I believe I mentioned that Honey and I, after years of looking, finally purchased a place in Florida. WOO to the HOO-tie HOO!!!!! We closed the end of March and Honey hired a neighbor man (that we had never met) to go in on a regular schedule to have a look see and flush toilets and such. The Hired Man was a very useful engine, he took some pictures of the homestead, installed a dead bolt, and made a few keys so we could have one up here to ease Honey’s mind. It is a little odd that a fellow we had never met had more access to the place than we did. There can always be an unwanted thought skipping through your brain that you have given access to a shyster and he is hosting wild parties or renting the place out! It was all good and Glen did a fine job 🙂
Honey found out there was a layoff at work in July and said HEY, did I want to go to Florida and do a little work and get the new place a little settled for when we head down there sometime this coming winter? I said sure! We flew into the Fort Myers airport, picked up our rental car, stocked up a few groceries at our friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart, punched in the visitor code at the front gate and Presto, we were in like Flynn.
It was just as we remembered, and we loved it. That’s a good feeling. Honey had some things to take care of that had been uncovered on the home inspection, nothing major. My goal was to paint the spare bedroom and laundry room. The green was far more glowing than this picture presents. This was from the listing and they did an exceptional job of toning it down.
The rest of the house is decorated very nicely, so this room was an oddity to me. I don’t get the color, the ginormous flower, the dingleballs on the hand painted lamps. The quilt has bathing suits on it and I had a great idea to just flip it over! The other side was flip flops. That’s not going to work either.
Capri P told me about a color that she was using in her home called Softer Tan by Sherwin Williams. I thought it could be a trial run for my big painting project in The Mitten. The whole time I painted I wasn’t sure if I liked it because the Kryptonite glow from the existing paint was throwing off my groove! See?? It’s weird!!
I LOVED it once it was completed and the lime residue was removed!! Well, except for that quilt.
So much freaking calmer.
Onto the laundry room, goodbye pineapples. Honey ended up having to rent a wallpaper steamer from the Home Depot to get it off. It was a HOT, MESSY job in a very tight space. It looked loads better after a coat of Softer Tan as well. Unfortunately, I forgot to take an after picture and I am sorry for you and me both.
It was our habit to rise, have coffee and tea made in our newly purchased coffeepot and kettle, do the tasks that needed attending to, head out to eat an early dinner and then shop at many stores looking for the things we needed to make our new home comfortable. I joked with Honey that all the shopping we brought home went in cupboards and closets, not much to show for all of our efforts! You could see this little piece we purchased at Homegoods.
I was having many hankerings to buy things up here in Michigan, but Honey said we would just get stuff down there. When I was in Virginia I did get a cute salt nightlight that I thought I could put in the laundry room, so that we would have a soft, calming glow greet us when we returned home in the evenings. Well, there was no plug except the ones being used by the washer and dryer. So much for that. Our next idea panned out better. This little cabinet has a plug behind it and we may or may not have bought a little lamp that we can turn on when we leave. I can’t remember, isn’t that awful?!
I started collecting the little tchotchkes that were sitting around on all the surfaces, and sticking them on this shelf. I am a fan of functionality and don’t have a ton of use for collectibles. Not everything up here will go, but it was a growing collection!
I call this Cousin It. It’s a metal plant stand and it is not awful. It may end up out on the lanai with a real plant in it. For now we stuck it in the lovely Softer Tan spare bedroom. Those tall green breakables will most likely be donated.
There are 4 of these sparkling beauties in the hallway. Coming soon to your neighborhood Goodwill.
I call this Lady Buttcrack. It’s right inside the front door. For now.
This is what it did Every.Single.Evening. I had no idea they had a rainy season. Like seriously POURED and stormed.
We went to one of our favorite places and staged a picture to send to Uncle Bob and Aunt Phyllis, because they like to go there too when in town.
We found a new place that we liked a LOT! Mission BBQ in Fort Myers. Good food, super nice employees and decorated with patches from all manor of military, police and fire responders. We will be back!
We met several neighbors who gave us the scoop on the previous owners (wonderful folks!) and the neighborhood in general (very friendly!). There are a lot of original owners on our street. We met the neighbor behind us who said she called us the Phantom Family because no one knew anything about us! She was very excited to see our lights on. We met a lot of neighbor dogs, Hannah, Danny, Jose Cuervo. It was a good trip.
I think we are going to like it there 🙂