Thursday morning I went for a little walk. While I was gone, an idea came to mind and as soon as I got back to the house I calmly presented a couple of options to my bride. Here they are:

Option 1: I’ve been really wanting to build some window boxes on the front and side of the house. When I do, I’ll want to go ahead and repaint the house because we want to change the color from a light grey to a pastel yellow.

We can’t get the full impact of the window boxes unless we change the color and build the boxes, and put flowers in them, in one fell swoop.

Option one was… The boys and I will do that this weekend.

Option 2: It’s been awhile since we went to the Florida Keys and we really love The Keys. So option 2 was, “let’s get to those window boxes and painting another time and hit the road and head south to The Keys.

Bless her heart, she chose option two, and I was mighty glad she chose ME.

So we hit the road Thursday night and made it to Key Largo before we had to get some sleep. The next day we had fun making our way further south and a few detours brought us to some beautiful places. I have a couple of cool pictures to show you to stir your creative juices.

We saw this in Key Largo. We couldn’t get any closer than this but this building appears to be used as a parking area on the bottom and an open air entertaining and observation deck on the second level. This property is right on some of the most beautiful water in the country, so I can see where the observation deck would come in handy.

If you have the land, accessory structures can be an excellent addition to your property. One of the greatest things about something like this is that it can look amazing without costing a fortune. I’ll file this away in the back of my mind in case I ever find myself with a spot with a view just begging for a building!

On a slightly smaller scale, we came across an idea that I bet you’ll see me actually do within a few weeks. We really love this next idea and it would fit perfect at our house. Take a look:

This may not LOOK like much, but this idea is something I’ve never seen before. How many thousands of people have privacy fencing that is just a big long wall of wood? I’m sure that at least some of those folks would have a place where a “window” in the fence would be a good thing.

Even if you didn’t want to actually see what’s on the other side of the fence, you could trim out an “opening” and fill the center with an old window sash or some shutters. It could be a really neat way to dress-up a plain section of fence.

I know that my house can certainly do with some cool windows in one of our sections of fence. I’ll take this idea and twist it around a little to make it work for us. I’ll show you when I do.

Question is: Do I do that first? Or build the window box and do the painting? Who knows?

For now, I’m lovin life in the Florida Keys and I’ll keep you posted with more pictures as we work out way southbound on US 1 to Key West.

Thanks for all the entries in the two contests we’re running. I have some excellent answers, but I wouldn’t call the contest over. There seems to be more opportunity to me…

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!