Your bright ideas
[Times photo: Lara Cerri]
A pool table isn’t the only thing Brett Phillips has in the game room at his Indian Rocks Beach townhouse. “I like my toys,” he says.
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Homeowners show off their creativity and imagination in solving problems in their own homes.
By JUDY STARK, Times Homes Editor
© St. Petersburg Times
published May 18, 2002
A glass-encased 'Vette
INDIAN ROCKS BEACH -- What owner of more than one car hasn't faced the problem of how to get both cars in a small garage?
For Brett Phillips, it wasn't just any car. It was his 1964 Corvette Stingray convertible, which he wasn't about to leave on the street.
The one-car garage at his townhouse was "about three feet too short" to allow him to park the Corvette and his second car, a 2000 Dodge Viper RT/10, bumper to bumper.
"Why don't you cut a hole in the wall?" suggested his girlfriend, Carla Cristofori.
That's exactly what Phillips did. He cut a hole between the garage and the game room behind it so he could pull the Corvette forward into the room. Then he had a glass company create a box out of quarter-inch tempered plate glass to cover the front of the 'Vette. There's black carpeting on the floor, a tire block so he doesn't pull too far forward, and track lighting to illuminate the hood of the car.
Phillips slanted the top of the glass box to conform to the contour of the hood. That also allows elbow room when he's playing pool in the game room, and it stops guests from placing drinks on the box.
"I like my toys," said Phillips, whose day-to-day car is a 2002 Toyota 4Runner in which he plays soccer dad to his son, 7, and daughter, 12, who live with his former wife in Seminole. He parks that outside, but there's room in the garage for his Harley Springer. (The 27-foot Sea Ray is moored out back.) Phillips, 41, is chief operating officer of the medical division of St. Petersburg-based NCLI, a company that provides dietary supplements, vitamins and herbal products.
The '64 Stingray is "among the rarest" Corvettes, Phillips said. "There was limited production; you don't see that many." The car was about three-quarters restored when he bought it 10 years ago. "They took it down to bare fiberglass; they acid-dipped it," he said, showing an album of step-by-step photos of the restoration process. He finished the restoration, doing "mostly cosmetic stuff."
The Corvette, which started its life gold and is now white with a black top, "is basically a decorator car," Phillips said. He takes it out maybe once every three months, mainly to shows, where he has won about a dozen trophies. "I don't put more than a couple hundred miles a year on it," he said. He estimates the car is worth $30,000 to $40,000.
The glass-encased Corvette is a conversation piece for visitors, Phillips said, and it allows him to enjoy the car even when he's not driving it.
A room with a view
[Times photo: Fred Victorin] |
Artists from Vitale Bros. Artworx transformed a blank exterior wall at James Harley’s St. Petersburg home, below, into a colorful mural.
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ST. PETERSBURG -- The living room windows looked out on a blank block-and-stucco wall, created by an extension of their bedroom. It was so unsightly, "we kept the blinds closed all year," homeowner James P. Harley said.
[Times photo: Fred Victorin]
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Then one day, he spotted a mural on a building near the drive-through of the Bank of America on Treasure Island. A lush tropical garden with ferns and palms and flowers advertised a landscaping company. So the thought occurred to Harley and his wife, Miriam "Mimi" Harley, transplants from Brooklyn: Why not paint something worth looking at on that eyesore of a wall?
Now the wall -- 8 feet high, 11 feet long -- is covered in rich foliage that almost looks three-dimensional, a winding road, a cardinal ("my wife's favorite bird"), a Yorkshire terrier ("my wife's a Yorkie nut, she used to raise them"), an egret ("she loves to feed them") and a butterfly.
It took two and a half days to paint the mural, Harley said. The cost: "Less than $1,000," Harley said.
The artists, from Vitale Bros. Artworx, (727) 520-0969, painted the bottom half of the wall black to give a deep, dimensional look to the dark-green foliage. The company offers many other looks: faux stonework, brick, woodgrain, sky and clouds, decorative archways, children's murals, landscapes, underwater scenes.
Display your memories
[Times photo: Carrie Pratt] |
Plant shelves in Robert and Karen Hutson’s Oldsmar home showcase keepsakes from their sons’ early years.
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OLDSMAR -- What to do with all the baby things, the treasured heirlooms, the handmade items you hope will be passed along to children and grandchildren?
Especially in Florida, with no basements or attics to store those items.
"New homes have tall ceilings with ledges for ivy, flowers and favorite decorations," Dorothy Hutson of Clearwater wrote in a letter to the Homes section. Her family's thought: Why not use those plant shelves to display family memorabilia?
So that's what happened at the home of her son and daughter-in-law, Robert and Karen Hutson, and their sons Brendan, 13, and Bradley, 10.
Up on the plant shelves went the wooden cradle and rocking horse made by Karen's father, the baby quilts her mother made for each of the boys and the afghan made by her sister. The boys' stuffed animals -- including the teddy bear given to Brendan by his grandparents the day he was born -- are up there too. That's also where the Hutsons have created a display of pictures of the boys.
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Robert and Karen Hutson with sons Brendan, 13, and Bradley, 10.
[Times photo: Carrie Pratt]
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It was a better solution than trying to sell the items or keeping them in storage indefinitely, Karen Hutson said. In fact, "we had these things in storage for many years, since the kids were little. We'll pass these on to the children some day, but what do you do for 20 years with no basements?" When the Hutsons moved into their Oldsmar home last August, the plant shelves presented the solution.
"You can't help smiling and remembering all it has to offer now instead of being packed away to be seen by no one," the proud grandma wrote.
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