Back at our old house, Ben came up with the genius idea to install a central vac system.

I mean, why not?  We had a junky canister vacuum and an unfinished basement.  And it was one of the most practical, daily routine changing things we did.  The first time we toured the mountain house, we got excited the previous owner had already installed one.  Whew, that saved us time, money, and the hassle of buying an interim vacuum.  But did it?  No, the vacuum was too small for the size of the house.  Which meant the suction was lame, especially compared to the over sized vacuum Ben chose for our first house.  Of course we didn’t think to plug the vacuum in the port to check it before we bought the house.  Only after closing did we realize how lame it was and that we’d need to replace it.  To top it off, the vacuum only had low voltage wiring.  No motorized head for easy carpet cleaning.

At first, it wasn’t too bad.  Then we started living there and Jack flopped all over the rugs, matting dog hair in.  I wish I would have taken a picture of that, but trust me, it wasn’t pretty.  We knew we had to do something sooner than later.  Ben did his research and found a good deal on a vacuum that seemed to kick serious butt and could suck your socks off.  It’s called, the Killer Whale, but we’ll refer to it as Willy (you know, Free Willy).

Before Ben could install Willy, he had to run a new outlet because a regular outlet doesn’t work.  In the few weeks we’ve had Willy, he has gotten quite the workout.

It has so much more power than the old one.  By the way, we’re keeping the old vac to use if/when we build a shop at the edge of the driveway.  This vacuum is in the same place as the old one, the garage.

My opinion?  Willy, together with the rug attachment, cleans like the Moby Dickens.  Get it?  The vacuum nickname is killer whale and Moby Dick was a killer whale (in the literal sense).  And the vacuum cleans like the dickens.  Our rugs have never been cleaner since bringing them in the house.

Oh, and it’s not loud because the motorized parts are in the garage.  Yay for making my life a little easier.  No more dusting, just add a small brush and I can zoom over table tops and baseboard.

Because this post was word heavy, I decided to add a few photos I took of last night’s sunset.

A storm rolled in, showering the mountains in the distance.  Clouds covered the city greenery, but the sun gleamed against the dry fields at the edge of town.  We got a peek of a rainbow, too.

Yep, we’re still smitten with the mountain house views.  Seeing the weather changes from a distance is a nice reward for all the work we have to do here.