When Chanoch found this property, we both fell in love with the location- the bay view, the beautiful clear water, the quietness of the neighborhood, well, just about everything. There was beautiful coral on the bank at our canal and a lone mangrove growing right in front!
What was there not to love? Our thoughts of planting palms, fruit trees, especially a Tamarind tree- were formulating. I looked behind the shed- and there was a Papaya tree! Protecting itself between the shed and fence, basking in the sunshine.
My mouth watered with the thought of the fruit it would provide for my morning oatmeal.(That Papaya tree is now quite large growing across the street in our neighbor's yard.)
When we saw the house from the outside,
we figured it probably was better on the inside- wishful thinking. The inside was scary. Even scarier than the outside.
I decided we could just live in the tiny shed. We could sleep upright aside of the washing machine, wedged between the garbage can, and nestled by the shelf of assorted cans of old paint, ant and bug spray, petrified laundry detergent and the shovel.
I had my Papaya, the Tiki hut was still standing, I like camping.
Well, the house on the property was just going to have to go. It looked so sad, looked in ruins. To say the least, it was quite forlorn.
Off to the building department, permits, building plans, a new flood of ideas of a house layout filled with cantilevered balconies and decks. Of course, so we can be close to the earth and the water.
Ahh, there is this little thing down here in the Keys called, "set back laws".
Set back laws mean, you want to build, forget about being close to the water both horizonally or vertically. For example, seeing this view from the bedroom would have been lost:
I am not an apartment kind of gal and so the thought of living up a flight of stairs was not appealing. Not being able to see the bay was also not appealing. I returned to my 'camping' ideas.
OK, how bad was the house? It had gone through many hurricanes and was still standing. It weathered Wilma and all the other storms and was firmly attached to terra firma.
It was confirmed ugly,
now
it was time for Stage two: to check the bones and structure of the place and learn whether we could preserve our close-to-the-ground and close-to-the-water life style. Surprise of all surprises, We were very pleased to learn that, in fact, this loney little trailer was a very sturdy structure. And really all it needed was a very serious and major face lift.
Now I needed to work on my own attitudes facelift. My main association with this mode of home was the trailer park that was on my school bus route. Many of the kids were rough- knew 'bad' words and were loud. Some of them were my friends but I was never invited to their homes. I had grown up in a stone farm house, 2 foot thick walls and a dark basement. There was a bit of mystery, curiosity, differentness about living in a trailer for me. The twirling tornato in the Wizard of Oz had convinced me from a young age- a house has to be firmly planted deep into the ground via a basement or cellar!
Needless to say, our little Keys paradise with a trailer in need of a maor facelift was attached quite well to the ground. It had weathered all those storms when other homes had not. We also made sure that additional strength and grounding was done. I think if there ever is any rocking in the house, they will feel it down in China!
