Whispering Pine

It is no secret that my favorite tree is the palm tree. I love the way the canopies of Queen Palms sway in the wind and look majestic against the blue and sunny skies that we enjoy so often in Florida. As you drive Florida from the Panhandle to the Keys you will see another tree that is just as prevalent as the palms. The pine tree seems to grow everywhere that palm trees naturally grow. I can look out the back window of my house and just beyond the fence line there are a medley of pines and palms living a harmonious life. I cannot say that I love the pine tree like I love the palm tree but since researching the pine tree I find their history quite intriguing. The Oldest living tree in the world is a Great Basin Bristle Cone Pine named Methuselah and by his rings it is estimated that he is almost 5,000 years old. That means that he has been alive since the building of the great pyramids. So, I guess the pine tree deserves some recognition for its long standing in the world community. The Whispering Pine model has not been around as long as Methuselah, but it has been around a long time and has gone though a few different stages. Let’s peek into the Whispering Pine model with an open kitchen to see the improvements to the living room and the view of the golf course somewhere in the heart of the Villages.

  • Expansive view
This Whispering Pine model is another home with a vast expansive view! When you have such a beautiful view you want to enhance it and work with the view. Fabric treatments with print will tend to draw your attention to the treatment and not the view. Also, if the fabric is dark, then it will appear darker as the light pours through the windows. To highlight the view, we removed the old valences and added molding. The large sliding glass door had perfectly good functioning lumminettes. However, we did not want to see the lumminettes, we wanted to see the view and the molding. The molding contractor created wooden side panels to cover the lumminettes and blend into the cornice board above. The lumminette cannot be seen but when it is ready to be used it can be pulled out from behind the panel that looks like beautiful molding. The cornices for all the windows are almost to the ceiling and have several layers. They look luxurious and tall which draws the eye upward creating the optical illusion that the window is bigger.

  • Kitchen nook windows
The kitchen nook has three large windows in a bay window area and a fourth window on the side of the house near the kitchen. All the windows were trimmed out in molding on the sides and finished at the top with white cornice boards. The windows look bright and big. The window treatments for those windows are hidden up high in the cornice board so they are invisible until the homeowner needs them, then they drop down from behind their cornice board and blend in with the window.

  • Visual Cohesion
In this model, like many models, when you walk in the front door your eye goes to the back of the house which is all windows. When all the windows look big, bright, and finished in the same way, the view becomes the star of the show, and the windows are framing that view through a fabulous picture frame.

  • Wainscot
We added wainscot to the front of the island to give it a finished look. The front of the island in most homes is just drywall. That usually looks very unfinished and disconnected from the kitchen. When a wainscot treatment is added and painted totally white it makes the kitchen visually connect to the front of the island and the space looks finished.

  • Open the living room
We opened the living room by changing the position of the chairs. The original chairs were placed across from each other. We angled the chair in the front of the living room over to the left so that it was angling inward toward the conversation area. The new position invites visitors to come in and sit down. Also, we purchased two new chairs. The new chairs were of non-printed fabric so that they would blend nicely with the sofa and new rug. The new chairs are swivel rocking club chairs, and they are very comfortable! I always try to get swivel rocking chairs if I can because they are so inviting for guests.

  • New Rug
We added a new rug to the space to fill up the room. The rug has all the colors of the house and is a great rug to place in an area that will be walked through often. I like the rug to be placed very close to the entertainment buffet so that guests and the homeowner will be walking completely on the rug. A traffic pattered area should have a full rug or no rug because walking half on a rug and half off a rug can be a tripping hazard.

  • Pillows
We purchased some amazing, embroidered pillows that have such vibrant colors. The colors are all in the rug, on the lanai and in the office space which is all visible from the living room.

  • New Lamps
The homeowner fell in love with the new pineapple lamps. They are works of art. The lamps come from Thailand and are handmade. The very large version is a great modern take on the iconic pineapple. The pineapple is the classic symbol for hospitality and stylish taste.
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Before and After Pics Below