I finally got up my nerve and bought a house for just Otis and me. I lived in Spanish Lakes back 25 years ago before we retired. I like it there but didn’t take part in much of the social activities because we were both working and didn’t have much free time. Now I have lots of free time and lots of things I want to do in that free time so I can join any group if I want to or I can just enjoy sitting with Otis and watch old movies. So I decided to buy a house in Spanish Lakes River Front again only this time I needed a place in the pet section. There was only one house available in the pet section in River Front and the price was right. There were two places available in Spanish Lakes I Pet section but they were two and three times more and I really didn’t want to use up more than half my savings. I worked out my budget and found I could afford the HOA fees and still have money to spend on all the little things I like to get so I put in an offer on the house and got it. Last weekend Patty and Jen helped me move in and now it is up to me to unpack everything and make the house just what I want. There is all my crafts and writing that I like to do so instead of a conventional house I will have one big craft house.
Two weeks later now and I am all unpacked and ready to sort thought some of my things to get all the different crafts together so I will know where they are.
I have the pictures that the sales agent took of the place and I will take you on a tour of the place with the pictures and show you what I am making out of each room.
First here is the entrance to my new home . This is the drive way. Notice it is a long drive way and can hold four or five cars in my drive way. I could put two cars in the car port at the top of the drive but since I don’t have a car and don’t intend to I think I will make a patio out of the section of the car port between the kitchen steps and the utility shed where my washer and drier is housed. You have to keep the trash buckets in the utility shed also because as you see I back right up to the preserve and that is where the raccoons live. Anyone that doesn’t have a shed to keep the trash in gets a nightly visit from the raccoons looking for anything they can eat. This is the car port. This was taken when the previous owners had it. You see how two cars can fit in here just fine so I will use where this car is a an open patio and still have room for anyone to come in if it is raining out when they come. This is the agents picture of the kitchen. This is a small kitchen and this is only one side of it. The two ends are open, one has the door to the car port and the other is open to the present living room. The fourth side has the refrigerator. a small counter and a full size pantry. This is the kitchen now only taken from the opposite side of the room. You see the door to the carport, my new stove, new dishwasher is in there now and the micro wave (new) is in the dinning room on the hutch. You can just see the fridge and pantry. This is the picture of the dinning room taken from the kitchen. That was the biggest room so I switched the dinning room and the living room. I took out the chandler and put in a fan with a light. The one thing this house lacked was light. They had blinds on all the windows to keep out the sun, good to keep it cool without having to pay as much for AC but awful for light to see anything. It felt like a cave which I can’t stand so I changed out all the fans and put in new fans with lights. Now I have a light in every room as well as a fan.

This is that room looking into it from the kitchen. You can look right past the living room, out the slider to the screened in porch which runs the full length of the living room. This is one end of the living room. Hard to see as the bright sun from outside makes it hard to see the inside. That is my new sleep sofa and there is a nice space behind that for the dogs large cage when I need it and a chair. It is a long room. This was the front half of the living room before I got the sofa. You can see the entertainment center they left here for me. It was so large they didn’t want to move it and I didn’t have one so it worked out great. Not a very good picture but it will have to do. You get the idea now I have two small book cases that go on either side of the entertainment center and they look as if they were built just for that. I makes a nice large room for entertaining or visiting . Going out the slider on your left you come to the screened in porch. I haven’t done anything with that yet so it is empty, this is how it looked before me. Notice how large this is and what a beautiful view you get here. The only rooms that look out onto another home is the two bay windows in the front of the house. All other rooms look out onto the greenery and preserve so you always feel as if you were in the country. As the weather cools off some I will dress up the porch and use it much more. At the end of the screen porch is the patio that looks right out onto the preserve. They left the table and four chairs. I think I can clean up the table and three of the chairs to use if I want to. I will see when the weather gets cooler so I can work outside better. There is no need to do it now as it is too hot to sit out there even just to visit. At the other end of the screened porch, along the side of the house is where I will put my garden. As long as I have it fenced in with a small little fence and take care of it, I can have as large a garden as I want. I will get rid of the sod and use heavy mulch and several of my grow boxes for my garden. Again that will be when it cools off a bit.
Now back into the house. This is what they had for the living room. The kitchen is to the left and the Florida to the right. They used the Florida room as a bed room as they had as many as 8 people in here living off and on. They had all the windows covered as well as the slider to Florida room, Just like a cave! Now I have brought light in and this is my dinning room. I regress for a moment. This is the wall in the living room looking out over the screened porch. I want you to see the 1900 picture of my father and Uncle Bing. It goes just perfect there and see all the light that those windows and slider bring into the room, they had this all covered up. Here is that cave now. Again so much light comes in it is hard to focus the camera on anything but the light. Notice I have my new freezer just around the corner into the dinning room with the hutch next to that with the microwave and my dishes on that. On the other wall is all my picture albums and another shelf with all the puzzles and games. I also am putting my crocheted animals on that set of shelves until I get all 34 done and ready to give away.
Right now my back is aching from sitting here so long so I will have to stop for now. I will be back soon to finish the tour and show you the Florida room/craft room and the two bed rooms and bath rooms. Have a great day. I hope you have enjoyed the tour. Love to you all.