House Photos

DeBary, FL

40 deg. clear, no wind.

Forecast = Mostly sunny. Highs around 68°F. North wind 7 to 9 MPH.

While Jim and Linda were over at the house the other day, Jim took some photos of the inside of the house. This first one is of the "screen room" that you enter as you go into the house from the back of the car port. That's the storage shed with a washer and dryer, workbench and shelves in it straight ahead and off to the left is the screen door going out to the back yard.

After you enter the screen room this is the view looking back at the car port. You can see CLT parked out there.

                                      

After you go up the steps and through the door, you are in the kitchen.

Looking off to the left through the kitchen, you see the dining area.

This is a view from the living room looking into the dining area.

Hi Linda!!

From the dining area, this is the living room. As you can see, there's no furniture except a few small cabinets that Emily left because she won't have room for them in her apartment.

Looking towards the front of the house from the living room you look out onto the "Florida room", which runs all the way across the front of the house.

Looking to your left as you come out of the living room and out into the Florida room you see the front door of the house.

This is the view looking back into the Florida room from the front door.

About half of the windows open and have screens, so it should be a nice place to sit and enjoy the nice weather.  This room is also heated and Air conditioned, so it is usable in all but the coldest or hottest weather.

At the rear of the house is the Master bedroom. it is fairly large and has a door going outside that Emily and her husband had installed because they wanted an exit at the rear of the house in case of an emergency, (such as a fire).
                                     
Looking back at the other end of the bedroom you can see the bathroom door to the left, one of 2 large closets to the center of the photo and the door going into the hallway to the right.

                                     

There is another smaller bedroom, but Jim didn't get a good photo of it. Linda will use that room for a sewing/craft room.

It's not a fancy home but Jim and Linda think that with a little painting, decorating and some furniture, it should be very comfortable.

Did you know that today is "National Pie Day"?

A Big Change For Jim And Linda Part 2

DeBary, FL.

60 deg. overcast, no wind.

Forecast = Overcast with a chance of rain, then a chance of a thunderstorm and rain showers in the afternoon. High of 79F. Winds from the NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.


In my last post, Jim and Linda had stopped at the Office of the Manufactured Home Park in DeBary.


Upon entering the office, they met Nancy, the Community Manager of the park. After talking to her for a little while and telling her what they were generally looking for in a home, she told them that she had a few that she thought they might like, and offered to show them to them.

Nancy showed Jim and Linda 4 different homes that day. 2 of them were single wide, (which Jim and Linda thought would be large enough for their purposes),  but soon realized that the storage in most single wide units was almost non existent. In fact, there was such a small amount of storage that they didn’t think that they’d even be able to find a place for the things that I’ve been carrying around.

The double wide units had much more storage room, but seemed way too big to them after living in an RV for 12 years. But, they pretty much decided that it was the way they needed to go.

Of the 2 double wide homes, one was much nicer than the other. It’s owned by an elderly lady who had lost her husband a year or so ago. Before he passed, they had done a lot of work on the home and since then, she has had even more work done.

After Christmas, and after thinking about the home over the Holiday, Jim and Linda decided that they wanted to go back and see the house again. So, on the 28th of  December, they called Nancy and made arrangements to go back and closely check it out.

After talking to Nancy for awhile about park regulations and other things about the park itself, they went over to the house.

The owner is a lady named Emily and she is in the process of packing up all her belongings and moving so that she is near where her daughter lives. She has a lot of items packed up already and it doesn’t look like it would take her too long to pack up the rest.

The home is an older home, (as are all of the homes in this community), but has been very well maintained and, like I said, has had a lot of work done on it.

The carpeting is fairly new, (less than 2 years), the flooring in the kitchen has just been replaced, there are new plumbing fixtures and sink basins in the bathrooms, the refrigerator is only about 2 years old, (as are the washer and drier), the steps leading into the kitchen have been replaced with wide and very sturdy steps with strong railings and the heat pump that heats and cools the house was replaced just this last spring.

Jim and Linda said that you can tell that the home was very well cared for and so far, only found a few small items that would need attention.

A Point to Ponder : Where in the nursery rhyme does it say humpty dumpty is an egg?

A Big Change For Jim And Linda Part 1

DeBary, FL.

50 deg. overcast, no wind.

Forecast = Mostly cloudy with a chance of rain. Fog early. High of 73F. Winds from the NNE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.


Well, here's the news you've been waiting for. As of today, 1/5/2013, this is what I know. There's still a few "t's" to cross and "i's" to dot, but I'm 99% sure that this is going to happen.

Jim and Linda are going to be making a big change in their lifestyle. I’ve known about it for a long time but was nothing definite and I know Jim and Linda didn't want me to say anything until they were sure that they were really going to do this.

They have decided to stop Full-Timing. Yep, you read that right. As early as last fall, Jim started to look on the Internet to find possible places to settle down. He did searches on different areas of the country to try to get an idea of what the climate would be like year round. He checked on cost of living, home prices, rent prices, taxes, insurance, licenses fees, and even crime rates. He did searches on stix and brix homes for sale, apartments to rent, Park models, and single wide and double wide manufactured homes for sale.

The location was the first thing that had to be determined. They wanted to be close to at least one of their kids and after much research and thought, both decided that Florida would probably be the best location for them.

The pros:  A state where the weather is good during the winter months.
                A state that is fairly close to some of their kids and grandkids. (3 of their   Children  along the East Coast,)
Low taxes
Low housing costs at this time.
Close to Laura and her family.

The cons: Very hot and humid summers.
Hurricanes.
Possible high insurance costs.
Almost as far away from Jeff in Portland Oregon as they can be.  : (

And, I’m sure there’s more pros and cons, but you get the idea. It’s just like everything else, there ain’t  no 10’s!!!!

So, the location was determined. Now they had to decide on what kind of home they wanted and could afford.

They looked at prices of stix and brix homes, some park models here at the Highbanks CampResort, Checked on rent prices and finally decided that a single wide or double wide manufactured home was within their budget and best met their needs.

So,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  between Thanksgiving and Christmas they started driving around to the manufactured home parks in this area and started looking at used single and double wide models.

The parks in this area range all the way from “trashy” to very “upscale”, so that cut down somewhat on the parks that would be of interest to them. (They were interested in a park that was somewhere in the middle).  ; )

Now, at all of these parks, you own the manufactured home, but you lease or rent the land, (or site), and pay a monthly or yearly fee. You pay for your own electricity at all of the parks and at some, the water, sewer, cable TV and other amenities are included.  But, at others, some or all of the amenities are paid for by the home owner. Of course prices vary widely, so you have to do your homework.

One of the first parks that they checked out up by DeLand and was kind of nice, but after doing some research and talking to some people, it was determined that they have a real problem with their water supply. (lots of rust and bad tasting.)  And, the park also has their own sewage plant, and it is right up to capacity. Soon the owners of this park will be forced to make major improvements so that will undoubtedly raise the prices at that park.

The next park was nice, but after talking to the sales lady they determined that their homes were quite high priced. It is in Orange city, so the location would have been very good. They also had some very strict “rules and regulations” in the park, so that was also a negative.

The next park was in DeBary. It is very nice, but Jim said that he didn't feel comfortable there. It’s a newer park and most of the homes have large yards with lots of landscaping. He and Linda both felt that it was too “upscale” for them to be comfortable at so they turned around and drove back out.

DeBary was also the location of the next park that they visited. It’s an older park that is well established. The homes are older but both the homes and the park appear to be very well maintained. They have a few single wide and a few double wide homes for sale, the lots are fairly small but the homes don’t seem to be too crowded together.

After driving through the park and doing a quick drive-by look at the homes that are for sale, Jim and Linda stopped at the office to get more information.

Did you know that on this date in 1933 - Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge began?