Got the dining room--or most of it--done, whew! I'd share a picture, but no one would be able to tell a difference. Todd couldn't when he got home! All I did was cover that shiny finish with a slightly darker and non-shiny color. The color was originally Laura Ashley Pale Apple 2, and now it's Valspar Soothing Aloe. I used Benjamin Moore Aura paint, since it's got primer in it and can go over semi-gloss without having to treat it or sand it or anything else time-consuming. What fantastic paint! It goes on like butter!
Next week we'll move everything out of the living room and I'll re-paint three of the walls in a hurry before the carpet guys come on Wednesday. (The other wall was re-painted a year ago when Todd put in our new mantel.) By next weekend I hope to have some of the chaos in my home put back into place, but for now every room is a hot mess.
Here are a few more pictures from Florida:
It was so odd to see Christmas decorations and hear Christmas music while the palm trees blew in the balmy breezes! I guess to people who live there it's no big deal, but it was odd to this Northerner.
I stopped in at this shop my first day there and got a half-gallon of fresh-squeezed juice and a huge bag of locally grown oranges. I got through all of the juice and most of the oranges by the time we left!
This made me laugh. I had totally forgotten that "I Dream of Jeannie" took place in Cocoa Beach until my friend Bev asked if I was going to find Major Nelson down there!
All I had to do to get to the beach was walk out the back door of the hotel, past the pool and a few steps over a little boardwalk. It was fantastic; I spent a couple hours out there every day. This is the Cocoa Beach pier again.
The water was cold. And the air was none too warm most days, either. The temperatures were in the upper 70s to the lower 80s but it was extremely windy. I still hopped in the water every day but the last day, though. And then shivered till the sun could warm me up a little!
On our last morning there, we went to Downtown Disney for a couple of hours before heading to the airport. It's in the Disney World area, but you don't have to pay to get in, it's just a bunch of shops and restaurants. It was the perfect place to walk around and get some sunshine before sitting in a plane for a couple of hours.They had a cool Lego store with lots of Lego creations.
Princesses outside the World of Disney store. Inside they had a boutique where little girls could pick out a princess costume and then get all fancied up with hair-dos and make-up. I got a kick out of seeing all the little princesses running around.
We spent some time here picking out the souvenirs I was too sleepy to buy when we were at Magic Kingdom at midnight Tuesday night! They had tons of pins of all the different characters and rides, that was my favorite thing.
I loved seeing poinsettias growing in pots throughout the area.
And then we took off for the airport. It was a nice week, and I'm glad that Todd wanted me to come along with him.
Now I'm going to work on some of this messy house.
