A Delightful first day in the Keys

I can take this life. Come along with me,
 Coffee on the veranda.

Breakfast on the beach where Tenneesee Williams enjoyed writing.

Then a wonderful walk thru town. 

This town has the most adorable cottages.

And such adorable fences!

Lush green and bright white

Key West seems to have a love affair with whimsical fences!

My favorite is the "Southernmost House"   eeeeeeuuuu weeeee!

This is the back porch of it with a painting depicting the house. Love love love it.

 And above on the ceiling wowwww! Such gorgeous stained glass letting in the light.

And lunch at Blue Heaven is highly recommended!  What a nice respite from the heat... back in this little cubby... we found, such fun and good food.

 With a singer, and a guitar.

 my sis enjoying her mojito.. look in the background...don't you just love the paintings hanging outside on the side of the house?

I wish I could do this at home. Just hang a painting outside.

They made the Perfect mojitos

 such an adorable little fairy lamp I asked if I could buy it from them!

 They said no.

One thing about key West they have roosters and hens everywhere. This one just sat next to us for lunch.

And we went to Ernest Hemmingways house, which was great.  But I will post later about that.
I have to go on another adventure now.

The adventures of Eileen and Mary Louise begin!

And we're off to the Florida Keys. We got a late start, so the sun was setting on the way.
It had been raining but began to clear and it was neat to watch as the sky cleared.

Not a perfect shot because the car was in motion.  But not a bad one either ...eh?
It had been raining but began to clear and it was neat to watch as the sky cleared.

And here we finally arrive at about 11 pm.

The hotel is the southernmost hotel in the US That's what it's called the "Southernmost Hotel"

And it seems to have a really nice pool, actually 3 pools, where I will be getting my exercise and ..it's  my kind of pool, there is a bar right there next to it!
We will have no trouble getting our daily intake of Mojitos, Bahama Mammas, or any other tropical drink anybody out there in bloggyland can recommend!

Darn I just missed it!

Better pics will come in the daylight hours. I cant wait to take a walk around these ADORABLE Victorian Cottages

We're thinking this girls week away will have to be an annual thing :)))
viviendo la buena vida... Living the good Life
Going to visit Sarah at A beach cottage for 
good life wednesday

A Coastal break from all the re-makes

I just thought I would share a few of the pictures I took of the beaches here on the gulf of Mexico, down in southwest Florida. The weather has been perfect for this entire 2 weeks I've been here!
It's very calm in the pic below.

But today there was a little bit of wave action

And the water has been warm and so clear.

The other day I took a break from all the painting I have been up to and road down to Boca Grande, a beach about 20 minutes from here.
The water as you cross the causeway is breathtaking, and absolutely looks like the Caribbean, a gorgeous aqua.

Causeway

And when we were on the beach my daughter snapped this photo of a boat so close we could have swam to it, in the calm and clear aqua water.

She had to yell to me to turn and look, as I was deep in concentration, shelling, as it softly sailed by.

There is a lot of fish in this area because the river meets the Gulf here. Matter of fact while we were in swimming one fish about 15 inches long was just following along with us, checking us out.


This is the beach where once, I saw a huge dolphin come right up to the shoreline in about 18 inches of water and just swim back and forth for about 7 minutes, seemingly checking out two little girls who were playing. It was as if their squeeky little voices drew the dolphin curiously to the shore. It was by far the neatest thing I have ever witnessed.
I love this part of Florida, and although I don't get here often, I count my blessings every day that I do.

Yesterday, Saturday the kids had a bit too much sunburn, so we took a ride up to the cute little town of Venice, where they have all kinds of nice little shops. We enjoyed a nice Italian dinner at Luna ( the previous nite) where they give one person enough to feed 4 people, and the food is great.  Love the bread they serve! We decided to come back  to shop on Saturday.

I really enjoyed this one shop where everything in there was the color beige mixed with aqua. Just so lusciously beachy.
 And I stumbled across the most facinating chandelier I have ever seen. Usually I am not crazy about shells all glued onto stuff, but this thing was awesome!

 It looked like someone took it and rolled it all over one of the shell filled beaches and encrusted it.

 I loved it.
  But the price was 2000 +
This would be an interesting project to work on.

As ordered for mission #1 at Sarah's aBeachCottage Saturday Club, I wore a ruffled shirt (off white), while strolling thru this quant town of Venice, I shopped like a champion, I always have my coffee, and I slugged a "Bahama Mama" in a good ole' Irish pub, enjoying the company of 2 of  my "grown up too fast" kids !

Thanks for stopping by!

If you did anything great this weekend join the linky I'd love to see what you are up to!

• It could be fun
• or it could be work

Whatever you did post it in my weekend linky party!

It's been Beachified

I got it done.
The crazy looking  hovercraft is no more.,,, Here she is just... hovering

Here is her transformation to a Cottage Beach House look.

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Below in her Darkest moment....even accessories did no good.

And her now, below, in all the beachiness she could muster.

Here is how I did it...
She got some fresh paint. Yes i have discovered you can paint over laminated surfaces or black lacquer, ...whatever she was!

Details on painting lacqeur are below

I gave her some much needed legs. purchased at Home Depot, which I painted Behr "table linen"

And kept the black granite top because it has some gorgeous pieces that look like abalone in it. Perfect.

I also was inspired by the little rosettes on this piece below, that I got at Home Goods.

So off I went to Lowes ... (again) and bought a few little rosettes that looked similar.

 I painted them up and Gorilla Glued them on. Clamped for 2 hours and viola!

The rosettes on the drawers..
Some nickel knobs from target...

Her pretty feet

It took some work to get this from black laminate to something I could live with.
 The primer I used is called the gripper.  Home Depot carries it and I have to say it worked great.

 I only needed 2 coats of paint after the gripper.
I used Behr premium plus with a primer in it also. The color is Table Linen. It took 2 coats.

Not too bad for a high gloss black lacquer laminate!!
Below is a pic of the top part taped off and primed and painted with the first coat:

And  her whole self, during her transformation.

Here she is in all her glory.. top to bottom

I really enjoyed decorating her, with things I already had around the house, except one thing I had to add, 2 new mason jars from 1908 that I just picked up. A Ball and an Atlas.
I filled them with shells... we have soooo many around, every one gathered from the beaches near us.
Not a purchased shell in the house.
And shark teeth because this is shark teeth central around these parts.

I love the way the light makes the milk glass jug appear translucent, even a little aqua.

Yep.. she sure is fun to set up now.

so

The way we were

And the way we are now

I like it now.

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I still have to finish the slipcovers for the chairs and I am still working on the table.

For an entire room transformation.

I wrote in a previous post about my ideas for the table, you can read about that here.

 I will be carrying out that project next week. I will also outline the steps I will be taking to achieve the look inspired by the map collage table I saw at Home Goods.

Going to try to join these parties... :)

Remodelaholic's Anonymous 64; Blog Link

Favorite things friday

Vintage Inspiration Friday #30: 

Between Naps on the Porch

http://www.frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com/

Trash to Treasure

white wendesdays
Transformation Thursday
Frugal Friday~

Furniture Friday 

Thrifty Decor chick's Before and After Party: 

Shanty 2 Chic