Winter in Florida, 2015

After being gone for two months, it was really nice to be heading "home" to our fifth wheel parked at the Clearwater Travel Resort.  This is a beautiful resort, and we met several couples who have been coming down here for years.  Many of them have park model homes that are permanent residences in the park.  They lock the door when the season ends return home for spring and summer,and either fly or drive down before winter hits their hometown.  We did meet another couple that has been RVing full time for 12 years.  They spend 6 months in Clearwater then go up to Maine and work in a park there for 6 months.  From the States, we met people from North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Pennnsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Indiana and Maine.  Many of our new friends are from Canada, and several from Quebec whose first language is French.  I thoroughly enjoyed Zumba on Monday and Friday mornings at 9:30 and the aerobics classes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings with my friends.  The park was ideal for bike riding or long walks around the park.  The majority of the folks were there for the  entire season, and it didn't take long to learn peoples names, where they were from and what activities they participated in. The pool was a great gathering place.  Not much swimming going on, but you could always get the skinny on places to shop, eat or visit.  This is a very active park and they had game nights, shuffle board, horse shoes, bunko, bingo, concerts, dances, pot luck suppers, strawberry festival, bacon on a bun following shuffle tournaments, a welcome back dinner and farewell dinner.  We thoroughly enjoyed our stay.

We were really looking forward to going to the Biggest RV show in the country, held the end of January.  We had really enjoyed the Quartzite show in Arizona with Frank and Ann Pilato last winter and felt like we knew what we were looking for this year.  The show was huge, but it was mainly RVs and RV resort sales pitches.  We did spend a great deal of time looking at the new Forest River models.  There was one in particular that kept pulling at my heart and Ken's wallet.  We decided to sleep on it.    Coming home and looking at our little home with fresh eyes, we decided that we could do a total makeover for a lot less money, and know that everything that we want to carry with us would fit.  The new models are very spacious with tall ceilings, islands in the kitchen and full sized refrigerators, but storage space is severely lacking.  I travel with a lot of art supplies, and that was the deal breaker for me.  We were anxious to get started.

Our first order of business was to remove one large upper corner cabinet and make it flush against the wall over the sink.  People thought I was crazy to take out a cabinet, but it really opened up the room.

Our next order of business was to refinish the cabinets, doors and drawers.  We have 52 of those throughout the rig.  We started in the bedroom and worked our way forward.  I noticed at the RV show that most of the higher end models had painted cabinets, so that was my starting point.  We looked at cabinet finishes and found a mushroom finish that I absolutely loved.  We took a cabinet door with that finish on it and had the paint custom mixed.  Chalk paint seems to be the rage, so we researched that technique.  Thanks to Amazon we were able to have calcium carbonate delivered in a few days and we were ready to roll!  The cupboards got two coats of paint, glazed Cocoa and sealed with acrylic.  Ken worked on the cabinets for a couple of weeks.  Our neighbors kept telling him that he works too hard and was making them look bad.  The weather was pretty cool and overcast, so we didn't feel like we were missing out on good beach days.

We shopped for a few days looking for material to recover our sofa and dining benches.  We found a fabric supply house similar to UFO and an upholster working in the back of an antique store.  Robert, the upholsterer, was quite a  character.  He wants desperately to retire, but he keeps getting jobs and doesn't like to turn business away.  He turned our job around in 6 days.  Before:

After:

While we had the couch out of the rig, Ken laid new carpet under the couch and dining table and in our bedroom.  We sanded and painted the paneled walls and our entertainment center.    Laying the wood floor in a wider and longer area cuts down on the vacuuming and gives it a much more roomy feel.

The finishing touches included new bedspread, new towel bars and shower curtain, sewing new window covering for the bedroom,

painting the cornices and removing the hard side trim, framing the door, refinishing the hardware and replacing all of the light fixtures.  New black leather recliners finished off  the project.

Once we finished the inside, and because I was so into sewing, we decided to make new awnings for the small windows on the outside.  We choose a teal vinyl and were able to knock them out on a rainy Saturday.   What a difference they made!  Our old awnings were shot.  I never looked at them from the neighbor's side, and when I took a look I couldn't get them replaced fast enough.

It was NOT all work and no play while we were in Clearwater.  We loved hanging out with our dear friends Frank and Donna.  They are both still working, so we tried to have dinner with them at least once a week.  Donna is an excellent cook, and she fed us quite well!  

We took dinner to them several times, and when the remodel was done and the weather nice enough to eat outside, we were able to host them for dinner.  Frank and Donna have lived here for the last 34 years and know all the great places to go.  We were not disappointed with any of their suggestions:

Some of our highlights:

Safety Harbor

St. Petersburg

Orlando Temple

j

 Tarpon Springs 

Looking back at these pictures brings a smile to my face.  It was much cooler and rained more than I could have imagined, but I thoroughly enjoyed our time here.    It was quite an honor to be a guest artist at Studio Adams in March.  I was able to teach three classes and had a blast, and will look for more opportunities to teach across the country.

Many people were surprised that we did not make a return reservation.  Our sense of adventure and wanderlust would not let us commit!  I have a feeling we will be doing something even more incredible come this time next year!