Beautiful day for cycling, the venue for our Big Day, and another rose in the garden.

On this beautiful October Sunday, Andrew and I woke up early so we could go for a bike ride with our friend, Barb. We drove to Andrew's house (or, as we call it, "the vacation home"), which is right next to the ride's starting point. We rode the Rush 55 (one of the routes offered during our local cycling club's annual fund-raising cycling event). The Rush 55 is one of my favorite rides, for a couple of reasons. For one, it's only 55 miles (57, actually), so we can ride it and be home early enough to do other things. But, mostly I love this ride because it takes us through some of the most scenic rural areas within an easy bike ride, including Evinston and Micanopy, FL.

The weather was great today, starting out cool and overcast, and ending up breezy and sunny by ride's end. Andrew and I have never ridden through Micanopy without stopping for ice cream. The 3 of us didn't hesitate today, either.

The Rush 55 happens to go right by The Herlong Mansion located on Micanopy's main street, Cholokka Boulevard. And, since The Herlong Mansion is where we will be married in May 2009, we pointed it out to Barb, who gave it her approval. The roses were all in bloom, and the grounds looked impeccable, as always. It's a gorgeous house, isn't it?

Andrew and I toured the Mansion (which is now a bed & breakfast) in August, and here are photos of one of its many guest rooms and an especially nice vintage bathroom.

You wouldn't think someone could get excited about really old bathroom tile, but this room has original subway tile with a double line of pale green pencil trim that is crazed with age, and it's just beautiful!
Here's a view of the brick walkway leading to the front porch, as seen from the upstairs veranda:

Speaking of roses, I was able to find the Rose Lady at the Farmer's Market, and have now planted the newest addition to the rose garden: Marie van Houtte. She is already putting out several new pale yellow buds tinged with pink.

The blue tile blues.

The countertop tile samples arrived at last from California and- the horror!- they are much, much darker in color than expected, almost a faded-denim blue, and very different from the image shown on the dealer's website. Yikes. Disappointing! So, we are back to square one, looking for tile for the kitchen countertop and backsplash.

On a happier note, our new kitchen cabinets were ordered today, the range hood arrived via FedEx, and we just got a great deal on this gas convection range on Ebay, at about 35% less than our local appliance dealer's price:

Busy weekend, more kitchen remodel progress, and a new kitchen table.

Saturday we went to the local farmer's market to find a rose bush I wanted (Marie van Houtte, with pretty two-toned yellow/pink fragrant blooms), but the Rose Lady was not there! Next we went to the Native Plant Sale, a twice-yearly event where local nurserymen sell only plants that are native to Florida. The idea is to promote growing that which belongs here, and promote the avoidance of invasive exotics. We bought several plants, including two native blueberry bushes, a Jaguar agave, hearts-a-bursting (I killed the last one; I made an exception to my plant-growing philosophy on this one, and I'm giving it a second chance), blue-eyed grass (one of my all-time favorite plants), and a dwarf variety of St. John's wort. If we're lucky, we may have fresh blueberries on our cereal next summer...mmmmm! The Rose Lady was at the plant sale, too, but sans roses, since they are not native, so I'll be looking for her at the Farmer's Market for a Marie van Houtte next week.
After all the shopping, we visited the Festival at Thornebrook, a local outdoor art show where I had been hoping to find the Furniture Guy (Scott) who last year sold me a beautiful hand-crafted wooden bench that we use as a coffee table. It's made of solid cherry inlaid with tupelo, a lovely blond wood with very interesting deep charcoal-gray grain patterns. The bench is so nice, I wanted to ask Scott whether he would custom-make a new kitchen table for us, also of cherry and tupelo. We found Scott's stall among the many vendors, and he remembered that I had bought the cherry/tupelo bench. As it turned out, Scott had recently been commissioned by a customer to make a 30x30" card table, but the customer had never picked up the finished table, which happened to be made of cherry and tupelo! We arranged to meet him again today and purchased our gorgeous new bistro-size kitchen table, perfect for the limited dining space in our eat-in kitchen.

Isn't it gorgeous? Turns out that Scott has known Andrew's family for years and used to fish out of their marina...very cool, and he is a very talented guy!

We weeded the garden,

made homemade bean and vegetable soup, and went to Home Depot to price a replacement window for the kitchen. (The current window is too big, and will need to be replaced with a shorter window to make room for the sink and cabinets below it).
We decided to omit over-the-range cabinets from our cabinet layout and forego the standard under-cabinet microwave/range hood combo. Instead, we will install a wall-mounted chimney-type range hood, to break up the monotonous "wall of cabinets."

I found a suitable range hood on Ebay, cheap, so now that's on order, too. I'm still waiting to hear whether the kitchen floor tile that I ordered and paid for has been shipped from Texas. I was told they have it in stock.

Here's a photo of the new floor tile (Daltile,Cotto Antico, Aranciato) and the natural-finish red oak cabinet finish we have selected. The cabinet doors will be beadboard, with plain slab drawers. My photo doesn't really do either justice.

Here is a better image of the tile, installed, with gray grout. I LOVE this look!

I'm currently in a bidding war with an Alabama gas range dealer who has the range that I want, but not at the price I want. The gap is narrowing, and I'm hoping he will let it go at something close to my price.
Finally, we haven't yet received the blue countertop tile samples from the tile supplier in California, so we can't make a decision there, either. Time's getting short. The tear-out is scheduled to begin on Oct. 20th. Somehow, Dixie doesn't seem worried about it.