the clean marina ceremony was "just fine". there were a few things i would have like to have done a little differently but whatever... our new "managers" accepted the award from the dep which was rather amusing since they actually had or have no idea what was involved or what it took to be certified and well.. whatever.
it's over and we have our beautiful flag rightfully flying now. i would post pictures of it but my camera broke again. i sent it back for repair yesterday and probably won't see it again for a while. sigh.
john and i have been working on the new cottage. we have torn out the walls and flooring in the soon to be bedroom. let me tell you that it is quite a job when the heat index is still over 100. it's supposed to cool off this weekend, thank god. something in the 90's would be an improvement.
we found out something very interesting about the wood used in these cottages. it is called dade county pine and according to what i have read it is now considered to be a historic lumber. at one time, dade county pine grew between the everglades and the atlantic in south florida. most of the little cottages in south florida and in the keys were built with it. it dense, strong, and highly resistant to decay and insect damage. the original growth has long been completely harvested and it is no longer available therefore most usable lumber must be obtained through the salvage process.
i can see why it is so resistant to insects. i can't even get a push pin to go into it.
just one more reason why i find these cottages to be so interesting.

back in june i blogged about attempting to obtain a "clean marina" certification for sunset bay. well...today's the day we finally get our certification and are inducted into the "clean marina" hall of fame by the florida department of environmental protection. by the end of the day we will be proudly flying our official "clean marina" flag.
the ceremony is at 10am and according to the officials in tallahassee it's going to be a big media event due to the fact that we wound up being the 200th marina to receive this award.
we expect around 100 or so to attend and following the ceremony is a catered luncheon on the porch. it was a long couple of months working on this project and a lot for me to plan and organize but honesty it was all worthwhile and i love worthwhile stuff.
tomorrow i will post pictures.

"i like to think of it as promoting a more responsible way of living and encouraging people to seriously think about what they do and how everything they do affects the environment that we all live in."

finally got my camera back from being repaired so here's some pixs of the restoration project of carol's house which as you can see is directly across the "street" from us.

this is the kitchen nook where maybe 2 people can sit, have coffee and look at the river. it has a very cool old slanted windowed wall with louvered ventilation underneath. i scrubbed every inch of the kitchen, floor to ceiling... lots of cat fur balls and still finding more. then i painted walls in the little nook area. i need a little shelfy thing on one side for more counter space and maybe a small cabinet overhead for dishes. you have to keep in mind that these cottages were built back in 1950 for seasonal tourists and not for year round living so the kitchens were very minimal and not exactly designed for a lot of cooking and such.

the living room is very similar to ours but has more windows which brings in a nice cross breeze. i found the old rattan sofa on craigslist. i'm trying to keep furnishings as "old florida" as possible which is quite easy around here since most of the thrift shops are full of it. unfortunately john found that most of the old original wooden awning windows are quite "rotten" so he's trying to figure out how he can rebuild them without spending too much. they have really cool old mechanisms that i'd hate to have to replace.

the little room next to the kitchen is going to be the dining room. i scrubbed that room on thursday. it was a mess just like the other rooms. actually the floors throughout the house don't look that bad.

i've been shoving all of the junk that carol left behind into this big side room which will eventually become the bedroom. it used to be a carport that they eventually enclosed. it's really a disaster. i want to tear out all the walls and replace them with beadboard. i think the room would make a nice bedroom with the bed on one side and a little corner desk up front by the corner windows. it also has it's own separate door that leads to a little patio outside next to small gravel parking area.

i've also been shoving crap into this back storage room with big screened windows and a concrete floor where the washer and hot water heater is. i think carol used this room for her huge cat menagerie since all the windows have big wooden ledges with little cat rugs on them and in the corner is a big pile of old cat litter boxes. this room will actually be a great room for a workbench/laundry area/storage once i clear it out and clean it up. i think i'll put most of the random cabinets and shelf units out there for storage that carol left behind after i clean them and paint them. it's amazing how a good cleaning and a can of paint makes everything look so much better. it's also very nice to have a husband that can do or fix anything. i have an ongoing list of things that i just can't do myself since i'm definitely not skilled in carpentry work.

last but not least here's my little octopus' garden. i decorate it with fishy what nots that i find. the latest addition is an old crab trap. it's a work in progress as is everything else in my life.

finally had a day off to work on carol's house. this day was spent on the kitchen. carol used to be known as the "cat lady". she took in stray cats. i was told that at one point in the past she had over 30 cats living in this house. oddly the house doesn't have any odor of the dreaded cat pee smell, a smell i know well. what it does have though is enough old nasty matted cat fur to make a fur ball the size of a vw bug. the kitchen was no exception. i scrubbed cat fur from the walls, the floors, the ceilings, inside the refrig and out of the overhead exhaust fan. carol loved cats. she had cat books, cat baskets, framed pictures of cats and silly cat knick knacks everywhere. i found old decrepit cat toys stuck under the stove and behind the refrigeration.
as the day went along i continually emptied my cleaning bucket, probably every 15 minutes. i probably emptied that bucket 50 times. after about 6 hours of scrubbing i finally got to the point where i could see just how nice this little kitchen could be.
once everything dried i began to paint two of the walls in the little eating nook. i put 3 coats of paint on and called it a day. by that time my hands had started to cramp up and it was hard for me to hold on to the paint brush.
this is the kind of work that pays off. once you're done you can sit back and smile knowing that you accomplished something... until, of course, the spousal inspector comes to check things out and tells you that you should have done this and you should have done that, you missed something, you did this wrong and so on and so on.
i wish my camera would come back from the repair shop. i need to take before and after pictures so i don't get so discouraged by the negativity.
oh well... if the truth be known it's probably a good thing to have someone to criticize my work. i am not a perfectionist by any stretch of the imagination and for some reason i always seem to see beauty and wonder in the flawed.

this is the invitation to our ceremony. it is being sent out by the dep in tallahassee. i gave them our invitation list of around 60 people, mostly city and state officials and people in the local marine industry. yesterday i met with the caterer who's going to provide the food for the reception and the tents, chairs & tables with nice green linen table cloths (it's a green thing). i've decided on a light luncheon menu with roasted summer vegetable pasta salad, a caribbean red cabbage cole slaw, tropical fruit kabobs and some little multi-grain finger sandwiches. also, spring water, iced herb tea and coffee. maybe some small pretty cookies too. it's still really hot so i doubt if anyone wants to chow down on anything heavy since we're eating outside under the tents which will be set up along the waterside overlooking the marina.
i talked to the audio guy who is set to provide the staging area, the podium, the sound system along with the background music, i suppose some light jazzy stuff. he's pretty good actually. he has his own band and plays locally around here but has his sound system audio/visual business to pay the bills.
i can only pray that it will please not rain that day, at least until we finish eating.

in the meantime i spent all day monday (i had the day off) literally from 8am til 6pm scrubbing the living room of our newly purchased cottage. you wouldn't think it would take all day just to clean one little room but it did. first i drug all the furniture out of it and put everything in the back room. i swept and vacuumed the floors and walls which were covered with years and years of dirt and cat fur. the walls and ceilings are the original wood planking and the floors are the original linoleum which are sort of off white and still in very good condition. then i scrubbed the ceilings, walls and floors with murphy's oil soap and let it dry. finally i polished the walls and ceilings with guardsman wood cream which gives the wood a nice sheen.
since everything looked so nice and shiny clean i drug out my newly purchased-from the-thrift-store rattan sofa and put it along one wall and a little coffee table that i painted just so the room looks inviting. i turned on the old ceiling fan and opened all the windows, those old 1950 florida jalousie crank out windows which are along the north and the south walls. the cross breeze was delightful. i sat there for a while and i decided it was very very nice. it's amazing how much better an old run down cottage looks when everything is clean and polished.
i intend on attacking one room a day..on the days that i have off from work, saving room though for my "beach day", grocery shopping, laundry and cleaning my own house day.
today my hands are very stiff and achy and my knuckes are sore...thank god the house isn't that big.
i will be posting pictures as soon as i get my camera back from being repaired at pentax. i dropped it at work and thankfully it was still under warranty. they've had it for over 3 weeks now and i miss it terribly. for me it's like not having my cell phone.

this past month has been a busy one.

for the labor day weekend i organized a marina party and was amazed at how many people showed up, probably around 75 or so.

i made name tags for everyone so they could get to know each other a little better. it worked out very well.

then i decided we should have a booth at the first annual stuart nautical flea market and seafood festival.

well, as it always is, i seem to get these "bright" ideas and then i forget how much work it involves. heh.

anyway we have a booth at the flea market festival this weekend. actually the booth set up could have been a bit more attractive but... hey it's my first time doing this.

at the last minute i decided to steal some curtains to put around the tables. next year i'll be more prepared.

yesterday john buddied with me all day and today i'm recruiting kim, the ship's store manager to take his place. i have a bunch of freebies, key floats, recycle/tote bags and such. of course the bags are a big hit and towards the end of the day just about everyone walking around the fairgrounds was carrying one of our marina logo tote bags. i'd say that's pretty good advertising.

in 3 weeks we're having our state ceremony to be inducted into the "clean marina" program and will be officially the 200th clean marina in florida. i'm organizing that... tents, tables, folding chairs, sound system, music, catered luncheon, invitation list.... i had to get a special events permit from the city last week. i think i'm going to need a vacation pretty soon.

on top of all that we just had settlement last week on "carol's house" across the street. everything went smoothly and quickly. now... if i can just find the time to start fixing it up.. maybe i'll have time next week. i'm dying to get in there with a bucket and a scrub brush. i have a vision in my mind of how darling it's going to look once it's all clean and spruced up. hopefully i'll have it all done by the time josh and laura come down for thanksgiving.

well the little house next to us is soon to be ours. it will be forever and lovingly known as "carol's house". just a few weeks ago carol had to move in with her son in gainesville. she was becoming too dangerously forgetful and her illnesses were causing a rapid decline in her health. her son, thomas, an old hippy from way back..and actually a past resident of the "farm" in tennessee, gladly took her home with him and his family and put her up in a rather nice little rv right on his property. she seems happy there along with her beloved cats and i know they will take good care of her.
right before they left i sort of begged them to let me buy carol's house and just this week we finally came to an agreement. $50,000..as is. i'm very glad to be the new owner of "carol's house". sadly though her little 700 sq.ft. cottage is in some serious disrepair due to a simple lack of maintenance on her part for quite some time..several decades as it seems. it is actually rather sad to think that she was living in such squalor.
we'll probably take ownership in the next couple of weeks and then the work begins...cleaning and scrubbing, painting, repairing and who knows what else. it will be quite an undertaking to get this cottage back to it's pretty little self.
we haven't really decided exactly what we're going to do with it, maybe rent it (to friends only) or maybe just hold on to it for a while and keep it as a guest house. either way it's quite a little gem and will once again give me an excuse to go junk shopping for what bits and pieces of furnishings it might need. oddly carol left in a bit of a hurry leaving quite a bit of her "things" behind. it's all very interesting to go through and there is no doubt some treasures there that she forgot. i will save them just in case she remembers. as for the decor, i came up with sort of an idea...a cottage of history and framed memorabilia of the banyan terrace cottages, jensen beach and such... which will make good use of what i have collected so far and give me a place to display the things i collect along the way.
and in keeping with the preservation i will do my best to take pride in the restoration of banyan terrace cottage #2.
one of the neighbors casually mentioned that carol's house was just a "tear down". can you imagine that?
i don't think so.