I love homes. I guess I always have -- I can remember noticing them, taking in their details, even as a kid. I've spent a lot of time over the years putting together the various features of my "dream home," changing them often as new trends pop up and new surfaces and designs and schemes pique my interest.
I notice houses everywhere -- I love to walk the fur-babes along my favorite neighborhood streets and gaze at the houses I love, imagining the families inside -- the life they've built in the comfort of a gorgeous brick house or a third floor walk-up or a mid-unit condo. I can get lost in this activity, and I never tire of seeking out new neighborhoods, finding houses to tour, gazing at homes built from scratch and with love.
HGTV is a favorite indulgence -- I love "Design to Sell," and "House Hunters," and any other show that provides the opportunity to peek in the windows of the myriad places people call home.
Needless to say, traveling to new cities dials this up a notch and checking out a place's architectural style is one of my favorite vacation past times.
On our recent trip to Florida, my house-seeing hobby got a most strenuous workout. To say the homes in Ft. Lauderdale and Boca Raton are gorgeous doesn't skim the surface. They are sprawling, opulent, amazing, fascinating, awe-inducing testaments to affluence and architecture -- good taste and top-notch design. Our mouths were gaping open for much of the time that we toured the "neighborhoods" by boat. Lucky for you, we were armed with our camera. Please to enjoy the tour from your front row seat!
There were spanish-tile roofs and palm tree lined corner lots whose backyard was quite literally the water:
There were sprawling, modern structures with floor-to-ceiling windows that you can imagine provide a stunning panoramic view from every room in the house:
There were behemoths that I thought just might require a zip code of their own:
There were intricate details and impressive design:
There was impressive landscape design and outdoor space aplenty:
And there were unique structures that I wanted to immediately claim as my own:
I could go on forever, but I'm not going to, because you guys -- don't even get me started on the boats. Care to come over and ride around on my mini cruise ship anyone?? Behold:
See what I mean? Those are what I believe my brother would refer to as sick. Amazing. I just kept wondering to myself: what do these people do?! (And do they need my help?!)
In case you're wondering though, we did do more on our trip than lust after homes and boats.
We enjoyed the amazing and much-missed company of good friends:
We talked. And talked, and talked and talked:
We imbibed while cruising the open sea (don't worry, with a driver):
We lounged in the sun, read books, ate good food, unplugged for a couple of days -- long story short, we had a hell of a time. And we're ready to go back. Can you blame us?
Thanks Beck & Jason - it was a blast. Pretty please can we have an encore quite soon? xoxo
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