Narrowing down decor plans - Boutique edition

Again....after months of thinking and planning, here's what has been narrowed down for the boutique.  We won't be able to paint until the owners move all the way out, but the weekend of August 5th it will be full steam ahead.

I've been really loving the striped paint look - not w/ 2 different colors, but with the tone on tone using different finishes.  I plan to do a matte light yellow with glossy yellow stripes.  Like this

but with a color like this

One of the things I've always envisioned since we started these plans was to have a seating area for husbands, tired friends, etc.  Since the Ikea chairs are small, comfortable enough (but not so comfortable people will want to sit there all day, haha), and have washable covers, these will fit the bill. 

with this as the coffee table/ottoman

and, if it fits, I may use this rug underneath, if not,then maybe just a plain seagrass type.

Not certain what we're using for shelves yet.  I have 5 bookcases in our house now that might work, or we will consider these type of units from Ikea.

We may also need to consider some sort of shelving units for some of the art.  Last night I met with one of my artists and she has some beautiful platters that will best be displayed on a shallow shelf with an edge to secure them against the wall.  Plan to look into that.  Also just realized I could probably add a piece of moulding to the top of this unit; that might work too.

Speaking of the artist, her name is Mary and here's a sneak peek at some of her pieces I'll have for sale!

See more of her work at http://mermaidenclayart.blogspot.com/

As for boutique decor, the photography we'll have will take up some wall space, but I plan to put some of these things up. 

I love how the globes look like bubbles.  I don't plan to put them in a circle but maybe in more of a random pattern throughout.

And finally, I've been waiting to share some of the clothing inventory.  I still don't have pictures, but here is a list of brands we'll be carrying.  Sizes will be 0-18, XS through XXL.  Some brands will only be a piece or two, but many brands will be prominent throughout the sizes.

• Ann Taylor and Ann Taylor Loft
• Banana Republic
• J Crew
• Gap
• Old Navy
• Forever 21
• NY & Co
• Bebe
• Abercrombie and Fitch
• American Eagle
• Talbots
• Ralph Lauren
• Tommy Hilfiger
• Lucky
• Paige Premium Denim
• Limited
• INC
• Liz Claiborne
• Michael Kors
• Calvin Klein
• White House Black Market
• Express
• Caite
• XOXO
• DKNY

And adding more each week!

When it rains....it pours

Well maybe it's not "pouring" but compared to 4 months of no offers, last week was definitely a strong shower.  Not only did we get the official offer early last week, but Friday I got a call from a realtor who showed our house in June.  She said her clients have a contract on their house and were hoping to move forward on ours; but it was slightly out of their price range, so they wanted her to ask if we were willing to negotiate.  I've no idea if they would have been able to give us a price we would consider or not, but told her about our contract and said I'd keep her info if it doesn't go through. 

This weekend we're going to take another load of stuff down to the property.  We're also going to meet with our photographer friends, Wendy and Davis Varner, to show them around so that they can take so local photographs that we will sell in the boutique.  I am really excited to be starting off so quickly with our own local talent.  In addition to the Varners, I will have at least two pottery artists from the Tampa area selling art in the boutique.  Both of these ladies make ocean/beach/fish inspired pieces from clay.  Pics to come!

After this weekend, we'll head down again with some bigger items (furniture for the Key West Cottage) the weekend of 7/29, and then return the following weekend to paint and set up the boutique.  We'll have to move the remainder of our house into the condo somewhere around 8/10-8/15 if our closing remains the 15th.

Because the owners don't want us painting around their art collection that is still in the gallery, we'll have to postpone opening the boutiqe by a week; but we should be pretty set to open the weekend of August 13th.  We're back to having the Key West cottage vacant, so as soon as we get it furnished and photographed, it will go up on vrbo.com and homeaway.com as advertised for rent.

I think that's all the updates for now.  The pace is quickening....hope we can keep up :)

The contract is FINALLY executed

Wow.  What a ride.  After many, many, many go arounds....waiting...negotiating....paying lawyers....we finally have a done deal.  No turning back.  Friday we sent in our down payment and signed papers...which wasn't quite as smooth as it should have been due to a last minute request on the sellers part.  We realized last night it was so anticlimactic when we finally got it done because of all of the highs and lows, waiting, frustration, etc.  That and we were literally half way out the door for a birthday party weekend w/ 40 of our closest friends :)  Last night we finally toasted it and let it sink in a little.  Which was closely followed by the realization that we have a million things to do before taking over on August 1.  But we'll get there and I'm sure it will have been worth the pain and the wait.

So yeah, August 1 is the date!  Of course that's a Monday so it will be more like August 5-6 that we'll "open".  Not sure what we'll have in place other than the boutique.  We'll have to figure that out in the next 6 weeks as if the past is any indication, things will continue to change/evolve by the week.

Still no offers on the house but things have picked up a bit showing-wise.  After having the showings slow down to about one every other week, just this week we've had 3.  Yesterday we had a couple come to see the house by boat; that was a first.  We plan to hire a realtor in the next week or two to hopefully get this done asap.

The rollercoaster continues

But I hope the ride is almost over.

Last week we got word that most of our requests had been met and implemented into our documents (lease and addendum), along with a new surprise.  The "key west" cottage, the one that I have been chomping at the bit to decorate and collecting furniture for since FEBRUARY, is now occupied and won't be open to us to use or alter until August.  While at first I wanted to scream with frustration (and I sort of did), after my head cooled a bit I realized that since they state that the occupants would most likely want to continue renting the place from us, that's guaranteed income starting day 1 vs having to advertise and hope people want to book.  And while I love the idea of having the unit available for our friends to stay in, we can't deny the appeal of guaranteed rent.

In addition, there is someone utilizing the kitchen facility that may also want to continue, to the tune of a regular rental income.  Since the last occupants had pretty much unexpectedly (to us) stopped serving, we were trying to figure out whether we'd undertake the restaurant ourselves or find a new tenant.  This solves that problem.

So all in all to have these (maybe, and I say maybe since everything seems to change by the day) tenants in place when we take over is a good thing and will limit what we have to focus on at first.  Having too much to take care of in the beginning would definitely stress me out.  Now I guess we can just focus on the boutique, the owners cottage (where there will be room for friends to stay, albeit not an individual unit unless we stay somewhere else), and the boating business. 

Island Time

What a lovely sounding phrase...and maybe once we're on it we'll actually appreciate it.  But for now I hate it.  It's what has turned what we thought would be a three month process into six.

Originally we had thought "maybe" we'd be on board with this business starting in May, considering the verbal agreements were actually in place in February.  Those hopes were quickly dashed when we realized how much needed to be done, so then we thought we'd be set on June.  Most of Feb and March was spent making sure we could get financing, since there were some questions about property lines and easements.  Then there were some restaurant equipment questions.  March quickly turned into April.  Since we need to get everything settled 60 days prior to the takeover date, going into April meant moving the takeover date to July.  April was spent doing inspections and contract language on the sellers part.  Well an inspection showed termites, and the contract had some language we could NOT sign onto.  Each thing we've thrown back has taken at minimum a week....if not two or three.  So now we're looking at starting in August.  And that's IF nothing else comes up....

Ok, let's try this again: ONE MORE WEEK!

Yeah, so things didn't go as planned....we got the lease for review a few days late, and there was no way we were getting everything resolved by this past Saturday.  So we're hoping we can have everything settled by the end of this week so we can sign this weekend.  We have to keep reminding ourselves that Matlacha must be part of this "island time" we always hear about.  Must be nice!  Not sure if my anal retentiveness about punctuality will ever succumb to island time but we'll soon see.

Not too many new furniture additions since we can't hold another item in the garage, but I did score a free desk last week.  Just needed a little bit of wood patch where it appeared a dog did some chewing.  Splurged on some pretty drawer pulls to replace the very basic wooden ones it came with.  Some primer and paint and it will make a perfect desk/vanity for one of the units. 

ONE MORE WEEK!!

Until we can start moving crap out of the garage!!!  That makes me SOOOOOOO happy.

We may be going down on Saturday to sign the papers and bring a check since the due date is the 30th and we're not able to take care of it earlier this week.  If we do, hopefully they will let us bring some stuff down a day early.  We're waiting to hear....otherwise it'll be the weekend after.

This weekend we traded in my beloved, beautiful, gorgeously awesome BWM for a pick up truck.  Granted, in the world of pick ups, this one is quite nice....but it's not a luxury dream car like the BMW was to me.  I'm a sad, sad sack of sad.  I cried a little tear when I last saw my car being driven away.  I suppose I'll survive but it's probably not likely.

We also had a good showing of the house on Saturday.  As always, they happen when you least expect it.  I had my 2 nieces visiting for Spring Break and we were getting ready to do a little shopping on Saturday morning when I asked them to clean up their room and bathroom a bit, which I never ask them to do, just in case.  Wouldn't you know it at our 2nd stop a realtor called and wanted to show the house.  We raced home and I had exactly 11 minutes to clean up some more.  I even made my 12 year old niece vacuum while I put some things away.  Fortunately they were super nice and didn't expect a perfect house.....which was good since it was far from.  Anyway I did my first realtor "follow up" call today and she said they loved it and would likely be making a 2nd visit when they are back in town (they live up north).  Since I'm horrible at not getting my hopes up, they of course already are, and I'll likely be checking my phone every second until she calls again.

I'm now up to about 150 items for the store....we'll have new and like new items, sizes 0/XS-16/18/2X, brands including: Banana Republic, J Crew, Ann Taylor, Ann Taylor Loft, Paige Premium Denim, Bebe, Gap, American Eagle, Abercrombie and Fitch, Old Navy, Talbots, Michael Kors, White House Black Market, Tommy Hilfiger, and a bunch of the different Target brands.  I don't think anything will be over $50 and most everything will be under $30.  I had hoped to have some things up here but I just don't have the time to iron everything twice (once now for a pic, and then again once they are up in the boutique) so I will make the online boutique more live once I start unpacking for the boutique (in May and June).

The Countdown is ON

Yesterday we signed the contract and sent in the first deposit.  It took an entire month of going back and forth between lawyers, talking to bankers to make sure we can get financing, and negotiating the details but we're finally there.

One thing that almost held us up was the commercial kitchen.  The lawyers were saying the sellers said that ALL contents of the commercial kitchen belonged to the women currently running the restaurant...including the appliances i.e. stove, fridge, etc.  WTF?  I got all fired up over that one.  We reminded them that the pictures on the website and all descriptions described a working commercial kitchen....not one that needed appliances.  We plan to replace the chairs and tables anyway so that wasn't a big deal, but to have to install cooking equipment?  Anyway....issue resolved, the appliances will belong to us.

So, next on the list is the inspection, which should occur next week. 

One more month until we can start making it ours!  I am dying to start moving all the crap out of our garage and put together the first cottage.  I haven't posted a recent picture of the garage but I will soon....it's a spectacle.  And I'm up to over 100 items of women's clothing sizes XS/0 to XL/16.  I think I'll need to double to triple that to have a decent inventory July 1.