Next Decorating Tasks

The Redfish cottage is completely done and ready for rental.  We took a small breather with getting the store up and running, and that is doing well....so now it's time to get back to work on decorating the Tarpon.

We've moved the furniture in and put some decor around, but have been keeping it simple in order to get paint and some bigger decisions in place.  Last weekend I started painting the front room, which will be used as an office/2nd bedroom.  While I love the color, I'm not convinced it's not a touch too green.  I want a light aqua, but was afraid of going toward something that would read as pale blue.  I think the color looks great in the room it's in, but may be too much to use in the entire house.  Some phone pics:

So I don't know.  In trying to avoid "robin's egg blue" I may have gone into "Seafoam green" territory.

In addition to this or whatever other color I choose, here are a few other elements going into this cottage.  I hope this one will look as good as the other but it's a bit harder because I am working with a lot of existing elements and trying to "make them work" vs. starting from scratch as was done in the Redfish.

I think in the aqua room above I will add another seagrass/jute rug like we have under the dining room table here:

I love the look and it's pretty inexpensive for a rug.  The aqua room above will also have a painted desk and chair.  I will probably stick with white paint since the room will have so much color on the walls, and use one of these fabrics for the seat cover:

This room also has a large dark wood entertainment center not pictured.  It will mostly act as an amoire for anyone using that room as a bedroom.

The living room has our older tan couch and chair.  I plan to add this rug:

Along with pillows (already made) in these fabrics

and maybe this or something like it (not made yet)

Next to the couch is the kitchen counter and I bought these 2 ghost stools to sit under the counter and blend since they probably won't be used that often.

And I may reupholster our leather ottoman with something like this:

Then the bedroom is all dark espresso furniture (this bedroom set)

with all white linens and accent pillows from the fabrics above.  I have a turquoise lamp and some orange decor.  The room is pretty small so there is not much else to add.  It only has one tiny window over the bed, so there aren't any window treatments.  In fact, there are no window treatments anywhere since the windows all have the gorgeous white shutters.

1st of THREE moves - check!

Friday we rented a U-haul trailer to take down the furnishings for the Key West Cottage.  Ikea delivered the bed, mattress, and sleeper sofa (and 2 bookcases for the boutique) to our house, and we loaded them onto the trailer along with the buffet, dining room table and chairs, desk and chair, end tables, coffee table, 4 arm chairs, and a few misc boxes and linens.  It was a long day as we did all of the loading/unloading just the two of us.  BUT it was SO FUN to sleep there Friday night in the partially furnished cottage!  We slept on the mattress on the floor since the Ikea bed is still in boxes.  That will be phase 2 this weekend, where we supply lots of beer and wine to our friends in exchange for furniture assembly and painting.

Here are a few pics of the cottage.  We will add the couch, bed, and some decorations this coming weekend.  We will also paint the walls a light gray-white.  And take much better pics.  And steam the wrinkled chair covers.  And add a layer of polyacrylic to the dining room table top.  And probably do 2 dozen other things.

I.  LOVE.  IT.

Narrowing down decor plans - Key West Cottage edition

It appears after months of searching, surfing, and planning, we might have the Key West Cottage almost "finished".  I tortured Chris by taking him to Ikea this weekend to get his opinion on the two biggest purchases for the cottage; the bed and the couch.  We came to a decision pretty easily. 

So: here are the plans.  Some pics I used for inspiration can be found here.

Out front we'll put the two refurbished directors chairs.  I'll probably pick up a used (white) table from somewhere to put between.

The first room in the cottage is the kitchen/dining area.  I plan to use a seagrass type rug like this one under the dining set we have (which is pending some white paint).

I'll cover the chair seats with something like this

Then to the left will be the dresser I'll paint turquoise; similar to this one

with a mirror over it; probably painted gray or, if I use the bamboo one we have, which is pale yellow, i'll see if that color works before painting

Next up is the living room.  I plan to use this rug

under this couch

across from two of these chairs

with a white coffee table

and yellow end tables

And the TV on top of this (also pending fresh paint)

If we use lamps, i have one like this.



I'll have a desk and chair in the corner, but I'm still debating on whether to keep white or paint.  For now, I plan to leave the walls white.  When we close on the property (and therefore don't have to worry about returning anything to it's original condition), I plan to paint their wood trim white.  After that I will paint the walls either a pale yellow or gray. 

For the bedroom we'll get this bed

with this headboard if it fits. 

If not, I'll make a thin padded headboard w/ fabric and we'll put up shelves for nightstands.  Similar to this.

I have two rugs similar to this to flank the bed

And we are keeping the bedding all white so it can be bleached.  I'll add some pillows for color and paint the walls in the small bedroom either yellow, gray, or light turquoise.  TBD.

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 :)

Makeover #4 - Goodwill director's chairs

On a recent Goodwill trip, while I was really looking for another small desk chair, I came across two director's chairs for $15/ea.  They were in great shape, just had some chipping paint and dirty fabric.  So with my two BFF's - paint and fabric - they went from this

to this

I was pleased to see, as I was taking the fabric off, that they are from Pier 1.  I looked up the retail online and they sell for $50 for the chair and $15 for the fabric parts.  So I got both chairs, with much cuter fabric then they offer, for less than the price of one @ retail.  I used outdoor fabric from Joann's when it was 50% off so the fabric for each chair was less than $10.

I think they will look very cute out front of this cottage

or this one

2nd and 3rd official completed makeovers

With the restaging of the house brought opportunity for bringing some things in from the garage to use in the house.  I'd been waiting to make this coffee table into a bench and realized the foot of the bed in the larger guest room would be a perfect place to put it. 

Coffee table before:

And after!

I LOVE it.  And it was super easy. 

Even easier was just painting these tables.  Not quite as exciting but at least they serve a purpose while we wait to furnish the new place.

Goodwill end tables before:

And after

Next up will be a pair of Captain's chairs from Goodwill - plan to re-paint and replace the canvas/fabric.

Restaging awesomeness!

Not sure how I could have been reluctant?? (well other than all the work required)  The house looks SO MUCH BETTER.  I wish we had done this years ago.

We did all the changes described here, as well as rearranging the 2nd bedroom, the one that was already a guest room.  We repositioned the bed 90 degrees and put the dresser in the closet to make more space.  Not only did it open the room way up, now as you lie in bed you can actually see the water.  I keep joking that it's a "partial water view" - like those hotel rooms that bill themselves that way but you can only see the water if you stand on your tiptoes and lean out the window. 

So - here are the new and improved rooms!

2nd bedroom before - it was pretty much impossible to even take a good picture of the set up, but before the bed was against the solid wall facing the window facing our neighbors house. 

2nd bedroom after - now the window facing the neighbors house (the window to the right) is also the slight water view and there is more usable room around all sides of the bed.

Office before

Office after

Entryway before

Entryway after.  Totally amazed at how perfectly the book cases from the office fit on the wall and around the mirror.  I will probably paint them white/off-white cause I'm not crazy about the color in here.

And the craft/sewing room was shifted and condensed to make room for the office desk.  This is a big improvement since I never liked sitting at the desk in the office cause it felt so away from the rest of the fun going on in the house.  Now it's closer to the action with a full water view.  Love it.