Sassy Seagull on The Tybee Tour of Homes!

Wow! It's been a long while since I've posted. Now that spring is here I am thrilled to think about tuning up our Tybee cottages for beach season!  I'm also super-excited to announce that our cottage, The Sassy Seagull is going to be on the 

Tybee Tour of Homes on May 5, 2018! 

We've been working hard to make it a fun time filled with lots of inspiration and great ideas for all of the tour patrons. We hope that you will come for a great day of touring and having lunch at Tybee! Click here for details about the tour, tickets and such...

My last post was a wrap up with pretty pictures of the vintage clawfoot tub bathroom reno at Sassy Seagull cottage. If you missed it and want to catch up, there is a link below plus a few "blast from the past" posts at The Sassy Seagull...

Clawfoot Tub Bathroom

Beach-y Master Bedroom

Quirky Little Kitchen

From Dive to Dining Room

Living Room--Welcome In!

I'll be back soon with some all new pictures and posts!

Ta Da--the Dining Room at Sassy Seagull!

Last week's blog post was about how we turned the "dive" of an old front porch at Sassy Seagull into a dining room. It was so long that I decided to save the "after" photos for another post.

So without further delay, please enjoy....

The table was gifted to us by Meghan (my daughter) and her husband Tom. The aqua metal chairs are from Overstock. Since I saved everywhere else in the room, the capiz shell chandelier was a little bit of a splurge--even with the 30% off sale online at Neiman Marcus--but chandeliers add a lot of bling and I thought it was well worth it. 

From Dive to Dining Room!

I gave you a little peek at the dining room in the Sassy Seagull in my last post. 

It started out as a front porch that was eventually enclosed. When we purchased the cottage it looked like this...

It was a long room--21.5 feet long by 9 feet wide. The former occupants used the space for a dining area/office/overflow sleeping. There was a single door--the former front door--that lead into the living room.

We decided to divided this space into two rooms--a dining space and a laundry/utility room.  We also decided to remove the door and open the wall up with a wide cased opening to the living room. Once we had a plan it was time to get started!

We opened up the wall between the living and dining rooms. And the floor was opened up to check out an uneven area.

Then (sad face emoji) we found termite damage to the porch foundation. It had to be rebuilt  so this happened...

When the porch/dining room/laundry room was rebuilt we raised the roof line a bit to give us a higher ceiling. We had found wood beneath the linoleum and it was able to be reused. 

Next came insulation, larger windows...

...and paneling for the walls that matched the rest of the house.

The floors were refinished and the walls were painted. Voila! 

Ready for a pretty chandelier and furniture! I'll save that for the next post. Y'all come back!

Bright Ideas!

The electricians from Russell Electric have finished their rough-in at the Sassy Seagull! They left a little tongue-in-cheek note on the panel box for the inspector...

And sure enough--as expected, we passed the inspection!

In a few weeks they will come back to put up the light fixtures....sooo I need to get busy and choose light fixtures so they will be here when we're ready to go.

The biggie is the dining room chandelier... It will be prominent and it needs to be something special. I'm willing to spend a bit more for it (if necessary) and cut somewhere else. Here are a few of the candidates...


How do you like this big, beautiful oyster shell chandelier? It would be stunning 
if it is not too big...

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I love that big oyster shell chandelier but this is a nice smaller oyster shell chandelier...

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Along the lines of using coastal materials, check out this driftwood chandelier...

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I am crazy over this boho style chandelier! I have seen it in person and fear it might be too large for my room but isn't it amazing?

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Here's another wonderful rustic beaded chandelier that is a good scale for the cottage...

Source: Wayfair

And last but not least is this fabulous capiz shell chandelier--one of my favorites. 

Isn't it fantastic?

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I've got to choose soon. Which one(s) do you like the best?

Surprise!!!

Surprise!!! If you ever watch remodeling shows on HGTV (I love them!), I'm sure you've come to expect surprises as each project progresses. Usually unhappy surprises.

Once we leveled the floor in the former porch--now dining room, it impacted other parts of the structure--not a surprise. But as the boards for the ceiling and the walls were removed--Surprise! Termite damage in the exterior walls.

We decided it would be best to tear down and rebuild the exterior walls of the porch...

Now we are assured that the floor will be level and the structure will be secure. Another good thing-- we were able to raise the roof a bit so our ceiling will be higher on the inside.

And look at the rafter tails--we're leaving them exposed. A number of the old Tybee cottages have this detail and I think it adds a lot to the look of this old cottage.

I like what I see so far. 

I am trying to decide whether or not to replace the screen to the tiny front porch entrance. I think I like it open with just some pickets and a handrail. What do you think?

Time To Work--We're Going In!

Things are finally happening at the little Tybee Beach cottage! We had to do some foundation work at the front of the house and while we were at it, we decided to level the sloping floor. The front room was originally a front porch that was enclosed by a previous owner. That's why it was angled--to allow drainage for the porch. There wasn't much crawl space so we went under the house through the interior floor. 

I was excited to find a wood floor underneath the linoleum!

Also there were two exterior doors leading into the living room...

Awkward. And since I want to use the enclosed porch as a dining space, I decided to remove the door leading to the porch from the living room and open up the wall a bit so the two rooms relate to one another better.

Like this...

We're going to get new windows to replace the ones in the porch/dining room. The old ones survived Hurricane Matthew but they are not the type made to withstand high winds, so they have to go.

I can just imagine a table and chairs with a cool chandelier hanging down...

Can you see it?

"Before" Part One

Have you ever thought it would be fun to renovate a beach cottage? It is! It is so satisfying to see a cottage that is past its prime given a new lease on life. It's also very challenging to do it on a budget.

Let me show you our new little old cottage at Tybee Island.

Let's do a pretend walk-through so you can see the "Before" pictures. Then we can begin to get a feel for the cottage and begin imagining what we might want to do. Come on in!

Tiny Screened Porch leading to the Front Door

Living Room

The door on the left is the entry door from the screened porch. The door on the right which used to be the front door now leads to the dining area.

Dining Room

Kitchen


Notice the challenges in this room...there are many but two of the most obvious are the electrical panel over the countertop as well as the way the countertops end before the wall due to a window on one side and a closet door on the other.

This cottage also has three bedrooms and two bathrooms. I'll show you those rooms in the next post.

Lighten Up!

When we first built our home in 1999 I loved my warm color scheme with it's 

reds, greens and golds.  

Then, after living with and loving it for twelve years, I began wanting to lighten things up.  I didn't exactly dislike what I had; I was just ready for a change.  Do you ever feel like that?

I decided to start the redo by looking for wallpaper for the formal dining room and when I came across this Farrow and Ball paper called Lotus on the pages of Better Homes and Gardens, it was love at first sight!

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My love affair with this paper made me think of the old torch song..."You made me love you.  I didn't wanna do it.  I didn't wanna do it.  You made me want you and all the time you knew it.  I guess you always knew it."

  It is normally only sold to the trade (professional designers) and was out of my price range.  I worked really hard to find another paper I liked as well--or even almost as well--but I couldn't.  

Then enter my hero.....I have the world's most generous and understanding husband who urged me to splurge.  I rarely "go crazy" like that but this time I did.  This one choice was going to impact all of my future choices for the house since my rooms are all 
open to one another.  But I still had a problem--I don't like to pay full price unless there is no other way.

   Thank goodness for Google--I found a company online called L.A. Design Concepts that gives their customers access to "trade only" home goods--and at a good discount!  
Still, it was a splurge for me....I'm so grateful that I only had to paper above the chair rail!

Here's how it turned out...

These pictures were taken with a little point and shoot camera and they seem a bit dark but I think they give you an idea of how the room looks.  I would like to update with a new chandelier but I'm waiting for just the right one to come along (and for the budget).

In upcoming posts I'm going to share some before and after shots of other rooms I remodeled at home in an effort to build up the resolve to redo our master bedroom.  I need some courage to tackle that project.  Living through a reno is not for sissies.

Gorgeous New Old Stuff!

Where would I be without eBay and Craig's List?  So many of the things I bought for Coast Awhile Cottage  were purchased secondhand from these websites or they came from 

flea markets.

Two reasons for this:   (1)  I can afford better goods if I buy them used  and (2)  the house will have more character, look more collected over time, if some of the things are vintage.

When I looked over the pictures of the dining room to select some to share I realized that almost everything in it was owned by somebody else first.   I wanted a pagoda chandelier for the dining room.  I love the bamboo look--it's beach-y and elegant but not stuffy.  Most of the ones I looked at were out of my price range.  So I began searching for one on  eBay.  It took some time but patience paid off and I found this vintage tole pagoda for an amazing deal!

A coat of spray paint (Rustoleum aqua) and boom--it looks fresh and ready for it's new life at Tybee!

 

Peter and I couldn't wait to take down the old fan and put it up.

Source:  Jane Coslick

My dining table and chairs were scored by searching Craig's List.  I paid for the table and six nice, heavy chairs with rush seats less than I would have spent for one chair new. The wicker chairs at each end of the table also came from another Craig's List search.

I wanted a buffet or sideboard piece for the white sheetrock wall and this one came from a flea market.  The gorgeous vintage Imari lamps also came from a flea market and I was able to get them for less than I would have spent at a discount store.  They came with wonderful black silk shades but I bought some white ones--it's a beach house after all. 

  I'd have put a pretty painting above the buffet if I had not sold the house.  Maybe one like this one by Bellamy Murphy.  Here's a link with some of her paintings--what a talented lady!

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Remember the fabulous shell mirror from this post?  It was a special anniversary gift from my husband Henry.  It wound up coming with us to Doc Holiday when we sold the house but I originally planned it for this dining room.

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Now let's put these things all together....

The curtains are from Ikea--this style with grommets is called Merete.

  

 My designer Jane Coslick arranged these shells in an antique bread bowl.  Aren't they fantastic?  It's the little details that make everything magical.

 

Source:  Jane Coslick

 Don't you love the oyster shell candlesticks....Jane's son made them!

Source:  Jane Coslick

Source:  Sandy McCloud

Source:  Sandy McCloud

What do you think?  Pre-loved stuff is not so bad, huh?  Sometimes old things used in a new way can look fresh and beautiful.  Who wouldn't like having dinner in a dining room like this?