Back in October, I wrote a post about looking at other condos versus staying put. Here’s my earlier blog post In that article, I explained our thinking about the pros and cons of upgrading to a larger condo. So where do we stand now?

We decided to stay here. But since the condo had some “problems,” we made some major improvements: Porcelain tile was installed everywhere in our condo except in our master bedroom, where we left carpeting. We even installed slate-looking tile on the lanai. We bought four nice barstools for the counter between the great room and the kitchen. We had a lovely tiled shower built in the master bathroom.

So what about next year? What are our plans?

We started to “rearrange” our guest room so it can be used as a music room, but the bed still occupies most of the space. We need to replace/remove the bed. When we come back in the fall, we’ll either bring a futon or an inflatable bed with a folding frame that makes the queen-size air mattress “standard bed height.” We have both a futon and the inflatable at our home in Michigan and could get by without them there.

When we were talking about buying a larger place, my daughter (who is most apt to visit) commented that she felt we’d be better off making our current guest room multi-purpose. She was the one to suggest that we use an inflatable bed. When the bed is stored away, the room will definitely accommodate our instruments with space to spare. Probably we’ll go with the blow-up mattress because the futon will be hard to transport (and the futon mattress is only standard-size while the inflatable is a queen.)

The current dresser and chest of drawers are part of the “very dated” set with the bed. I’d like to junk them all and buy simple storage pieces like those they sell at Ikea. (I definitely need lots of drawer space for bathing suits and sweaters.)

In addition to the guest room furniture, we definitely need to replace the two antique recliners in the living room as well as the lanai furniture. The “office area” needs to have more cupboards added and the existing ones painted white.

But next year, the big project will be replacing the window in the great room with the wonderful view. We can either put in slider doors across the whole end, or windows that don’t have the multiple “bars” and come down to about a foot from the floor. It would make such a difference and I’d be able to watch the pond while seated on the sofa!

We need to replace our dishwasher with one that’s black and quieter. The master bathroom still needs additional storage/cabinets. To do everything will take time. We’re doing it all slowly. The guest room and the great room window are my priorities, but we’re comfortable even if we don’t do anything further.

We’re really glad we didn’t move. The place may be smaller than we’d like, but the view is unequaled. (Eight of the photos I’m including in my coffeetable photo book photos which were mentioned prominently in yesterday’s post were the view out our great room window.)

When seated in our great room, we are far enough from other condos, that we really can’t see other people closely enough to recognize them. (We’re more than a city block from those condos in our view. Only when golfers are teeing off from the short tee directly behind our condo, can we “see” individuals and that’s only early in the day. Actually watching the golfers is a sport of its own and I’d miss it, if we didn’t have their antics to observe.