Congrats on your new adventure!
I lived for a number of years in Deerfield Beach, Florida, which is just south of Boca on the Atlantic. Is your pool enclosed in a screen room? Everyone I know who had a pool did this. Without the enclosure they usually ended up with an alligator in their pool eventually. Sometimes, the gators even crawled through the dog doors from the outside into the screened pool room to swim. We had to call Fish & Game, from what I remember, who'd snare them and pull them out of our pools. As this did happen frequently, I'm sure that someone has come up with a gator-proof dog door by now.
Lynn

Welcome to Central Florida !

What is MCM?

Hi Lynn, thanks so much, Oh my, thank goodness it does have a screen room and we are high and dry at about 150 elevation for florida, near Inverness. Although there are woods around us, there is no standing water anywhere near by. We have cats and will put in a small door for them, so hopefully that will keep out the gators.

Lynne, that just isn't true. I've lived in Florida for 35+ years and gators do NOT usually, frequently or often do any of what you are saying is common and normal!

Does one ever end up in a pool, patio or even kitchen? Sure. But it is far from common and as for gators frequently crawling through pet doors...that's just silly! I won't say it has NEVER occurred but believe me that is big news in this part of the world and no, it isn't typical gator behavior.

Ann

thanks homebodymom, MCM is mid century modern, I used to like antiques but after many years I have not developed a liking to a more modern style.

Oh yeah...it is always a newsworthy item when a gator gets in a house or pool...scary. We have the same thing in California, but it is rattle snakes and though it doesn't happen all the time, it is frequent enough to be wary.

My ninety one year old Mom lives in the mountains above San Diego on 10 acres. Our family killed many rattle snakes over the years. Just this year she went into her large guest bathroom and a rattle snake was hiding out by the sliding glass door. She didn't want it to get in the rest of the house so she closed the door with her and the snake in the bathroom with it striking at her. She didn't have anything to kill it with, looked around, thought about spraying it with hairspray...finally ended up grabbing the toilet brush and beating it to death...LOL. Don't mess with my Mom.

springvillage...your house sounds wonderful and I just love all those colors you mentioned...so tropical and fun. I look forward to seeing your pictures and watching as you "do it again." :=0

Note to self...don't move to Florida. lol

Vampiressrn, I've killed a number of rattlesnakes--once even while barefoot, in the dark, with a garden hoe--which I thought was a bit too casual for safety... But your mom wins the prize. In the bathroom with a toilet brush deserves an award. My hat is off to her. lol

Springvillegardens, congrats on your new/old house. Think of all the great lessons you learned about remodeling with your other house. It's good not to waste all that knowledge and experience.

I'll take on the snakes here in FL--black racers and regular ole black snakes. I don't want no rattlers.

I grew up in Colorado and know about those things!

Just saw my first black racer yesterday. Half scared him to death! I'm on a barrier island between the ocean and the mainland. No gators here, except the ones that graduated from Univ. of FL.

I'm sorry if I made it sound as if every pool in Florida that isn't well enclosed will end up eventually with a gator swimming in it. I'm very sure that all of them won't and haven't. BUT, this did happen to me . . . in my pool . . . in Deerfield Beach,Florida, and we did have to have the county send someone out to haul it away. The guys who came told me to my face that they got calls all the time to come pull gators out of pools. Now, "all the time" is definitely open to personal interpretation and they could have been exaggerating. But I do have many friends and family members still living in Florida in the Deerfield, Boca, Ft.Lauderdale area and in the Tampa area, as well, and many having told me similar stories of this happening to them or friends of theirs. So, just for the record, I was NOT lying about gators in pools. I'm sure that RIP was just going on her own experience in her part of Florida, which may never have this happen to them.

I lived in Boynton Beach FL for 8 years - 1 year in Deerfield Beach. We never had a pool for a gator to wander into, but what I remember was people who lived along canals having their dogs snatched and eaten by the gators.

I think you'll use that screened in area - I remember the mosquitos and love bugs making outdoor activities bothersome at certain points of the year.

When picking out your new home choices, keep in mind your air conditioning preferences. In FL, unlike CA, it is very humid. You need to run your air almost year round - maybe not so much in the winter, but the humidity gets into your house and the air - even if you keep it high removes that moisture from the air.

I personally love travertine floors in homes in florida, or good indestructible tile. Laminate isn't a favorite of mine because I don't like the clicky sound it makes when you walk on it with shoes. I'm sure there's some better than other ones out there, I'd just be careful of any with wood backing if you're not an air conditioning kind of person.

My husband is dying to move back to Florida! I told him we had to wait until DS3 graduates as he's a big hockey guy and hockey teams are pretty scarce in Florida.

So, he's greasing the skids talking DS3 into going to college in FL so we won't feel bad moving away and leaving him if he goes to school in Ohio!

"Note to self-don't move to Florida"

Note to self-don't mess with vamp's mom! I LOVE that story. I hope I will be like that when I am 91. I would love to meet her.

Well, we've got snakes. They had to fix the compressor on the ac unit before we move in next week and guess what - there was a gopher snake in there they had to remove - poor little guy, I guess they are beneficial snakes so we're sorry he was removed. I wonder if we should put some kind of guard around the unit?

There are rattlesnakes, coral snakes, copperheads, and cottonmouths in florida, so best to be careful wherever you live. Cottonmouths are the most aggressive and dangerous, we heard.

We had laminate in some areas of our last house and it did click somewhat but we got used to it and it is inexpensive. We'd like to have tile, but just can't afford the labor to put it in and with both of our bad backs we can no longer put it in ourselves. Perhaps we can do a trade out for labor, something to thing about.

I'm in Fl on the east coast south of Cape Canaveral and have a lot of laminate. We went with it over wood due to scratch resistance (dogs, teen-aged boys and lots of ubiquitous Florida sand) and high humidity (we don't run A/C in the winter). Some of it has been in for nearly 10 years and still looks great except for a couple of small dings where *somebody* dropped a hammer. Good luck with your reno and welcome to FL.

I moved away from FL two years ago, but highly recommend Pebble Tech for the pool, if the budget allows. It's gorgeous stuff. Go right to the guy in St. Pete who does it, if you can. We used a local pool guy who subbed it out to him and wish we had gone direct.

Can't wait to see pictures!

Start with the roof, because a leaking roof will damage the interior remodels.

I agree with Pebble Tec or pebble Sheen (similar products).

Don't agree with "go direct" ... get bids. The bid from the specialist was high, so we went with someone else, and a crew from the specialist showed up to do the actual work. (pricing, I don't understand it)

Wow...never thought I'd see that posted anywhere here. My dad has lived there since 1972. He's an architect and my stepmom is a designer there. He designed the rescue station on the beach, tons of strip malls, homes, etc....

And for what it's worth, the alligator stories ARE true...have seen them in pools, canals, etc. And in Gainesville, where my brother went to school, you would have to ride your bike around them on campus...they just sun themselves in the middle of the roads.

thanks all, I know we need to get the roof and pool done asap, roof due to rain and pool since it is drained and it may pop out of the ground, although it is raised on the back end due a sloped lot.

we just looked at some 16 inch tile on sale at Lowe's for 68cents a square foot and I was thinking tile would be better due to the humidity here.

we are on the pool forum and have also heard of marbletite and are researching it and lining up bids.

my credit union didn't wire money today so a delay in closing for one more day, seems they like to keep the money but they don't mind taking it from you. ha