Another One for the History Books!

2012 is ending--another one for the history (and the photo) books!  And it went too fast.  I'm packing up my good memories to hold onto them.  

Here are a few recent ones:

This year has been a blur of activity for me--not only have I been driving to Savannah to work on The Coral Cottage but there are two other beach cottages that I have been working on.  They are each at different stages of readiness--I can't wait to share them 

with you!

But just now, today, I am focusing on other treasures:

One of my favorite things to do each year is make a photo book to help me remember all the good things that happened.  I usually use a company called Shutterfly because

• They never delete your photos so it is a good place to back up your photos for free.
• There is no limit to the number of photos you can upload.
• It is easy to use their software.
• The only supplies needed are my computer and the photos I have saved on it.  I can create for a while, then save my work until later--clean up is a breeze!
• If anything bad ever happens to my photo books I can order new ones. I can also share them with family online.
• I like their photo books--especially the ones with a photo cover.  I also enjoy making photo calendars for my kids--now that they are living apart from one another it is nice for them to see pictures of each other's families and think of them.  (I was too busy to get that done this year.)

Most people like to save their pictures--do you file yours in a box?  Do you have an online photo book company that you use? or do you like to scrapbook with all the fun papers and stickers?  However you do it,  I hope you will hang onto the good memories and 

let the rest go.

I love the old saying, "I don't know what the future holds but I know Who holds the future." It is such a comfort to me to know He is worthy of my trust.  Good-bye 2012!  

And hello 2013!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry, Merry Christmas y'all!  I hope you are spending this day loving on your family and remembering the love of God that gave us the His Son, the reason for the season! 

Merry Christmas from me, my husband Henry and our grandchildren: Madeline, Josey, Violet, Ella, Charlotte, Tyler, and Anna Kate!

If you were too busy to read along last week then catch up with some of these links:

•  Whine, uhhh Wine and Dine
• Let There Be Light (and Paint and Floors) 
• "Doing Up" the Dining Room  
• Time for Fine Dining!
• Fine Dining Finale!
• Jane Coslick Holiday Tour Pictures

 I'll be back in a few days with more about the Coral Cottage!

Jane Coslick Holiday Tour Pictures

Just wanted to post a few pictures and thank all the patrons who attended the Jane Coslick Holiday Cottage Tour.  We raised over $12,000 for the Humane Society of Greater Savannah to aid in funding a low cost spay/neuter clinic!

The Coral Cottage was all dressed up for Christmas to meet her public :) and we had a great time making new friends!  I'd like to show you all the decorations but I am going to be selective so I don't spoil the surprise when I reveal the other rooms in later posts.

Our very first guest was Terry, the man on the right.  His family previously owned the Coral Cottage (see this post for more of the story).  I was so happy and relieved that he seemed to love the way the cottage looks as much as I do.  In fact, he called Jim Heflin at TybeeCottages.com and made the very first booking to stay one week in the spring!

L to R:  Vicky, Jane, and Terry chatting on the patio

Jane Coslick came by to greet Terry--she and his sister Rosemary were close friends as young girls and she has fond memories of staying in the cottage years ago.

The color scheme on our little tree in the living room was silver and turquoise.  I found some aqua-colored tulle at Michael's and used it with white wrapping paper for the gifts under the tree.

 There were some extra unbreakable ornament balls and I decided to hang them on the coral chandelier!  They made quite a statement and Jane thinks we should consider leaving them up permanently--take a look and tell me what you think about this.  All of my Facebook friends, please leave your comments here on the blog!

To cap off the day, some floats from the Tybee Christmas parade made their way in front of the cottage.  You've gotta love a Santa wearing shorts, flip flops and sunglasses!

 I hope that your Christmas is merry and bright and full of love--and that you remember the reason for the season!   Merry Christmas y'all!

Fine Dining Finale!

The Coral Cottage had a nice long table that was made out of a door with legs attached.  It was long and skinny and a perfect fit for the narrow room but unfortunately 

it was damaged.

No problem.  I thought I had it worked out.  I remembered seeing a long, narrow white table at IKEA.  But IKEA discontinued it just before I needed it and there were none in stock in any of the stores.  Boo hoo!  

So I searched and this is what I found from Overstock:

Not as long as I'd wanted but it was narrow--a necessity in this narrow space.

The blue chairs came in a outdoor bistro set--three sets actually.  I drove around to several Target stores to round them up in an end-of-season clearance sale.

My sister Crystal is an online retailer and she sent me some beautiful cork placemats from her store, Crystal Griffin Home.  They are made by Rockflowerpaper and not only are they beautiful, but they are practical since they protect the table from hot dishes.  

Here's a closeup:

 And here they are on the table--you can see the curtains hung (they needed hemming in this photo) in the background.

A bowl of shells as a centerpiece makes it complete.

Want to come over for dinner?

Time For Fine Dining!

It's time for a little fine dining and I am here to show you part one of the dining room transformation at the Coral Cottage!  

Remember the little mid-century modern dresser that was being used as a sideboard in the cottage "before"?

Well here it is now!  We painted it with Sherwin Williams 6606 Coral Reef and doesn't it look cheery?  My friend Loretta also polished up the metal on the handles.

Next it was time for some art work.  I found some coral prints on Etsy by an artist named Tessyla.  She customized the prints for me with the color I wanted.   FYI she has lots of different designs in different sizes and colors and they are reasonably priced.

Jane Coslick and I wanted to avoid the room becoming too matchy-matchy so we chose to use a color for the mats that was different from the blues and corals found in the rest of the room.  I bought ready-made, matted frames from Target and, using a small rubber roller to give a smooth look, I painted the white mats with a small sample can of Benjamin Moore HC-1.  The framing looks custom and expensive but it's not!

Peter is hanging the pictures in a grouping above the sideboard.

Last, but not least, we added some pretties to the top of the sideboard.  My lamp has already been shown--it was the first lamp I ever owned, given to me as a wedding shower present by my mom.  I bought a new shade for it at Wal-Mart and it looks very happy.

One day in the summer I stumbled across this find at CostPlus World Market:

The coral serving pieces mixed with a simple clear plastic bowl from Target just make me happy!

Finally, we added a few flowers....

....and there you have it!

We will finish this up tomorrow!

"Doing Up" the Dining Room!

Yaaay!  It is finally time to "do up" the dining room!  If you need to catch up here are some other posts:

• Whine, uhh and Dine featuring "Before" pictures, drywall, and priming 
• Let There Be Light (and Paint and Floors)

At this point I brought a big U-Haul truck to Tybee full of goods for the house and the fun part began.  At first it just looked like a big tag sale with bags of accessories and some furniture that didn't even belong in the room:

But with a lot of elbow grease.....

 .....it began to look like a dining space!

Time to hang the curtains and pictures and make things homey! 

Let There Be Light (and Paint and Floors)

The Coral Cottage sunroom housing the dining area and a seating area is what sold me the house.  To see the "Before" pictures and the beginnings of the restoration, please click here.  

After gutting, reinforcing the wall, adding HVAC, drywall and then priming (whew!) it was time to paint.  I had already bought some curtains to frame the windows from Tuesday Morning so Jane Coslick and I selected a color that would go with them.   

We used Sherwin-Williams 6483 called Buoyant Blue in an eggshell finish to improve durability:

It is very soft and almost serves as a neutral throughout the house--very beachy, very peaceful, very calming.

As you can see from the picture above the electrician came before we finished painting and hung my beloved coral chandelier that gave the house its name--see this post for details.  Then came flooring--Allure vinyl plank flooring in Oak.

All we need now are the furnishings!