Seein' the Sights; Beautiful Lights

At the entrance of the park

While my Grandmother Becky was in town, there were many Christmas time celebrations in and around the Largo area.  The Central Park lighting display was gorgeous, however, my favorite was at The Florida Botanical Garden so, Michael and I took her there one night during her visit.  It was very inexpensive, $2 per person, and the money goes to sustaining the Gardens.  Well worth the price, easier than driving around to different neighborhoods, and is also a bit of exercise.






They have a beautifully decorated tree at the entrance to the park and we were able to take some family photos.  Can't pass up a pic opportunity!







As you continue through the gardens, you are greeted by many lighted animals that were so pretty that these photos don't do them justice.  I especially love the palm trees when they are all lit up.

                                               

Michael in amazement

We couldn't pass up the opportunity 

to have a 'feet pic' at the mosaic Koi pond

Nor could Michael or I fail to be mushy at the Wedding Garden.  If only I'd known about this place when I was planning our wedding, we might have had it there.

Love truly is the flower of life!

Michael, Grandma Becky, and I enjoyed our time at The Florida Botanical Gardens here in Largo and will definitely be going back during the daytime to see their various plant exhibits.  Don't miss your opportunity to see the beautiful botanical garden lights next year!

It's a good thing she likes dogs...

Well, actually she doesn't.  In fact, she is pretty uncomfortable around them.  She gets this shrill high pitched voice going when they come near her to give a sniff or HEAVEN FORBID! lick her TOES!  But she is my grandmother and although she excels more as a cat grandmother, she did alright by my doggies on her first visit to Largo since I moved here and adopted my Kira.

"Don't lick!"

"Good girl, Kira!"

Her last visit was filled with mostly decorating for my wedding and I was bound and determined to make her visit more eventful and more vacation-like than her last.  I mean, it is the least I can do for all that she does for me.  And what is the first thing I caught her doing the minute she got a free moment, mere hours after I picked her up from the airport?

THIS!

Kids these days and their technology.

So what does any T-ex-an do in a situation as dire as this?

Make GUACAMOLE!

 

Tex-Guac with FL avocados.  Yum

My guacamole is delicioso and I only have to use 1 Florida avocado for the usual 3-4 Hass avocados this recipe calls for.  After I peeled her away from her Kindle, called off the toe licking dogs, and served her my new and improved guac recipe, she and I continued to catch up with each other and plan out the next few days we'd spend together in my new hometown before boarding a Gma/Gdaughter, 4-day cruise!  But that is a story for another blog post...

Do they even still MAKE carpet?

When we moved into our home in June 2013, each of the bedrooms was carpeted.  As is the current trend for multiple reasons, we too were eager to rid its pestilence from our home--I mean, seriously!  Can you even begin to imagine what is in carpet?  Especially when you are not the first owner.  But I digress into my rabbit hole of OCD...

Laminate?
Since Michael and I are beginning a new life here in Florida, we aren't exactly in a position to spend vast amounts of money immediately on this new home, so we are using what we have and doing small projects at a time to bring this short sale property up to the standards of its former glory as 'The Gem of the Neighborhood', which is what our neighbors told us of the home when we first moved in.

A need for frugality is why we are using some left over laminate flooring that Michael retained, transported over half of the U.S., and stored in our garage for months after installing it into the home he owned and lived in back in San Antonio prior to our engagement.  Plus, we needed the garage space for our other hobbies and endeavors into woodworking.  So, although I would prefer tile or hardwood...this is what we've got and it looks great.  We'll have to see if it holds up to the wear and tear of 2 dogs and 2 cats (and a husband).

To begin with, we put a water resistant underlayment as a barrier for spills and to provide some cushion for our comfort.  We used a skill saw and jigsaw for the angle cuts around the doors, closet, entryway to the room, and to stagger the slats.  Unfortunately, Michael did most of the work laying the flooring, so no pictures of that.

Nothing gets done without a sense of urgency
This room, prior to our removal of the carpet and installation of the laminate was kind of the 'catch all' room.  We had set up a bed for guests in another room and had not gotten around to unpacking some of the moving boxes labeled 'office', 'books', and 'teaching'.  In order to get the ball rolling on this install, Michael took all of the boxes and moved them into the guest bedroom.  It was stacked full and there was hardly any space after all was said and done.

This is a problem when your grandmother is traveling from Corpus Christi, TX in a day and will need to have a place to call her own during her visit with us.  So, one day prior to her arrival I zipped over to Home Depot in my little 2 door Nissan Altima Coupe and purchased four 60ft strips of quarter round.  My car is not 60ft long.  Plus, I was in heels.  It was hilarious and more than one contractor gave their advice to me as to how I should accomplish the transport and in hind sight I should have strapped them to the top of my car like a Christmas tree, but instead I laid down the back seats, ran the strips of quarter round from my front seat floorboard through the backseat, through the trunk, and it still hung about 4ft out of the back of the car.  A very nice Home Depot clerk held the strips up for me as I backed out of my space and then I was on my own.  Thank goodness it is only 3 miles from my house to the Home Depot, that the strips only scraped the concrete occasionally, and I didn't run into any cops in between.

The rest is pretty straight forward.  I used a mitre cut box to make the angles in the same degree of cut as the molding.  But first I had to cut the overflow of the underlayment. I will still have to go back with caulking to create a seal and give it a finished look, as well as, painting all of the molding, but for now we can take all of the boxes from the guest bedroom and place them back into the 'catch all' room in time for my grandmother to enjoy her stay here in sunny Largo!

New molding and qtr. round strips

We cut down the underlayment

Test to make sure we put them back correctly

Old nails had to be reversed to reuse

Reuse nails when you can

Reuse old molding where you can

Must peel old caulk off of the reused molding

Looking so smooth!

View of the closet

View of the bedroom door

The finished product

 

  



Child Room Organization Designs from a Childless 30 Something

Apparently, it doesn't matter to my mother that I have no children.  She is still going to send me ideas on how to organize kid rooms anyway.  Well, that isn't exactly true; really, she know's I'm crafty and looking for inexpensive ways to design and organize all of my many belongings.

So, the other day my mother found a really cute way to create a reading nook in an office or children’s room.  The picture she showed me from the internet was very child-specific and at first I was thinking she was really hitting hard with the grandbaby hints.  But in this instance, I don't think that was her primary intention (I'm leaving it open for secondary, subconscious motivations).  

I mean, if you have toddlers, getting toys, games, and books off of the floor is HARD, CONSTANT work and making these shelves low enough for them to reach can help them to be independent, create preferences, AND teach them how to clean up after themselves.  In education we called those ‘teachable moments’!

Another benefit to these is that you can remove them from these lower positions on the wall, add a few One Direction pictures (that was a joke), or repaint them/add adhesive designed paper to make them more teenage friendly when your babies become WONDERFUL teenagers! (I’d suggest lots of bling if you have girls).

But for ME--I was able to look past all of that to see that the concept was actually pretty cool for grownups too and that the overall idea could be made ‘adult friendly’ and applied to a study or office room in any home with just a little spray paint.  So, my next project will be to make this happen in my office/spare room:

RecycleArt is a great website for additional re-purposing ideas!