Heading South?

Greetings!  I spent Sunday in Cincinnati, mostly to see a National Theater simulcast of Coriolanus.

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It was very good, and I had no idea that Tom Hiddelston, the star, is super famous (he plays Loki in the Thor/Avenger movies)--and that made me feel old.  But he was a great Coriolanus; I had never read the play, and it was minimally staged (which I don't typically enjoy) but it was easy to follow and generally excellent.  I will annoyingly mention again that the showings continue in March if you are interested.  We also checked out the Cincinnati art museum--the building was lovely, but I found the collections just OK overall.  It had this random feature called 6000 years of Art...which was just letting people walk through their storage.  It was a little weird, but also kind of cool--objets were grouped together in eras, but the paintings were totally randomly fixed on the wall.

Back at the homestead, the snow in my backyard is up to my knees (we don't shovel back there very often--which makes taking out the trash a little tricky), and we'll be getting a few more inches tonight after the ice storm moves through.  I'm thinking its time to go to Miami...which is why I bought a ticket to join Kevin at a conference there in 2 weeks.  He shouldn't have all the fun.

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Being rather pale and not overly fond of natural bodies of water, I'm more attracted to the live oaks and Spanish moss South than the Bouganvillea and little Havana South. But, considering studies are indicating that this winter is not a freak occurrence and just part of the new normal, Miami is looking better every day (as the live oak South does not have the same type of job opportunities).  This is what living in Miami looks like in my head (courtesy of pinterest...its late):

pic from USA, not Pinterest :)

So I hit Zillow.com to find out what living in Miami meant for me.  These two shots were pretty representative of my search results:

I'm guessing hurricanes and heat keep everyone with tile?  Hardwood is tough to find under $450K.  

But this looks promising at $300,000...no graffitti or bars on the windows, multi-story....until you read that it has 5 bedrooms but only 1770 sq feet.  How is that physically possible?  Oh yeah, it also has no interior pics b/c it needs a total gut job AND it backs up onto I-95.  Charming.

Actually, Miami is only 16% more expensive than Indianapolis on a cost-of-living basis.  Its just a lot denser so square footage and yards are hard to find.  As is the traditional Georgian-revival architecture I love--because this is what they were building in Miami in the 20s:

via zillow.com

This Coral Gables beauty can be yours for just under $1.7M; I could probably deal with replacing my center hall colonial with this beauty, but the more realistic option up top is less desirable.

But, living room fabric shopping has me contemplating some south Florida style for the heartland....what do we think about a pink couch?  Specifically, the third pink from the top:

I finally went to Calico Corners, which is apparently the only fabric store in town that made it through the recession (except the trade-only showroom that opened in the burbs in that period--a nice data point for the widening wealth gap).  I just needed to verify that this Robert Allen velvet

was the best blue I can get for $30/yd or less (for my couch slipcover).  Which only made me look at things that were $40 per yard, and consider colors besides blue...hence, the 2 additional Calico velvet options.  I also felt compelled to snap a pic of this velvet at $55/yd, which is getting a little high for a sofa I am not totally in love with, but it sort of looked like candy........

The Coral Gables Mansion would look great with a cotton candy colored couch, I'm sure....although maybe linen?

What do you think?  Worth moodboarding the green velvet and the pink herringbone?  What about blue#2? I would note that the Robert Allen velvet and the herringbone are "sturdy" and have some poly in them while the Como velvets are 100% cotton and not super heavy-weight.

I could always just scrap it all and go pineapples.  So tropical :)