Author: Shelley

Bath Tubs + Kitty Doors

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Sierra and I went on a bike ride this morning and peeked through the house. Only to find her bathtub sitting in a box upstairs. OMGOSH. If the tub is already delivered, that must mean more fun things are happening soon.

The last few weeks are huge — electrical, plumbing, HVAC — but not so much fun to watch because the house pretty much looks the same.

But now with the tub showing up, that might be a sign that fun things are on the horizon!

The Kohler Underscore Tub. Super simple. White. No funky swirly lines and whatnot on the sides. Why do so many tubs have awful swirls and whatnot on the sides?

We also spotted the Kitty door from the upstairs laundry room into the Master bathroom, so that Karl + Dmitri can easily run in and use the potty + get some water + then head on back to safety under our bed or snuggled into the pillows on top. Sure hope they use it! Or else we have a giant mouse hole in our bedroom wall ?

Not much else new over at the house, but we could spot it from our bike ride down A1A, so that was fun too!

Social Distancing @ Mar Azul

Framing

What a week! Slowly but surely everything started closing this week in FL for the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic that is happening right now around the world.

The state of FL was issued a Safer-at-Home Order and the Volusia County Beaches decided to CLOSE (not just parking, but for walkers/bikers/surfers too!). The house seems to just keep cruising along though so far! We’re curious to know if it will slow down at a point or if we’ll have trouble getting materials at a point. Probably too hard to know just yet!

We went on a bike ride to check on the Mar Azul project this morning and peeked around and got some pix. The girls don’t think much happened since last week, but it looks like quite a few things did get done. The overhangs by the garages, hurricane bracing and plumbing all looks to be in the works and near complete! The windows don’t go in till the beginning of June, so we’re super curious what all will happen over the next 2 months.

UPDATE: As of about 1pm today, Volusia County updated the beach rules and Biking/Surfing/Walking/Jogging/Running — All are allowed again. WOOO HOOOO!!!!

Ocean Peaks + Views

Windows

Well surprise surprise! Lookie what we found today when we went into the house and up to the 2nd floor.

Ocean Views + Lighthouse Views all around.

This view is from the master bedroom + we can actually get a pretty good look at the Atlantic from up there. The light and color is awful because it was so early in the morning and the sun was just rising up.

Thank GOODNESS we changed all the windows to regular glass (and not frosted / opaque) a few weeks back, just in case. Or at least I’m hoping we did and that wasn’t a dream. ?

The guest suite doesn’t really get any sort of fun views, but the sunsets from there should be pretty awesome.

Itty Bitty Pool

Swimming Pool

Well the house finally looks normal sized and we aren’t worried about it being tiny, so it makes sense that we moved onto worrying about our itty bitty pool.

We knew the pool would always be pretty tight back there and had been banking on a 14 foot by 30 foot pool in the back. Plain old rectangle pool, nothing fancy, simple + modern. Steps the full 14 foot side so it would give lots of entry + sitting space.

Then the pool guy told us it had to be no more than 26 feet long. AHHHH. WHAT? With the steps taking up almost 5 feet, that would get to be short.

So we thought a ton about it and marked the pool out in the dirt. We flipped the shallow and the deep end of the pool. (This did NOT make it easier by the way because when we moved the deep end closer to the house, it was too close to the footers of the house so we had to shorter it more!)

Finally we ended up with this design and we are pretty excited about our tiny pool + non-hot tub sitting area!

No worries for future owners, we’ll plumb it and add electrical so someone can add a heater later on down the line. But for us, its just a tiny pool to sit and enjoy happy hour while the girls swim and play ??

Or more likely it will end up being a pool for the girls to bring all their tiny toys and ponies into and they will create some sort of amazing underwater world where they all live.

Landscaping Fun

Landscaping

Forgot to post this fun stuff along the way too! This is the first round of the landscape plans that Cara put together for us a few weeks back. We really love it + she did an amazing job with the budget + putting in all sorts of tropical things we like.

At the time when we met with her, we were still working on the pool design, so we will have to edit the backyard a good bit. No trees in the back (its WAY too tight back there) and just have it nice and clean and use pretty colored pots to add some color and greenery in the back.

The only huge hesitation we have is the two giant palm trees spec’d to put in front of the front door. Thinking after we took a look at the view from up there today….those trees may have to be a little bit smaller. The views are SO much more fun than we thought we’d ever have.

Omgosh Now It Looks HUGE

Building With Block

Hmmm. So now that 2 stories of block are up and the house is sitting there on the lot it looks huge. Guess all that worrying and panicking about the tiny house was pretty silly!

I keep forgetting to post updates with this whole Coronavirus / COVID-19 pandemic disease self isolating sheltering at home thing going on.

Here’s some fun pix from this week though. You can really see how the house will look and the design of the exterior at this point!