My ideal beach house has bookshelves full of paperbacks that can tolerate a little sand, a DVD library that includes some Disney classics for the little ones, board games, and jigsaw puzzles. At least one big flatscreen television is a must.
I'm house obsessed, a house voyeur. Always have been.
Between planning family vacations and running away for novel-writing retreats, I've spent much of my adult life questing for the perfect beach escape, renting cottages all along the Florida Gulf and up and down the Atlantic Coast - as far north as Nags Head, as far south as Key West.
Slipcovers are great because they can be laundered after those all-too-frequent sippy cup and red wine incidents.
For years, I swore I couldn't work out because my own sweat gave me a rash.
The story of my holiday decorating is if Ralph Lauren was trapped in a 1950s Woolworth, this is what it would look like.
