May Day...

Probably best to not say that while on a boat or in an airplane.  Today is the first of May.  When I was a kid, you left a basket of treats for your friends on May Day... kind of a reverse of what kids do on Halloween.

This is kind of a big deal for us today: our new private mail boxes get their first use today.  That may not seem monumental, but this will be the first time since we have owned here that our mailing address and our physical address are the same.  No longer will we have to ask, "How are you shipping that?" when ordering something... our address was different depending on USPS or UPS/FedEx.  And these days, you can't count on something being shipped FedEx or UPS won't get switched to the USPS for that last leg.  It makes me want to order something!

We have owned here for almost 20 years.  I was thinking about all the changes we've seen since we first bought here... our village was an upscale RV resort - you purchased your lot and could put it in the rental pool when you weren't here.  It was a great place to spend the winter in our motorhome, and be able to have a dock to keep a sailboat right there.  This resort was unique amongst all the RV resorts we had visited... a golf course, tennis courts, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, an event center, a billiards room, miniature golf course, shuffleboard courts, gated security - but the big selling point for us was: many of the lots are on canals (we are on an island) and we could buy a lot with a dock and keep a boat there.

A change was taking place at the time we bought: owners were allowed to build a cottage home on their lot (called "stick built" around here) or bring in a park home, which is a small manufactured home on an RV type chassis.  The owners bought the resort from the developer and things really began to change... there was one street with Sea Cottages at the far end of the resort.  These were duplexes that were designed to be rentals; when they first offered these (in the early 90s), you could get one for $49,900, furnished... less than the cost of a lot and an RV.  By the time we bought here, cottages homes were gaining in popularity.  In the years we've owned here, the resort has gone from Sea Cottages and RV lots to mostly homes built on site (which is what we have).  There are still some RV lots, but only about 10%.

We still have all the amenities, and where the resort used to be mostly folks from up north who came here in the winter and rented out their lots in the summer, there are now quite a few people who live here year 'round.  There have been changes in the building codes since we built, as well.  There used to be a limit on square footage for a cottage home (850 sq ft) to where now you can build any size that will fit your lot.  In order to be certified for hurricane and flood insurance, we had to build to TDI specifications that included allowing for water to flow under the floor of our house (our house is built on cement block pilings with siding that allows water flow.  Now, homes are being built with full concrete block foundations, allowing for a lower liveable area (ours is just storage).  That adds square footage for those who build that way, but concerns me since they no longer allow the water to flow through in case of a hurricane storm surge.  Hopefully, we won't have to deal with that in our lifetime.

Riding my bike around this morning, I took a few photos.  A new Cottage Home being built...

Because the lots are not all identical in size and shape, you can design your home any way you want it - some folks allow for more covered deck space, some would rather have as much allowable space inside.  Some of the pie shape lots in the corners allow for even more decking.  Having spent a few years here in our motorhome, it was nice to be able to design our house the way we wanted to allow for built-ins and an open floorplan.  It felt plenty spacious after being in the motorhome.

As I mentioned, there are still some RV lots...

You can tell in the photo above, there are homes on either side of the lot.

A view of some of the Sea Cottages...

These are some of the early Sea Cottages - in later years, they did build some singles and expanded roof lines and second levels to allow more living space.  They all have a similar style to them, though owners can do what they want with the interiors.  We looked at several Sea Cottages before we built, but preferred to start with a blank sheet and have our living all on one level.

A look down our canal...

This is what drew us to this place.  We looked closely at different lots on other canals on the island and felt this location gave us the best protection for a boat.  We built the house as a vacation home when we still lived in the frozen northland.  When we retired and moved from there, we thought we'd give this a try as our home base.  Yeah, it seems to be working just fine.  ;-)