Fantasy Home!

In 1998 I began a new career as a restoration painter at The CHANTELOUP Estate.  What is that you ask?  I was involved in the restoration of a home built in 1840 by a French Count.  The grounds landscaped by Frederick Law Olmsted.  My job was to refurbish the trim walls, and doors to their original state with fresh oil based paint after stripping, sanding, filling, sanding, filling, sanding, filling, sanding, priming, and painting.  I also helped the carpenter with some of his various projects.

I even got to design the layout for the marble floor in foyer bathroom; Egyptian key design.
The carpenter helped me remake my swiss army knife with handles made from the original hand rail wood from the grand staircase!

 One of the biggest chores was moving things from room to room and cleaning up the house if Mrs. Oliphant (The owner and General Contractor) was having company.  Yes, it was a strange and interesting place to work.  I learned interesting phrases like "If it doesn't move, it gets paint."  And: "A little putty and a little paint will make a carpenter what he aint!"  And my favorite term was called "holiday."  That is when a painter missed a spot!  One of the biggest mistakes we made was to caulk the seams on the doors when we were told to.  This eventually caused all of the wood on the doors to split when the humidity changed.  Old doors were designed with panels that are meant to float when the humidity changes to let the door expand and contract without changing its shape.  Well, since we caulked the doors they all changed shape without the help of the floating panels and warped to big to close in the door frames.  So we worked with the carpenter to disassemble all of the doors and glue the panels and fix all of the problems and rehang and then repaint the doors.  It took a half day to repaint each door with each coat.  So if you click on the link you can see the finished product of the house I worked over a year as a painter in the restoration process.  I really enjoyed this job, but my body disliked the chemicals involved, so I was forced to retire early on in that career.

Speaking of fantasy homes, Megan found us the perfect home in Key West.

This HOME is absolutely lovely.  It has an outdoor pool and hot tub.  And is located in a quiet area of Key West.  Have you ever looked at the temperatures for this region?  Absolutely perfect.  The only drawback is hurricane season.  One of the great things to do in this region is snorkel.  Did I mention our recent trip to the Keys where I spent most of the time in the water snorkeling and even swam with one of those giant turtles?  Gosh!  I can't wait to go back a soon as possible.  And maybe we will win the lottery or someone will be nice enough to buy us this home and pay the yearly taxes :)!