A Beach-y Master Bedroom!

Thanks so much to many friends who have asked how our Tybee cottages came through when Hurricane Irma blew in recently! I appreciate your concern and am so grateful to report that both Doc Holiday Cottage and The Sassy Seagull are doing great! We feel so blessed that they were not damaged by flood waters or high winds. 

It's been a little while since I shared what we did to make Sassy Seagull live up to her name. Let's get back to it, okay? 

Today--the Front Master Bedroom! Here's a peek taken while standing in the living room...can't wait to show you more! 

This is what the room looked like before renovations began. Not sure why that square of paneling was left unpainted. 

The walls and trim were painted the same color with Martha Stewart's MSL 8002 "Glass of Milk" in a semi-gloss finish. And I decided to have the painted floors sanded, stained and finished with satin polyurethane.

I wanted a medium brown colored stain--not too red and not too black.

And the winner was Minwax Provincial 211...

I selected a chandelier made with oyster shells to give a beach-y vibe to the room. It is available on several websites but I found the best price on Wayfair. It is gorgeous but only has one 60 watt bulb so it needed to be located in a room where we could supplement with  lighting from lamps.

Finally came furniture and accessories....I went with a metal "iron" bed since I needed to place the king size bed in front of windows and didn't want to block the light any more than necessary. I only used a headboard because adding a footboard would take up space visually and make the room appear smaller.

The bedding and lamps came from Home Goods and the striped orange pillows as well as the fish pillow came from Amazon. 

The chair was a family hand-me-down and the nightstands were flea market finds. Michael's was the source for the chair side table. After these photos were taken I purchased a chest of drawers painted in a greenish blue. 

And that's the front master bedroom at The Sassy Seagull!

Now We're Cooking!

Last week I posted about all of the crazy quirks in the kitchen at Sassy Seagull and how we planned to remodel it. Let me pick up where we left off...

I chose basic white shaker cabinets--a style that suits this little cottage--simple 

and timeless.

I found these knobs and pulls at Home Depot. I liked the aged, galvanized look and felt it had the feel I was trying to capture in this vintage cottage.

I used Wilsonart laminate countertops in Designer White...not fancy or luxurious (which fits in with with the down home feel of these quaint old Tybee cottages) but 

very budget-friendly!

Once these elements were in place we stained the floors, installed the sink and the appliances, and painted the walls with Martha Stewart Living's 

"Glass of Milk" in semi-gloss. I also had some pretty blue penny tiles installed as a backsplash.

Here's a closeup of the tile...

SomerTile FXLMPML Retro Penni Matte Light Porcelain Floor and Wall Tile

Last but not least, we had some leftover boards that were ripped down from some of the walls in the cottage to allow for wiring and plumbing to be updated so we decided to salvage them and reuse them by cladding the peninsula with them.  They add such a fun touch to the room! And they were free!

So here's the kitchen...

I used curtains in the window that pick up the orange of the stools. They are not pictured here because they were installed after I took these photos. This is the fabric...

P. Kaufmann Indoor/Outdoor Coral Splendor Stripe fabric

A few more photos...

And that's how we went from this...

To this...

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My Favorite Bedroom--No Foolin'

Lots of work went into making an appealing and welcoming room in the largest master bedroom at Coast Awhile Cottage.  It took months to get everything in shape but we will compress the time and show you how things turned out with some before and afters of a few different angles...

Before

 

After

The sitting room area....

Before

 It looks very different with the closet and fake wood flooring torn out and beadboard walls instead of wallpaper.

 The white paint (Martha Stewart Living #8002 Glass of Milk) makes a huge difference!  There's nothing like crisp white walls to create a great background for cottage-y decor.  Because the budget was tight, we painted the floor with deck paint in lieu of adding more hardwood to match the other half of the room.

After

Next time I'll show you the decor...this bedroom is my favorite in this cottage!

 

Bargain-Hunt Beautiful!

On your virtual visit to Coast Awhile Cottage have you decided in which room you'd like to stay?  Would it be the "nautical and nice" downstairs master?  Or the "makes you smile" bunk room?  Or maybe Anna's masterpiece?  Can't make up your mind?

Let me show you one more and see if I can make it harder to decide:)  This one is next door to "Anna's".  It started out like this...

 As you can see there are lots of big windows. 

There were two lights that were on each side of the bed.  Jane Coslick and I decided to cap them off since we are changing the furniture arrangement to accommodate a king size bed.

We are leaving the bookshelf to store books and games.  The door on the right (above)

leads to a closet.

 As I already mentioned, this room has lots of windows.  They are original to the house with wonderful, wavy, old glass.  I love them!  The room get lots of light yet it looked very dark with it's dark paneling.  Call in the painters!

The paint color is MSL 8002 "Glass of Milk"--a Martha Stewart color.

Ahhh...better already.

While we were busy getting the house ready I was busy bargain-hunting.  One of my daughter's best friends, Jennifer Smith, told me about a fabric store that sells remnants and end-of-the-bolt fabric for unbelievably low prices--just my price range!

 Fabric World is located in Stone Mountain, Georgia.  It's sort of like a big rummage sale but at $1.99 a yard for designer fabric, I'm willing to dig through.

It's very hit or miss.  Sometimes when I go there is nothing I want but on this trip I lucked out and found lots of remnants just perfect for pillows!  I already had a lime green and white duvet cover and these other fabrics will look great!

Source:  Jane Coslick

Once the room was ready, Jane and I began experimenting with the fabric and trying out lamps and other furnishings.

Next time I will show you the finished room--it turned out so beautiful!  Then you can decide where you'd like to stay! 

Anna Works Her Magic!

We're having an ice storm here in our usually-mild-weather community.  Everyone is housebound and right now it is so delightful to think about going to the beach.  Tybee Island is supposed to be in the mid-60's this weekend and in another month azaleas will be blooming and some days will get into the 80's.  Ahhh...I can't wait for warm days ahead!

While I am dreaming let me show you another of the lovely bedrooms at Coast Awhile Cottage.  The initial styling was done by Anna Speir, a talented artist who sometimes assists Jane Coslick.  Here's a peek inside..

 Before we actually go inside to get a closer look, let me show you what the room looked like "before". The bedroom had dark paneling when we bought the house.  I really wanted to brighten up the room with some white paint.  It was scary to paint over wood paneling but Jane Coslick, my designer, agreed that it needed to be done.   She suggested a Martha Stewart color MSL 8002 "Glass of Milk".

I think it made a huge difference.  

Just look at these before and after pictures and tell me what you think....  

Before

After

The room gets wonderful light from the big windows.  There is a huge porch that wraps around the front of the house and these windows look out onto it.

Before

After

The door on the left leads to a closet and the open door leads out to the living room.  Even though the walls are white the paneling is still beautiful--the texture adds so much!

Now let's get a closer look at the room....

This room was one of the last ones to be decorated and Anna did an amazing job using what we had left to compose a very pleasing space.  She found the green lanterns outside on the floor of the porch--we had bought them to possibly use out there--and decided to hang them on the wall.  It added such a nice pop of color and personality to the room.  Thanks Anna!

DIY Idea: King Headboard Made From A Twin Bed!

It's my favorite part of the renovation--time to decorate!  Can't wait to show you the downstairs master bedroom.  It was a challenging space because it only has one teeny tiny window letting in light.  So we painted the wall white---Martha Stewart Living #8002 Glass of Milk.  That brightened up the room and gave a great background for us to build on.

I collected the goods for the room from lots of places.  The king headboard started out as a twin headboard and footboard that I found at a flea market for next to nothing.  Thanks to a trick I learned from Jane Coslick, my designer at Coast Awhile Cottage, we had the legs cut off and the parts were mounted to the wall...

And voila!  A king headboard two-fer!  Gotta love it.

The yellow bedspread was a fabulous deal from Kohl's and the blue pinstripe duvet and pillow shams were from Ikea.  The framed prints and octopus pillow were steals on Joss and Main, one of my favorite flash sale sites. Those stunning red chevron pillows were a splurge from 

C. Wonder but even they were on clearance and at 75% off they were quite reasonable.

Just about everything else was a flea market find--except for the lampshades above and the mirror from Home Goods.

This large oil painting was salvaged from The Coral Cottage.

 

Can't wait to show you how it looks up put together!  I'll post it next time.