" Dale [unk], Florida artist, you are man of many hats. You paint. You sculpt. You build furniture and you design furniture, and occasionally, you build a very whimsical house, right?"

" Yeah, I had a lot of fun building this one. I was able to do something that was fun with dolphins and herons and some milder carvings on it."

" Neat."

" I'd like you to come inside and see what it's like. You know, the great white heron is one of the most beautiful birds of Florida, and that's why I like to use them in my building as many chances as I get."

" They're very pretty, yeah. Also, the dolphin makes a real nice touch."

" That's very nice on the corner there. Well, can in we go through here?"

" Sure, you can Bob."

" This is fabulous. Huge screen porch and a wonderful view of the Gulf of Mexico, a flag waving in the wind."

" Great breezes come through this porch."

" A big porch. What's the dimensions?"

" It's a 10 x 24 porch."

" The whole width to the house."

" Plenty of room to kick out your feet."

" And you got a huge white heron flying up there."

" Yeah, that's one of the flying herons that I've made. They're really made to be viewed from the bottom."

" And they're made out of poplar, and then they're lacquered."

" That's beautiful."

" Yeah."

" Then, let's see. We have a great room through the French doors here."

" Yeah, come on in here. It's supposed to just be a sort of a continuous part of the porch."

" Yeah. The colors are spectacular, the blues and greens and pinks."

" Well the owners said to me that just go ahead and do whatever you want"

" Yeah."

" and now given all these colors, did you make a lot of things in here like this table?"

" I made this table and this is a heron table also like the rest of the things in here, and it's a carved heron. Well, there's its eye right there. You can get oriented, and it's all made out of cypress like the rest of my other furniture. It has cypress tree for a bottom."

" That's an actual stump, yeah."

" That's a stump."

" Very nice."

" And the top is just laminated. You can make it with three tools. You can use a grinder."

" Uh-hmm."

" And sanders and----"

" A router?"

" a jigsaw."

" Yeah. A jigsaw?"

" No. I've never touched them with the router."

" No?"

" I've never used a router."

" Nice work Dale."

" Thank you."

" Now, did you also do this? The mahogany."

" Yeah, I've brought in the mahogany trim just to give a little richness to the room and I thought it would be nice and natural. This is the herons sort of fighting over a fish here."

" Dueling herons."

" Dueling herons. That's right."

" And then of course, you've got a terrific window seat."

" Yeah, large Honduran mahogany slab."

" [unk] that is all one board, huh?"

" Yes, I found a couple of boards like that. I have another one right here. It's 36 inches wide. A beautiful board with a lot of depth to it to use for the counter."

" Yeah. Now, overhead, you've got these lookouts that are also carved birds. How do you make those?"

" Those are part of the joists on top of their kitchen there and we leave them sticking out about 3 to 4 feet, so that after the job is done, I can go back and make whatever I want to out of them."

" Okay. So you just get up on a ladder and you carve. You hand-carve them or----"

" I use a jigsaw and a grinder and then finish-sand them and paint them"

" So you [unk] with power tools."

" Up there on the ladder."

" Yeah."

" Very, very exciting. What about this? Did you make this fish?"

" Yes, this is something new I've been doing, making fish. And this is made out of a piece of poplar with Honduran mahogany fins."

" Yeah."

" Has a glass eye in it from the taxidermist."

" What kind of a fish would it be?"

" This is a sport fish. They catch it right around here with a permit."

" A permit fish. I've heard of them."

" Yeah."

" Yeah, they're good [unk] to catch."

" Right."

" Well, you know, this would really look stunning. Something like this back at our little cracker cottage, maybe hanging over the fireplace."

" Well."

" We can negotiate."

" That's for sale."

" Yeah? We should talk. So the kitchen is opened on to the great room and you got the great colors going through it. Yeah."

" Well, this is my favorite room as far as the colors go. I love the peach and the turquoise together with the blue in the ceiling and lavender."

" The blue ceiling, yeah. Yeah."

" I did a little different treatment on the screen doors here and put screen in them and lacquer them. Use a stencil and repeat the clouds and herons motif on there."

" Right."

" And it sort of gives an old-fashioned [unk] look to it."

" How many bedrooms?"

" It has two bedrooms. It has a small loft and a master bedroom."

" Okay, and this is the master?"

" This is the master."

" Fine bed, huh?"

" Well, this is another example of using the cypress logs that I go out and cut."

" Uh-hmm."

" And I make a free-standing bed the same way, but this is a permanently attached bed with logs. I like the way the base flares out in the old cypress tree."

" That's the way they grow up in the swamp, right?"

" Right, they are. You cut them off below the waterline."

" Yeah. And then how do you get the bark off?"

" Well, you use a [unk] to get the bark off and then you sand them on down."

" Sure, sure. And the colors in the room are special. You've got lavenders and creams and green and----"

" The lavender and turquoise"

" Yeah."

" are very nice together."

" It really has that feel of Key West, you know, of being in a tropical place. Can I lift this off so we can look at it?"

" You sure can."

" Look at this bedspread. Tell me about it."

" This bedspread is made by a good friend of mind, Beth Russell."

" And she takes and hand-paints and stains them all. Each one is different and then she quilts them. She does these and rugs and clothing. That's absolutely beautiful."

" She's very talented. Did she make the cushions also?"

" Oh, these are some silk-painted cushions, and it's something new she's making. They're very nice."

" That's spectacular."

" Colors are wonderful."

" Just fabulous colors, yeah. Now, is she the artist who also painted this Florida Sea?"

" No, that's done by a friend of mine from Everglade City, Camille Baumgardner."

" Yeah."

" And she's very talented and really committed to her artwork."

" That's sky. I've seen skies like that. She's good. Yeah."

" She loves the Everglade."

" Yeah, so what's back here?"

" We put the back porch on in order to keep the weather off the building."

" Well, it does get pretty windy on the gulf side sometimes, doesn't it?"

" Yes, it does."

" You can take a meal here."

" Nice place to have breakfast."

" That's great. You've got a whole school of dolphin overhead."

" Yeah, we carved those out of the 2 x 12's and make up the top of the kitchen and the bedroom."

" Yeah, the loft is up there. Well, Dale, you've done a gorgeous job here."