EXTERIOR FLORIDA HOUSE UPDATE

Busy, busy, busy,

Our Florida house has been a haven for our family for 14 years. We are very thankful, and hold many family memories from our days spent here together. It's provided a haven of solitude and enjoyment for not only our family, but our extended family as well. But "she" needed a little a "TLC." Since God has given us this time to spend here, we decided to take advantage it. 

Our first quotes were for the exterior including the roof and patios, to be pressure washed. Then we solicited quotes for the exterior to be painted to include the patios as well. We hit
the jackpot with our chosen painting company, Ryan Hammond Painters, from Fort Myers who did it all for us! Now we had to choose our color palette.

We drove to Naples and spent a complete day touring Model homes. We not only were looking for our future home ideas, we were also scoping out exterior colors. We found the colors we loved, however, they wouldn't give us their names. So hubby said, "why don't we grab the Sherwin Williams paint deck, and match up the colors ourselves! They also used SW paint, so it was such a great idea. Brilliant!! 

After our selected color palette was approved by our HOA, we waited nearly 2.5 months
because of the lengthy schedule our painting company had ahead of us. I guess that alone was a clue as to their integrity!

Our painter uses Sherwin Williams paint so we chose:

*SW 7065-Argos for the walls
*SW 7571-Casa Blanca for the trim, and eaves
*SW 9178-Old Navy- for the front door

HERE ARE THE FINAL RESULTS!

I'm still working on the patios. One patio had to be ground down a bit, and then both were painted. They turned out beautifully, but now it's time to decorate them. That's for another blog!!

Stay tuned.........
                           Kathleen

A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT FROM TLB

Hello TLB Friends!

As we all know "life" has a way of dictating our future, and mine has taken quite a few turns over the past year. My philosophy has always been, "God doesn't give you more than you can handle." In today's blog I'll bring you all up to speed......

Last year my husband's company did some downsizing in preparation of a corporate "buy-out." This affected some of the top executives, like my husband. As many of you know we had built our home in Texas, established our life, and after one year of living in the new house the announcement came.

In the midst of debating whether to sell the house, we received the most wonderful news that our oldest daughter was expecting her first child. She lives in Florida and since we have a vacation home in Florida we decided that it made sense to sell the Texas home and move to the Florida house to be nearer our daughter and new grandchild.

We sold our home to a lovely young family with two teenagers. The kids were so excited when they chose their bedrooms and couldn't wait to swim in the pool! As sad as it was to leave the memories we had already made in our home; all of the painstaking selections, the touches that made it home for us, the friends we had made, it felt good that we knew our home would be filled with the "love and joy of this new family."

So we said-----

AND 

 Hello Florida....

Whenever we move, there is always something that goes awry. Unfortunately, our movers packed the garage door remotes in the Florida boxes, so when we arrived in Florida we quickly mailed them back to Texas to the new family. Soon after we unpacked the rest of the boxes and settled in, we received a note with some of our mail enclosed in an envelope from the new owners. It read, "Thank you for sending the garage door openers, and for the beautiful flowers and wine! We love our new home! 

We always leave the new family's a little something. My Christmas Amaryllis was just the most gorgeous red and full of blooms, it just felt like it would make a beautiful "warm welcome" in the all white kitchen. A bottle of wine is something my husband always likes to leave on the counter for celebrating.

Most everything went into storage in Texas as the Florida house is already furnished and considerably more cozy!!  When we finally land permanently, it will seem like Christmas when we are unpacking boxes. We did alot of sorting and purging prior to this move, making us much more lean. It's funny sometimes how we hang on to some things forever, and when we stop and think about it, we wonder "why?"

Soon after settling into the Florida house, we realized it was time for a bit of freshening. We decided to start with the exterior, giving it a new updated color palette, which we just received approval for from our HOA.

-Body & garage door--Sherwin Williams-#7065 Argos
-Trim-Sherwin Williams-Casa Blanca-#7571
-Front Door-Sherwin Williams-In the Navy-#9178
- Lanai Patio Floors-Sherwin Williams-Casa Blanca-#7571

The beginning of June the painters will work their magic, and in the meantime, I'm toying with new interior wall color, BUT most importantly right now, we are spending a great deal of time with our daughter and new granddaughter.

We just can't get enough of our sweet little-

 Catherine Grace born on February 28th!

Thanks so much for your loyalty during my hiatus. It feels great to be back on the "blogging trail" once again! I have missed all of you!


                                                                        Fondly,

                           Kathleen