Exercise Your Right To Vote!

I went shopping yesterday for bedding and pillows for the second master bedroom at Doc Holiday.  The room wasn't really bad--it just wasn't really good.  I had used what was leftover from decorating other rooms.

So I went to Home Goods and Stein-Mart and bought two quilts, two large pillows, and two accent pillows.  Then I spent an afternoon playing with different combinations.  

Please take a look at these combinations and tell me 

which one is your favorite?

Look #1

 

 Look #2

 Look #3

Look #4

Look #5

The typography pillow in Look #5 is one I already had.  It's a little hard to read the print in the above photo so here's a close-up.

Look #5 (again)

 Which combination do you like best?  Or is there some other combination that you would use?  Please exercise your right to vote :) by leaving your choice in the comments.

 

Treasures Galore!

I'm a clutter-bug.  All you have to do is check out my closets and you can tell.  Apparently other people suffer from the same affliction--only their extra stuff is more exciting than mine--and they are consigning it at a store in Savannah.  The store is appropriately named Clutter.

Clutter is no Goodwill-type store where you pull up to the curb and drop off your old stuff.  In order to consign your wares, you have to pass the screening by emailing photos to the owner.  She is very selective and the result is an assortment of amazing goods.  It's such fun!
 Let me show you what I was drawn to the last time I popped in for a look!

Somebody had a fabulous collection of coral (real, not faux).  These were my favorites...

  Look at these gorgeous mirrors!

 And there were some really great chandeliers...

There is an artist in Savannah who makes these cool industrial chandeliers--this one could have been on somebody's roof top at one time!

And I'm crazy for this shell chandelier!

Not sure how practical it is but this table covered with shells is certainly a conversation piece.

This display of authentic Amazonian Indian headpieces stopped me in my tracks!  My husband, with American Indian in his blood, loved it!  The feathers had such vibrant colors and each piece was so artfully crafted. It was better than a museum because you could handle them 
if you wanted to.

There is always something new every time I visit.  Treasures galore!  Love.

Where do you go to look for treasure?  Do you have any favorite haunts?  Any great spots for bargains?  Do share.

Aiming For Plu-Perfect!

It's time to show you the second master bedroom at Doc Holiday--at least what it looked like right after we moved all the furniture in.  At first I thought maybe I should wait to blog about this room until I had it exactly the way I want it to be--"plu-perfect" as my hubby calls things when they are exactly right.  But then I decided to be honest--it's pretty now but it is a 

work in progress.  Here goes!

 In July when I brought the U-Haul to Tybee for the move into Doc Holiday, there were a few frantic days trying to set up while last-minute construction was still ongoing and I knew I had family showing up in a few days for a fun week at the beach.  Not much time to shop.  And strangely not much that worked for my house when I did go to my favorite stores. 

So I took what I had and did my best.  The adults in our family prefer king size beds so I found a headboard I liked for a great price on eBay and painted it with Sherwin-Williams semi-gloss paint in Frolic SW 6703.  This is what it looked like right after painting. 

Sorry about all the furniture in front of it--we had quite a few pieces awaiting their turn to be painted.

 I like lots of vintage things but vintage mattresses--not so much!  So we bought a new mattress and bed frame in Savannah.  There is no footboard by design.  In a small room it is best to go with just the headboard--a footboard would take up too much room visually and make the room feel even smaller.  

 This was my first attempt at arranging the bed with the pillows I had on hand...

On my next trip to Tybee, Jane Coslick and I rearranged things a bit and the lamps were swapped out.  This photo only shows one lamp--that's all Savannah's Kirkland's had but I had one on hold at the Conyers store.  So here's Take Two...

Like I said, a work in progress...

This is the dresser I posted about here.

   And because you always need clothes and towel hooks at the beach...

As you can tell from this photo, we decided to leave that old, deliciously chippy-paint door that leads from the bedroom to the bathroom.  As Jane would say, it's perfectly imperfect!   It was too good to discard but beware tall people:  You need to duck your head!

 And that is where I am currently with this master bedroom.  It's pretty, comfy and a nice place to lay your head...but am I finished?  Am I satisfied?  Nope.  Not yet.   I am not going to stop working on it until I think it is "plu-perfect".  (Perfectionism...It's a disease.)

What about you?  Do you have any works in progress? 

Razzle Dazzle with a Beachy Vibe!

I love to shop eBay, Craig's List, and flea markets--sifting through the used and cast-off items to find potential treasures. It's not that I have anything against buying new--but as Anne of Green Gables would say there's "more scope for the imagination" in re-purposing old things.

Even better than buying good used furniture is re-purposing free family hand-me-downs.  And that is what I decided to do with this old dresser that once belonged to my parents.

First came sanding, priming with Zinsser Cover Stain with the gold label, and sanding again.

 

 Then it was time to paint.

This mid-century modern dresser had the simple, unadorned lines of furniture from that era and I was trying to think how to give it a little razzle dazzle with a beach-y vibe.  Taking a cue from something I saw on Pinterest I decided to paint each drawer a different color.  

Actually it was the same color in different levels of saturation.  I used Sherwin-Williams paint in semi-gloss with the lightest color on top and getting darker as we went to lower drawers. 

 First, I had SW 6763 Retiring Blue mixed and after painting the top drawer front, I requested the store to add pigment to make it into SW 6764 Swimming.  Once the next drawer was painted, we darkened the paint to SW 6765 Spa.  I painted the third drawer and the rest of the dresser with Spa.

Then I purchased one more can of paint in SW 6766 Mariner,  painted the next drawer, and  had the paint darkened to SW 6767 Aquarium for the bottom drawer.

I found these cool jute rope knobs on Etsy.com and ordered enough for the top two drawers.

I went to a marina store in Savannah and bought these boat cleats to use as handles on the lower drawers.

 This is how the dresser turned out!

 How do you like it?  Have you done any fun projects lately?

Magical Like A Blanket Of Snow!

You know how snow can cover up the ordinary view and make it beautiful?  That's what paint is like to me...especially white paint in a beach cottage.  It's magical!

 

First we had to put on a primer coat...

 

 

It's already better, right?  But just wait...

 

We painted the front rooms in Doc Holiday with MSL 8002, 

Martha Stewart's Glass of Milk.  Wow!  what a difference!

Before

 

 

 

After...The stains on the floor boards were too deep to sand out.  Thankfully, they will be covered with the bed and night stands.

 

Before

Before...with bead board walls and closet added

After

Before

After

And finally the last angle...

Before

After

Ahhhh.  Now it's time to bring in some furniture!

 

 

 

 

Time For A New Plan!

Things frequently don't always go as planned in remodeling.  Jane Coslick and I had already discussed our furniture layout for this master bedroom.  There really wasn't room for very much furniture--a king size bed, night stands, a chest of drawers, wall-mounted TV and maybe a small chair.  I knew exactly where everything was going to go.

Then one day after being away for a week, I walked into the house to check progress and froze in my tracks.  In the place where I planned to put my chair...

 

...I saw this :(

Let's just say that Mama was not happy and you know what that means.  Phone calls were made to the contractor and the air-conditioning company and they both came to defend their decision.  After a long discussion, they convinced me that it was necessary for the purpose of function to put the HVAC in that very spot.

I still wasn't happy but I had to adjust.  Time for a new plan.  Sooo... I decided to put a 

closet next to the HVAC.

The dresser will be on the wall to the left of the window and behind the bathroom door.  There won't be room for a chair but it can't be helped.  I had to choose between a chair and having my air conditioning cool effectively.  No brainer--I went with the AC.  

Jane gave me some very good advice:  Don't put your energy into fretting over what can't be changed;  save it for what you do have some control over!

We had to move a door also to allow for better traffic flow in the bedroom and the 

adjoining dining room.  There was also the matter of the former fireplace that had to be removed by the house movers.

See the hole in the floor and the wall above where the chimney used to be?  The chimney had to be taken out before the house was moved and we decided not to replace it.

We were out of recycled boards with which to patch the wall, so beadboard was used instead.  We had it applied horizontally so it would mimic the other walls.  Once painted, we thought 

it would blend in just fine.

The bedroom really started to come together when the floor was refinished.

We've come a long way from this.  I have hope. 

Can You See The Possibilities?

I hope you had a safe, fun holiday.  It's hard to return to the business of life when you've had a few days off, isn't it?  But after taking off completely for Labor Day and working hard yesterday, today I can finally take some time to write a blog post!

 

I'd like to show you what I've done so far in the third bedroom at Doc Holiday.  

It started out as a kitchen...

 

 

It had an adjoining full bath which seemed a little awkward to me so I decided to swap rooms and make this room a bedroom with ensuite bath and what used to be a bedroom (that you had to pass through to get to other rooms) became the kitchen.  We also created a new door to the back deck so that people would not have to come through this room to get outside.

The room was basically gutted.  Out came the old cabinets, appliances, chimney, and closet!

 

 

Happy discoveries were the wood floors and beautiful old boards that made up the 

walls and ceiling!  And I am crazy about the old door that leads into the bathroom!

 

 

It's rough but can you see the possibilities? Can't wait to show you what came next!