We spent the weekend trying to get our ducks, or coots in a row as the case may be here in our Florida canal.
We've measured, marked and staked our spot.
Once everything was exactly the way we wanted it, we added an extra foot to the width and an extra two feet to the depth. You can never have enough space for a table and chairs.
This is a very basic draft of our game plan. I've been working on the details and drawing up a more specific plan in order to figure out a way to turn this simple draft into...
this charming patio with a pergola. We can do this, right?
We selected several different pavers and stepping stones to isolate on our cart. We began our usual process of elimination by taking turns removing the ones we didn't like. We've settled on what we think will work for us and brought half of what is needed to see if we like it in our own backyard.
We still have an incredible amount of work ahead of us. But all in all, I'd say we definitely have our coots in a row now. Before construction begins, we are off to celebrate our Christmas with a romantic getaway. Mi Miguel and I wish all of our gentle readers a safe and happy holiday!
When we moved to Florida we decided to downsize. Well actually, are plans were to become minimalists. But we're still working on that one. Downsizing we could definitely do, even though we were sad to see our memories go, we sold most of our heavy beautiful furniture. We did keep a few of our unique pieces though. I kept this "one of a kind" potting bench.
It never fit quite right in any of our homes. But I've held onto it for about six years because I knew that one day it would serve a purpose. It's now on it's way to becoming a delightful dry bar sitting right by the foyer.
Mi Miguel and I both knew for sure we wanted to keep this charmer of a corner cabinet. We used it in our St. Louis area home.
And we used it again in our Indiana home. And decided to hang onto it because it's always an eye catcher.
I can't decide which corner to put it in or what dishes to keep in it, but it is in our Florida home.
I've had this set for years. And it matches the walls really nicely. But there again, we've had it for years.
But this set is new to me. If I use this set I can incorporate that beautiful chartreuse green that I so love.
I was given a huge set of the chartreuse green pattern from a friend here in Florida. The cabinet and melamine cups came with the dishes. It's from a Florida restaurant, but I have no idea which one.
While trying to decide what to do with the decor on the inside, I've been plotting and planning my layout for the pergola on the outside. We have a lot of work to do on the exterior of the house and the backyard as you can plainly see.
These
beautiful azaleas are growing along the back of the house. I've never
seen apricot ones until we moved here. I'm hoping to find a way to work
around this bush. Once we get the house painted I think the azaleas will
really pop against a contrasting background. If you enlarge the photo above you'll see that it looks like two different bushes have fused into one.
Correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't there both an azalea bush and a hibiscus bush intermingled here?
I have no idea what this is. I love that all the flowers are apricot. However, against the currently peach house, you don't notice the unique color so much. Is this a tulip? Does Florida have tulips?
We have a magnificent 5' fountain that was left with the house in the front yard. We absolutely plan on scrubbing this one down and get it working again.
But we can't decide if we should take the time to refurbish this 4' one and get it working as well. It's in pretty rough shape and we know nothing about fountains. What to do, what to do? Do we need to running fountains?
As you can see I've started pulling up some of the concrete edging. I'm really eager to get this back yard from looking like this to looking like....
this dream of mine. We have a lot of work to do before we reach this point. A balance of fun of work is required when renovating a home. It's that much work! Over the next few days we'll be going on a bike ride with some new friends and also checking out our letter J restaurant. If you missed our previous A-I restaurants just check out my Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/220701894778842/?ref=ts&fref=ts
Today while unpacking our home decor boxes, I noticed several stacks of cut planks from the ceiling. Of course my mind started thinking of ways that we could use these pieces. I discovered that if you flip them over they look like solid planks. Each piece is about 28" long and they are 5" wide. Why can't we stain them really dark, let them dry and then lightly whitewash them? Once that dries we can then do our master bedroom walk-in closet floor with them. It's like getting a free floor! When I presented the idea to Mi Miguel over the phone, he calmly said, "We need to build the walk-in closet first though."
Anyhow, I'm off to the back yard to finish clearing everything out of the way so we can build that pergola.
This will shock everyone. We have the tile all laid in the living room and dining room. Yes, you read that correctly. That's Mi Miguel putting in the last and final tile. It was a lot of work and I wouldn't recommend that anyone tackle that project if you're a tiling novice.
This is the view from the middle of the dining room and living room. This evening we'll be grouting. Come tomorrow I'll thoroughly clean the entire 500 and some odd square feet of it.
I removed the door and shelving from the coat closet. Living in Florida, I don't really see the purpose of having a space reserved for coats. Mi Miguel laid the same tile in the closet but staggered it rather than do the herring bone pattern. Much easier but you can see that the herring bone does so much more for the tile. A fresh coat of paint, a transitioning threshold and the closet will be transformed into a game nook with a shoe tray and a few hooks for lightweight jackets.
After grouting, Mi Miguel gets to take a break for several days. He certainly deserves it. I'm going to busy myself with painting baseboards and doing the touch up on the walls. After that, we can set up the rooms and finally put this favorite flea market find of mine in the dining room corner.
Once we get the two rooms set up, we're going to stop working on the inside and proceed to the outside. The weather is too beautiful to be cooped up in the house. Plus, Mi Miguel will never get me outside to help him build, paint and landscape in the heat come summertime. I really want a relaxing backyard like this one.
Through
advice from friends and neighbors that have been through what we're
going through, we know that we do need to take a break once in a while
and go have fun. Yesterday we took the morning off to go to our letter I restaurant. The photo above shows the entry doors to the restaurant. You can read about this on my Facebook Group: Florida Restaurants A-Z
Since we were in the area we drove to the resort hotel where we stayed over the Christmas holiday last year. It was then as tourists that we decided to become residents. We planned to buy a beautiful home on acreage. Little did we know that we would end up falling in love with a fixer upper on a sweet little canal.
Walking around the hotel lobby and the beach, I asked Mi Miguel if he thought it would be romantic to stay in the hotel this Christmas where it all started last Christmas. He immediately booked us a room with an ocean view.
Who knew that a curved strip of wood could wreak so much havoc. Mi Miguel had to go it alone with this chore. I just didn't have it in me to sit for hours on end and try to figure out how to do angle cuts on curvy wood so that it would fit an inside or outside corner.
If you've ever bought custom cut crown moulding you know that it's expensive and doesn't leave much margin for error if you want to keep your cost down that is.
The math of it all became mind blowing to me. So I sat out while Mi Miguel figured it out and placed it all. I just need to do some touch up paint over the caulked areas. And this little test of our marriage project is over.
With the crown moulding behind us and me feeling even more math illiterate, we've now moved onward with the tiling by invading the dining room. This living room/dining room area is huge. To us it feels like forty acres huge. If there were a master's degree for tiling Mi Miguel and I would've earned an honorary one by now. We could write an entire thesis just on choosing the right tile.
But while all of this has been quite an education and worthy of a mortar board and diploma, it has mostly been a true test of our marriage. We all need to exercise our faith, our intellect and our bodies. But we don't usually think about exercising our marriage. This is probably why.
Should you ever need to strengthen your marriage just choose any room in your house and then the two of you go tile it. But go into knowing that you have to stay together no matter how much work it is. And just like when we exercise our body, every muscle of our marriage is sore. We feel strengthened and much stronger but very sore. Yeah, that's what we've been through and that's what we look like afterwards.
This tiling project has definitely been a team effort. You don't know how much you are needed until you help your man spread thinset and space out ceramic planks. But even I needed a break from it all. So yesterday, I go out for the evening to have some intellectual girl talk with my fellow bookies.
The whole time I'm thinking Mi Miguel probably can't get a thing done without me there. The incredible guilt I felt for leaving him to work alone. All I kept thinking is that he needs me, I'm sure of it.
After a few hours of fireside bliss girl time, I come home, he has three whole rows of tiling done. He gets more done without me than he does with me.
Maybe I'm in denial about my mad tiling skills. Maybe I'm not the expert tiler that I think I am. Maybe it's back to class for me.
Hopefully my next post will be the big reveal of our living room and dining room.
I haven't forgotten the big reveal of our first guest bedroom. We've finished it but had to store things in there so we could do the LR/DR. Once the house is finished I plan to do a before and after of each room.
Now to get moving and try to drop five pounds in a week in order to look presentable in this new Christmas get-up I just bought with my early bird shopping coupon. It's okay to say Christmas, right? I get so confused over the holidays. Wait, is it still okay to say holidays?
I lost the warmth but I found the water. It's in a frozen form but it's still water. Or is it?
Colorado is beautiful. But after experiencing the below freezing temperatures, I think I'll stay in Florida. I like the warm water not the frozen kind.
We've been moving forward with the living room since we've been back from our trip. The crown moulding is going up. Doing a scarf joint is proving to be a challenge for Mi Miguel.
I bought this attractive slipcover to go over the sofa sleeper that we bought from the home owner. Looks simple enough to put over a sofa, don't you think?
I thought so too. But it proved to be nothing like the photo. Maybe if I press it then try to slip it over and tuck it tighter it just may look like the photo.
I'm hoping to have a comfortable, relaxing living room like this one. By the same token I don't want to get too relaxed and end up with...
a pig pen mess. An easy to clean room would be perfect. One where I can lift the slipcover right off the couch and wash it if need be.
For now it feels good to actually have a sofa and a comfy chair in the living. It's been baby steps to get to this point, but it's still one step closer to a living room. I'm off to go get my iron and google ways to make a slip cover more attractive.
