Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Salvaged fish and colorful ideas...

When we bought this priceless diamond in the rough nearly eleven and half years ago it was quite something!
I am speaking of our current home and final stop in life.
First of all the entire block structure and surrounding foundation, carport even its rafters, its floor and our cement path from our front door and even the patio was painted a vivid sky blue.
Now ordinarily I am a big fan of blue, why it’s my favorite color even, but the expression too much of a good thing comes to mind…
And this particular home had been used as a rental for eight years so it was in a major need of mucho TLC!

The backyard was so overgrown you could not find the canal; it was a literal jungle back there. But we Hubby and I could see its potential.
In good old NJ we had owned brand new homes, one a condominium townhouse and then our five bedrooms bi-level that we had physically built ourselves.

On the other coast we had had two homes that we renovated one with an addition nearly as big as this whole house we are now in!

So we knew what we wanted and when we saw it in our vision we knew what could come of it.

Prior to Hurricane Charley we had stuccoed the exterior over the block and had it painted in Navajo tan, had the jalousie windows replaced with wind resistant to 140 MPH’s modern ones. The carpeting also blue was replaced with wood floors, enclosed the carport into a garage, broke through the interior wall in our foyer to make the laundry an indoor one, and we had replace the water heater, stove, and refrigerator all before we got hit.
Hubby built a matching to our home long narrow shed adjacent to the garage forming a courtyard on that side. And we had done extensive landscaping and Grandfathered in our new seawall, dock and boat lift that were only slight remnants showing. And Hubby made me that octagon white lattice gazebo I have mentioned before. We also added two additional metal twin sheds in the backyard for our overflow of stuff!
One blue tiny shed had been on the side and was falling apart and when the sturdier ones replaced that its contents were moved, and I found a small treasure, a leaded glass panel, which I have painted twice in different colors over the years and it hangs in our living room looking very antiquey. In the laundry, which had consisted of two over size not working well washer and dryer they were replaced with a stackable set allowing for many cabinets and more storage, but in that room we found a couple of more treasures that were used and we still have! The old shelves Hubby made into a book case and that sits in our guestroom, two wall hanging white plaster fish that have been painted bright colors and hang outside in our lanai!
They hadn’t been painted by me in the last maybe ten or more years until yesterday and they are bright and cheerful once again hanging out there!

I enjoy and love remembering simple things in life and seeing how much we accomplished twice mind you due to the hurricane! I tease people when we go to those home shows that we only redecorate due to natural disasters, not so funny you say, yes I more than agree.
I suppose it could be considered a distant memory of all that horror, since it is nearly six years now but in reality it is still so fresh in my mind as if it happened just yesterday.

Good night to all and to all count those blessings and we will too!

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