Life in Florida
I’m a native Floridian and in case you didn’t know - we are hard to come by! I was born in Orlando and moved around Central Florida a bit growing up; from Brooksville to Deland and settling in New Smyrna Beach. I lived the beach life until I moved back to Orlando to go to college (Go Knights!). Now splitting time between Orlando and New Smyrna Beach, my husband (Nick) and I plan on making NSB our full-time residence sooner rather than later!
We’ve lived in our current house in Orlando for 15+ years now, it’s crazy how time flies. We purchased a condo in NSB about 10 years ago just to see how often we would actually get over there (it’s only an hour drive) and if the relaxed beach life was something we would be ready to welcome into our living routine. It was and proved successful – but the condo life definitely wasn’t for us. We ended up selling that and kept our feelers out for a home in north beach….and voila, our perfect little gem of a house popped up and we purchased it in 2019. Wonderful timing, because we were able to live there full time during the pandemic which made us dislike Orlando living even more, ha!
A little background on Sea La Vie – yes, the house is literally named Sea La Vie on the iron gate! It was meant to be 😊! Nick scoured the MLS daily (and still does) and found 2 places that were newly listed, like within hours, and told me to go check them out. He wasn’t able to join due to work obligations and said that if I thought they were worth seeing, we would make a trip back. The first I viewed was on the Intracoastal waterway which meant boat slip and boat life for sure. BUT the house was a complete disaster, built in the 80’s and never remodeled even once, still plastered with wood paneling and green carpet, green appliances and green tubs/toilets. I couldn’t wrap my head around the huge task of a remodel when we weren’t even living in the same City – yet alone the cost of it all. It would have been easier to just blast the house and start over and that was an undertaking we weren’t quite ready to make. I pulled up to the second house, literally 100 feet from the ocean, and fell in love with the exterior almost immediately. It has a Malibu feel and there is no other house like it on the island. To say the least, I was obsessed. Real estate in our small beach town was hard to come by, anything listed would have multiple offers and bidding wars and sell within hours. The owners were actually home when I popped in to view the house and I was able to form a sort of a bond with them, explained my family’s history dating back several generations to the quaint little town, and my desire to move my husband and I back to the place where I was happiest growing up. It worked, they accepted our offer over several others and our little slice of heaven awaits our full-time residency. For now, we crate up the cats and go on weekends and extended holiday’s when time allows.
There are a few things we’d like to do to the house as far as updates including building a wine cellar on the first floor, redoing the first-floor bathroom, adding some texture to the internal wall along the staircase, ad another built-in bar by the elevator, build out the master closet, repaint and add cabinetry in the garage, and update the driveway to a concrete pattern banded with rocks. We’d also like to add a generator and redo the landscaping to incorporate some outdoor living on the ground level and add a pergola on the roof! Just to name a few!!! Haha! Once we get moved over, I will work at tackling these items. We are excited and obsessed with our NSB home and plan to get over there sooner rather than later. I can’t wait to take you along on our move and remodel! What about our current house? We will list it and sell it once we decide to make the move full time. Major crying faces because we’ve made so many memories here. But on to bigger and better right, relish the memories and full steam ahead!
