The Inside Of The Lake House And Some Nature Pics

Good morning and here it is…the highly anticipated inside of the house:)  Mike and I have been here for one week and we have learned some things about this house.  First and most important is it was built like a bomb shelter, I imagine that was for protection against hurricanes and any possible tornadoes.  The interior walls are solid brick or concrete which are no less than 6 inches thick.  The door jams are concrete and steel.  The exterior walls are up to 10 inches thick and the roof had a very low slope.  Needless to say Mike and I will not be doing much demo here.

Here is your chance to give some ideas on what you would do to this house.:):)  Let us know what you think before we get started, lol.


The house itself was built in 1960.  The square footage is "supposed" to be 2378 although it doesn't feel like it.  The garage is 1104 sf and the boathouse is 336 sf.

Here is the layout:

Let's take a walk up our drive so you can get a feel for the house.  Here is our mailbox and driveway:

The boathouse is on the right:

Now for the old walkway:

And:

And the front door, which we will be moving:

The entrance although I have no idea why the wall is there.  The eaves are wide enough to block the sun and with all the windows on the house it doesn't really add much privacy:

OK…here we go.  When you open the front door this is what you see:

Walk around to the left and you end up in the kitchen.  Looking back towards the front doorway.  There is no doubt that we will take the brick wall on the right down.  At least we are going to try.  At some point the kitchen will be redone but that is a long way off.  BTW, the floors in the kitchen and living room are terrazzo.  We haven't decided on a floor yet but we are leaning towards tile since we are surrounded by water.

And the kitchen…which is huge:

I hate having a stove next to a wall or a cabinet.  It is dangerous for pot handles.  At some point this will be changed:

I do have a refrigerator now:

It's a very big room:

The countertops, cabinets, and sink have all been painted but there is still an old smell in the house.  I have been airing it out each day and it is better:)

As we continue through the kitchen you end up in the dining area.  I'm not sure if this was an original dining area or a breezeway.  You can see the painted brick on the walls:

It does have a gorgeous view.  This is where I sit with our patio table, lol, each morning:

And the back side of the room…towards the boathouse:

Continue through and step down.  This was the "original" garage many years ago.  This room has it's own bathroom and a separate heating and cooling system with patio doors going outside.  Mike and I think we will redo this room to make it a guest suite.

We promise…it will look much better but that will be a later on project:)

The laundry set up is in this room:

And the lovely bathroom:

OK…time to leave this room….going back into the dining area and we will turn left.  The closet ahead has the water heater in it:

This is another small step down and a short hallway.  We think this was originally outside and the original front door…to the left:

And now into the living room and the great big fireplace.  I know many of you will love this fireplace but since I have an aversion to red brick and we don't want a fireplace something will be changed here.  We also need more wall space in this room. At first we thought we would take it out and open up the LR and kitchen.  Now after seeing how this house was built we may just knock part of it out on the left, if possible, and cover the brick with drywall to make a brighter room.  We will see.  Any input will be considered:)

The bay window which is nice but has bathroom tile.  We will change the tile at some point:

Facing the original front doorway.  Right now it has and 8 foot slider.  We would like a nice set of double front doors but they don't make 8 foot ones.  We would either have to get a 6 foot door with side lights which is very expensive or we will get a 6 foot double door and fix the stucco:

Our built ins in the living room.  They have been painted and they do offer a lot of storage.  We haven't decided what we will do with these.  Would you all keep them?  Leave them the same color?

And into the bedroom hallway.  There is more great storage in these built ins.  They are old and may need to be fixed/and or replaced at some point.  For now they are filled, lol.

And the two bedrooms which are identical but a mirror image.  They are each about 20x20 and have their own bathrooms.  They have new carpet, new windows and fresh paint.  This is new for Mike and I.  We have never bought a house where we could move right in, lol.

The spare room.  This will be the guest room until we get the guest suite set up.  After we move guests out of here, the pool table will go in here.  Yes we did move our pool table and moving that slate was no fun at all.

This room faces the boathouse:

The master which faces the garage:

And the side of the peninsula where we would like to put a desk:

And the third wall with yet another window:

The bathrooms in the completed bedrooms.  They are almost the same.  One had a tub taken out and all of the walls, tiles, shower, and tub has been painted.  We will leave these alone for now:

The big thing we have to figure out is how to get electric into these bathrooms.  Mike got a new outlet for the switch that has both and outlet and a switch but we may have to cut out some concrete to get it installed.

Quickly back outside because we were asked about the boathouse.  It is in good condition and it has electric to it for the lift.  It just needs a boat:

Mike adding a temporary light to attract the fish:

Here are my banana trees:)  Tell me what you know about banana trees…anyone??

So cool how they grow:

One of our many water birds:

And we saw two baby alligators last night.  Here is one of them.  They stay close to the dock so I keep Niki on the other side of the house:)

I know that was a lot of pictures but I hope you get the feel of the house.  We are not quite sure where we will begin the big jobs but it will be sometime this week.  We did get the appliances last week and Mike has started hanging blinds…oh joy, lol.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures.  I will write again next Monday and I am looking forward to your ideas:)

An Early Christmas/My Birthday And The Big Move To Florida

Greetings from Florida.  We made it but first let me take you back to our last breakfast of the year with the kids.  Since the winter weather can be so temperamental in the mountains Mike and I decided it might be too risky to go back home to TN for Christmas.  So we had an early Christmas with gifts for the kids.  My birthday was also on Monday of this past week and the kids surprised me on the same day.  Oh what a celebration for all of us.

Nicole puts on some Christmas music while Ella says hello to Niki girl:

Ooh…time for presents.  I won't bore you with all of them but just a few, lol.  We have all been playing Apples to Apples each weekend so that is the theme.  For AJ since he loves acting and Disney we got him a Disney version:

Nicole is next and she is finally getting her very own miter saw and stand:)  Now she won't have to borrow Mike's anymore:

And Ella…she is all about Frozen…so we bought her decals for her bedroom wall:

And my birthday….Ella, the sweetie, made me a big sign that says Happy 28th, lol:

Nicole bought me these pans that I have been wanting to try for years now.  It takes me a long long time to finally buy things for myself:

And my homemade cake…chocolate of course:)

After the kids left Mike and I had to close down the house and move the last of the things to the store.  We already picked up the U-Haul so the fun will begin…ugh!!


Before we get to that, Nicole sent us a picture of Ella's room and her new Frozen decals.  What a cool room:

Now for the move…

Mike and I didn't think we could get the U-Haul truck up to the house so for a couple of weeks we took our packed things and brought them down to the store.  It is pretty full.  We are taking the shelves that we built but we had to dismantle them for the move.  As you can see we filled them:

Getting empty:

Filling up the truck which took Mike and I about 4 hours:

Time to hit the road.  Mike drove the truck and the lawnmower while I drove the van and the Jeep.  It is going to be a long trip without each other to talk to.  Mike checking to make sure we are safely hooked:

We rented the truck on Friday, loaded the big stuff, had the kids over Saturday morning, closed up the house, finished packing the truck and started driving about 2:30 saturday afternoon.  Shortly after leaving I found out my A/C was not cooling enough.  This would be bad for Niki and I especially in Florida so we drove through the night taking short naps along the way.  We got to our new house about 10:00am on sunday.  We made it safe and sound:)


Pulling up:

Now for the tricky part…we need to get both vehicles to the sliders you see on the right.  That was the original garage in this house and we are going to unload everything in that room for now:

Yay no sinking in the grass and we didn't run anything over, lol.  We start with the van and unload that.  Next up was the truck which took us Sunday and part of Monday to unload.  

We were exhausted but we did get the U-haul returned on Monday and that turned into a fiasco…grr.  We had a specific location to return the truck to…in the next town even after I asked the man at the U-Haul back home if it was in the right town.  So Mike drives the truck and I follow in the Jeep to the return spot.  "Sorry we are full try another U-Haul place".  So down the road we go and we pull into a second one…ugh…they are also full.  Third time is a charm….yay finally we got rid of the truck.  Just an FYI…if anyone ever moves you can return your trucks/trailers at any location.

We have been super busy unpacking and trying to clean up our mess.  We are almost finished with all the "inside" stuff.  Mike still has to sort his tools but everything is staying in the house.  First part of the remodel will be the workshop/garage area…I think, lol.

One of our new neighbors.  I tried to get closer but he went under:

Some very cool trees here.  I told Ella it is like a big hairy monster tree:):

Ahh the life.  Mike finally taking a break.  Our boat house is on the small canal across from the workshop.  

It is very peaceful here.  We have seen and met some boaters but other than that we are in our own

little world again and you know we like that:)

So now we have the best of both worlds.  We left this:

And came to this:

Life is good.  We are going to try to enjoy it a bit before the heavy work starts.  Mike doesn't think we will last that long.  He is itching to get the sledgehammer out.

That's all for now.  I hope you enjoyed the update.  I will post each Monday and maybe more if and when we get very busy.

Have a great week.

Lisa