff. And yes, the door still closes 🙂