It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like... Home!

July, 2012

We've been in our new house almost six months now, and finally the furniture and decor shopping and buying is coming to an end.

From practically nothing (a computer armoire and the guest room bed) to the few pieces we lived on for two months, we can now call our house "furnished. "


Except for possibly purchasing an occasional tchotchke to accessorize, our house looks like home.

In late October our concrete lanai floor was painted and coated. Many homeowners around here do that to their lanai floor, garage floor or driveway, to make clean-up easier. It also looks a whole lot nicer than bare concrete.

For our lanai floor, we selected colors based on the 18" floor tiles in the living area of the house. Amy, who did the work, started by power-cleaning the 9' X 26' space. Then she sprayed on a beige base coat. 

Using masking tape, she marked out "grout" lines that aligned with the tiles and grout in the living area.

Then, she sprayed on different colors...

... layering them to get the right combination to coordinate with the in-the-house tile.

When the paint was dry the last step was to roll on a clear-coat finish. It's wonderfully easy to damp mop it clean. Having the finished floor makes it look like we put an addition on the house!

At the top, the lanai floor; at the bottom, the tile inside the house.

This week the lanai furniture arrived. Hers (L) and his (R) chairs. Yep, my chair reclines, and I can put my feet up. Book reading and napping may happen here!

We can also eat and entertain in this space. Those sling chairs are padded, and really comfortable. We're loving this space.

Inside the house, this is the chat corner we created in a space intended as a dining room, separate from the breakfast nook. We couldn't imagine that we'd ever have so many people at the house that the breakfast nook (seats six), bar (seats four), and lanai table (seats four) wouldn't be enough. Our chat room is a good place to sit to put on shoes, read, watch TV and... chat! Something is still needed for the wall, and it's been suggested we put an artificial palm or bamboo plant in the corner. BTW, I made that palm tree quilt in 2005, never suspecting it would be perfect in a future home.

This is the master bedroom "before" with my "Dashing the Churn" quilt on the king-sized bed. The blocks were a swap with my friend in Switzerland, Edith. When I put the quilt together in 2008, I never guessed I'd live in a home where I could use it. If this quilt looks familiar, it appeared in April/May in the 2012 Quilting Arts calendar.

Look at the bedroom now, since the wall has been painted! Doesn't it make the room pop? The paint color is "Rift" by ColorWheel, a brand I'd never heard of until we moved here and learned that's what was used to paint our house.

With the palm tree print above the bed and the paprika-color lamps - all purchased online - we like it a lot! Again, who would have guessed I'd ever paint a wall in my house this color! It's so fun to live here in Florida with all this brightness.

The house doesn't appear to be decorated for Christmas, does it? Since no one's coming to visit us, and we've never owned an artificial tree (at one time my parents owned a Christmas tree farm), decorating is at a minimum. However, to show that I'm not an utter Christmas Scrooge, here are some of the quilts I have out.

One of my favorite Christmas wall hangings is this Dilys Fronk nativity design from an old issue of "Quilt It, for Christmas" magazine.

This lovely, and very special Christmas quilt was made by Jenny Reynolds of Elephanz. In early 2011, she donated it to raise money for Queensland (Australia) Flood Relief, and I was the fortunate high bidder.

One of my new quilter-friends, Cindy, surprised me with this adorable Churn Dash ornament. She knows I like Churn Dash blocks since seeing the quilt on my bed. With no tree on which to hang the ornament, it's in a place of honor in a room I spend a lot of time in - my sewing room.

In that same room, several sewing projects are in the works. Pictures soon. Linda