If you are not one of the seven to twelve people who follow this blog regularly, you should know that I am currently sharing my attempt to revive a little thirty year old cottage by the bay near Grayton Beach, Florida…..

….without killing myself or my husband along the way! 

*******UPDATE*******

Recent events, including but not limited to Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma and Tropical Storm Nate have put me a bit behind schedule on sharing the progress of my little project on the bay. I’ve been getting plenty of things done– but with all the driving back and forth and moving patio furniture inside and outside and inside again; I just haven’t had the time to sit and write about it. Exactly one month ago today, I finally sat down to get things going again and not long after I finished the post below; I received a call from my son informing me that The Linger Long-er Cottage was fully a-blaze and the fire trucks were rolling in full speed ahead. (If you subscribe to Good Grit Magazine–and you really should subscribe–you can read all about it in the 2018 January/February AWAKEN issue.) Thankfully, nobody got hurt, but the renovation reporting will come to a full stop with this post. I’ll pick things up again once we have a plan in place and I hope you’ll tune in to find out:

1. Will we rebuild?

2. Will I kill my husband for burning the house down?

Only time will tell.

In the meantime, please enjoy this hopefully humorous story about the previously updated bathroom that is now charred and black.

Good times.

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I am a student of beautiful interior design and decor. Not an actual student, and certainly not an actual interior designer or decorator, but rather a student of books and magazines  who covets anything written by Dorothy Draper and Bunny Williams and Phoebe Howard as well as every copy of House Beautiful and Traditional Home and Veranda and House and Garden UK–you name it–that I have ever seen. I even have a stack of neatly organized back issues of Southern Accents which went out of business years ago because …….good taste never goes out of style.

Sometimes when I catch a home show on television and see the “before” scenes I am amazed at the choices some people make when it comes to furnishing and decorating their homes. My amazement is often accompanied by one of my most uttered phrases:

“Baskin Robins has thirty one flavors for a reason.”

For those of you who may not know; Baskin Robins is an ice cream parlor famous for having thirty one flavors available to choose from on any given day. It’s where Ferris Beuller passed out, no doubt due to the overwhelming number of choices before him. My use of this phrase has nothing to do with ice cream but rather is a polite way to describe people who make choices that I most certainly would not.

For instance, when I see the decorating choices made by the previous tenants of this cottage I feel like they were definitely black walnut people. A perfectly respectable flavor–and my grandfather’s favorite–chosen by perfectly respectable people, but number thirty one on my list for sure. Possibly even thirty two.

Within 15 minutes of closing on this house, I ripped down the dated glass shower doors and quickly replaced them with a shower curtain I inherited from my best friend’s mother during her last move. She was changing EVERYTHING out in her new house and very graciously offered to let me have first dibs.

I love all things blue and white and all things chinoiserie so when she announced that the Lee Jofa, Willow drapes, bedskirt, shams and shower curtain were up for grabs– I grabbed fast. The pattern is perfect in this bathroom and will also be used in our son’s room across the hall. It is such happy fabric and it makes me think of of my sweet friend and her mother every time I see it.

Truth be told–she also had the blue and red color way in her guest room so I bought that from her too.  What? You never know what you might need…. and it is actually providing a great fill in for our guest room until I get that all figured out a bit later down the menu.

Both of the bathrooms here are much smaller than one would hope and right now there’s no way I can change that. Storage is quite limited and you can’t blame anyone for having their belongings all along the vanity as there was really nowhere else to put them. (However, on behalf of real estate agents everywhere, I must point out that those things could have easily been placed aside by the listing agent for the photographs!)

I decided to be as thrifty as possible with the changes I made and chose not to replace the vanity but rather to have it painted. It was easy to find a great, inexpensive countertop replacement at Lowe’s and I found the faucets, cabinet hardware and lighting there as well.

The small, thin cabinets above the sink were very well made but unfortunately didn’t allow for much storage; so we opted to remove them along with the slimline mirror and switch to a mirrored cabinet. The downstairs bath is the one Mr. gets to use (You do know the secret to a happy marriage is separate bathrooms don’t you?) and so far, he has managed to keep it neat and tidy. Only time will tell if he ends up getting in trouble for slipping into a rocky road way of life.

For now, I am very happy with the results of this small space, second hand, bargain basement bathroom re-do. It works great for what we need at the moment and I’m now off to another project across the hall.

 

If you are one of the seven to twelve people who follow this blog regularly, you’ll know what’s going on. If not, click back one post and you’ll be all caught up with the rest of us. Take your time, we will wait. 

And now on with the next installment of my attempt to revive a little thirty year old cottage by the bay….without killing myself or my husband along the way! 

 

Several years ago we spent Fourth of July with some very dear friends from Georgia. They drove down to stay with us at the beach and we all had the BEST time imaginable.

During their visit they christened our former home as the “Linger Long-er Inn and Spa” which, of course, was a complete joke as we didn’t have much room there at all and it was nothing close to a spa. The name stuck however and we have now carried it over with us to our new little homestead on the bay. The Linger Long-er Cottage is up and running and I can’t wait to welcome our friends for a second visit!

Due to a little health scare and hospital stay for my Daddy (who is perfectly fine now) my grand plan for a week long packing session followed by a two day move was quickly transformed to a 48 hour pack AND move which was simply tons of fun!

Once I managed to get everything transferred it looked like bomb exploded……

….after a tornado blew through.

I wanted everything in a proper place immediately–which was not even a remote possibility so I decided to start on the outside and work my way in. The yard needed to be cleaned up and fenced in and the house needed to be spruced up so the first chore I decided to tackle was putting a fresh coat of paint on the exterior.

 

 

I have always wanted to live in a white house with black shutters  but sadly I knew that color scheme wouldn’t suit this particular house.

 

Since I had to go in an unknown direction, and since my husband was allowed no say whatsoever in the matter, I worked my way through saved photos and chose a picture of a very pretty blue house on the water to mimic.

 

I made him drive me all over town until I found a local house that was very much like the special picture I had chosen. I really need to see things in person and he knows this about me. He couldn’t have cared less what color I was going to paint the house but he did care about me being in a happy mood so he was a great sport during the entire house stalking adventure. He even pretended to be excited about the whole process.

 

 

 

 

 

The greatest painter in the world (Clayton–who I can’t live without) helped me through every step. We had a long-distance-paint-relationship for about a month and he was amazing! He diligently sent photos all along the way during the decision making process and kept it up until the project was complete. He was very good to put up with me (which is no easy task by any stretch of the imagination) and he kept me fully informed at every turn.

In the end, we went with Benjamin Moore Santorini Blue on the exterior walls, Dragon’s Breath on the porch floor, steps and doors, Glass Slipper on the porch ceiling and Sherwin Williams Pure White on the trim.

 

Just in time for Fourth of July to roll around again, the outside was finally starting to take shape! The fence is up, the yard is somewhat on the way to being a yard again and Mr. is getting so excited he even bought himself a lawnmower and a weed eater! That man hasn’t hit a lick at a snake in 25 years but he’s now suddenly decided he wants to do yard work. I love it!

 

When I arrived for the first time to see the new look in person I couldn’t have been happier and I wanted to give Clayton an award. He’s coming back for some inside projects soon and I can not wait! In the meantime, here are some shots of the exterior and it is finally starting to take shape.

BEFORE   and  AFTER

After keeping a somewhat-slightly-regular schedule with my original blog I have been fortunate to stay busy as a freelance writer these last few years.  I admit I was also absent from blogging due to my hesitance to write about current events.  The state of the world, and the country I am blessed to live in, has been somewhat crazy these last few months. The overwhelming barrage of media coverage during the Presidential election followed by the ridiculous aftermath left me feeling safer staying under the radar. I’m not scared of the world–oh no. I have too much faith in God for that. I am scared of my MOUTH and what it might say, or what my fingers might type…. so it’s been a pretty good idea for me to hide out. I try (at least publicly) to follow the advice of Miss Jane Austen and restrict comments to the weather or the state of the roads when I have nothing nice to say– so I have felt it best to zip my lip and sit on my hands to keep myself out of trouble. I have chosen to break my silence now not to berate or chastise anyone or any group but rather to take things in an all new direction. We have enough ugly, negative, hateful information being thrown at us on a daily basis so I have decided to commit to something lovely. (And by the way–there’s a LOT more lovely out there in the world than there is ugly. You see what you look for.)

After years in the thick of things down on Scenic Highway 30A, my family decided we wanted a quieter more slow-paced place to spend our time. We started looking for a place on the bay about two years ago and last winter we finally hit the jackpot. It’s a precious little cottage near Grayton Beach, Florida (and is a definite fixer upper) but once we saw the view (seen in the shot above) we were hooked. After only a few short visits, we have already fallen in love with the quiet, tree lined street, the delightful neighbors and the charming setting.

I am certainly not a decorator or designer by trade but like so many others I enjoy pretending I am– at least in my own home– and I already have a file full of fabric swatches, paint chips and magazine tear sheets lined up and ready to go. The “fabric closet” in my basement will be put into full use and my husband will finally get to see why I needed all of that fabric to begin with. Like I’ve told him for years…….you buy the whole bolt because you never know what you might need!

I definitely know what direction I want to travel with this project but I am trying to keep in mind that it will be a lengthy journey. I firmly believe it is much better to take your time and be sure to choose things you love rather than trying to fill a space quickly with things you’ll soon grow tired of. It has taken me years to learn that lesson but I now know I would rather have an empty room than one filled with items I chose quickly when I wasn’t sure of myself.

The house was built by a delightful family long ago and I can easily tell that it overflowed with love for many, many years. Although it has been a long term rental property for quite a while; I hope to recreate that original loving environment for my own family and bring it back to life. While I know It won’t happen overnight; I’m looking forward to sharing the transformation here as I go along.

Here are a few “before” shots of the outside and even though you can see there’s quite a long way to go, I can’t wait to get started so…….stay tuned!