Archives for March 2016

Our Reclaimed Heart Pine Flooring Story

March 23, 2016 by misssuzy

I’m so excited to show you our floors!!! They are very special to me. During our six months of househunting we toured some houses that had heart pine floors. I was smitten. After moving into our “last resort” house with dingy, worn out berber carpet and white dated floor tiles, read about that here I began to fantasize about replacing them one day with heart pine floors. As I began my Houzz ideabooks and Pinterest boards, my imagination soared! Now I not only wanted heart pine floors, but I wanted antique (reclaimed) heart pine floors in variable widths. They would be the foundation of the entire redo. Perfect for a beach house (it really is not important that our house is not on the beach) my vision was coming into focus!

Thankfully, my darling husband has pretty much the same vision. A miracle in itself, as he never seemed particularly interested in moving to the beach, let alone living in a beach house.

Well, maybe I should clarify the importance of the flooring decision. Our house is on a slab, meaning it’s built on a slab of concrete, there is no crawl space. And……because our house wasn’t icky enough to begin with, I decided to take up the tile in the kitchen, breakfast room and back hall almost immediately after getting the keys in our hot little hands. Not a smart decision. Of course by the time I learned the cost of my beloved reclaimed heart pine floors, it was too late, the tile was gone and the only thing left was our very jacked up concrete slab. It was full of cracks and uneven leftover tile glue and lots of concrete dust…it was just yuck. We worried and researched and worried some more. We were finally convinced that the cracks were not going to be a problem. We found the floors we wanted that could go right on the slab. The only problem…….they were very costly. Hence the few years that we lived on those dirty, disgusting, bare concrete floors.

These particular floors were the single most costly thing that we would do to our entire house. We tried on more than one occasion to convince ourselves that something else would work, and give us the result we were after. It never worked out. We tried. We really, really tried! We may have never pulled the trigger on the floors if it hadn’t been for a phone call from Authentic Pine Floors. Darline was calling to tell us there was going to be another price increase! Finally, after years of waiting and saving, we were ready to do the floors. Nothing else would do. We made a final pledge to each other, we were going to go down to Georgia to look at the floors in person. After all, we couldn’t make a decision of this magnitude without seeing more than a few sample pieces, right? If we weren’t just blown away, we would go with a less expensive choice for floors. Deal! We even shook on it. baby on antique heart pine floor_edited-1 Are they gorgeous or what? The baby is pretty darn gorgeous too!!! I’ll tell you all about the installation in my next post!

Our Renovation Story—-Down To The Studs

March 22, 2016 by misssuzy

Sunset at the Beach

Starfish on Beach

After living four years (landlocked) in one of the coldest places on earth, it was time to thaw out, warm up, and the sea was calling my name! We literally stumbled upon a small coastal town with amazing beaches on the shores of the Atlantic. It was love at first sight. Quaint seaside town—–check, Fantastic beaches——-check, Good schools——check, Great house——uh, not so much. Not even close. Not in our budget!

We ended up in a beach rental overlooking the ocean. It was New Year’s Day. Did I mention it turned out to be the coldest winter in 40 years? Yeah, that’s what I said. There’s nothing colder than a beach house in winter!!! Except of course the place we just left 4,000 miles behind. The first night in the cottage the pipes froze. As cold as it was, it was an amazing experience that solidified my decision to make this place our home.

We would wake to the most glorious sunrises where almost daily the dolphins would put on a show for us, frolicking with their babies right off shore. I would scream and shout and clap and jump up and down like a lunatic. The kids were mortified! I didn’t care. I was in my happy place!!!!!

Pelicans and Seagulls on the Beach

My husband off to work and the kids off to school I would begin my day on the computer checking out the listings on the MLS.

Calls to our realtor, a few showings a day, nothing looking promising. I would drive around exploring our new area searching out houses and neighborhoods. Returning to the cottage I would spend hours combing the beach. I even started a little “game” of sorts…everytime I would find a lettered olive shell (which is the state shell that is supposed to bring good luck) or a whole sanddollar, I knew that meant we were about to find the perfect house! Later that day I would check the MLS for any new listings or anything I could have possibly missed.

Lettered Olive Shell on the Beach

As amazing as it was, the cottage itself had a lot to be desired. For one, it wasn’t home. It was starting to wear on all of us. We had looked at everything in our budget, several houses over our budget and some houses we even looked at twice. Nothing. The off season rental rates were winding down. We were getting desperate. So desperate in fact that we decided to take a look at THE ONE house we hadn’t viewed yet. That’s how UNappealing it was. It had sat empty for over a year. It was hidden completely by trees, there were snakes and bugs…..you can call them palmetto bugs if you like…but to me they are roaches. There were even pine trees growing in the gutters. We left the showing feeling even more desperate than ever. The house was hideous. And, it was at the very top of our budget. Unlike on television we didn’t have the luxury of “upping our budget”. The last thing we wanted was to be house poor.

That night back at the cottage I sat at the kitchen table dissecting every listing on the MLS for the umpteenth time. But strangely, the house we had just viewed earlier in the day was now listed 20% less than before. A quick call to our realtor confirmed the price drop. I reluctantly agreed to go for a second look the following day. Oh, it was even worse the second go round!!! We must have had our rose colored glasses on because we mistook all the pocket doors and smooth ceilings for “good bones”. We began to talk about all the things we could do, things we could change to give the house some character. I wasn’t convinced!

We signed a short term lease on a furnished condo only a mile or so from the beach. I was just certain the perfect house would present itself. Soon.

Instead…….this is what happened!!

Standing in the driveway in the pouring rain, I watched as the men from the moving company unloaded the truck. Piece by piece I watched with anticipation. Finally I turned to my husband and asked “When are they going to unload the good stuff?” After six months of being in storage, our household goods appeared to have transformed themselves into old, worn out, dated, junk!!!! My mood matched the weather. And our “junk” complimented the interior of the house we had just bought! (or was it the other way around?) Oh lucky day!!

Fast forward five years. Five years of blood, sweat and buckets of tears. Every spare second and every spare dime went into our house. We were so in over our heads. It didn’t take long for us to realize that Every. Single. Inch. needed work or replacement. We never wanted an elaborate, pretentious house. Our goal was to create a warm, comfortable, inviting home with the feeling of a much loved, old beach house. Our house is not an old, historical house (with lots of character), on the contrary, it was only 10 years old. It was large enough (we hoped this would be the house our future grandkids come to) on a nice, large, high, dry lot. Not necessarily a given in this neck of the woods. But boy was it UG-LY!!! Remember the smooth ceilings I mentioned——-well, I once had a contractor suggest putting in popcorn ceilings to help conceal the disastrous drywall work throughout the house!!! Whaaaaat?

Everyone has a budget. Us included. That’s why it took us five years to get to this point. We did what we could ourselves. The grunt work, so to speak. We hired a contractor for one phase—and years later subcontracted out another big phase——–kitchen, baths, laundry room and the floors in the entire house. We wanted to add character to a house that had none. Zero, nada, zilch! The word “character” has gotten me into so much trouble, and I have learned the hard way that character doesn’t come cheap! Some fantastic finds from craigslist and estate sales are mixed right in with DIY pieces and pieces picked up at my favorite local haunts. I still have big plans and visions of projects I would like to do. But right now our “To Do List” has a table of contents!!!!!

So, I hope you will enjoy taking a tour of our house, browsing the before and after pictures and hopefully I will offer up some inspiration, share some DIY ideas and how tos and maybe just for entertainment, you’ll read about our hilarious and sometimes not so funny process of turning our house into a home.

Brown Pelican in Flight

Egret at the shore

DIY Barn Wood Look Picture Frame

March 22, 2016 by misssuzy

Since I have 3 beautiful children who are reluctantly photogenic and lots of wall space to fill, I decided to make some large barnwood look frames. How hard could it be? I have been seeing them all over lately, and they are quite pricey. Originally planning to use old pallets, I scratched that idea early on as my first and last attempt at deconstructing a pallet was much harder than it looked. I don’t recall exactly how it went down, but I would bet money that it involved me declining my husband’s offer of help and a few choice words thrown in just for good measure. I just hate it when one of my plans gets scrapped before it even gets started. So….. when my husband suggested using some old wood fence pieces that were at his parent’s house, I was a little skeptical. Not to seem ungrateful or anything, but sometimes he and I aren’t exactly on the same page. Sometimes we are not even in the same book. He assured me they would work. Now I just had to wait until the next time we were up that way. Patience is not my strong suit. But once I got a hold of them, not only did they work, but they were exactly what I was hoping for. They were already distressed and naturally aged to the perfect patina.

DIY barnwood barn wood fence picket picture frame

DIY barn wood look picture frame from old fence pickets

Turns out, the wood came from the white picket fence that surrounded my husband’s grandparents house from his childhood. The homeplace sits in shambles, but the pickets from the fence somehow survived and had been waiting patiently for a new life! Interestingly, the fence was originally sourced from Richmond Cedar Works, where my husband’s great grandfather worked for many years. So now I have frames that not only look great but have some personal meaning behind them too!

Now that I’m finally ready to get started, I measured my wall. I decided on 16 x 20 for my frames. This would give me space on my wall for 3 frames ( 3 kiddos) with a few inches between each frame. I also wanted to be sure that whatever size I chose, I could readily purchase glass to fit for minimal cost at my local craft store. We measured and remeasured, then mitered the corners at 45 degrees.

DIY barnwood look picture frame from old fence

Use a miter saw to cut 45° degree angles for corners.

We then used a router to make the groove for the photo and glass to sit into. Using a nail gun, we used 18 gauge brad nails to hold the 4 pieces together.

Router out a groove for the picture, glass and backing on the back inside edge.

I placed the purchased glass into the frame, added my photograph, and then cut foamboard to size to use as my backing. Using glazing points around all four sides to hold everything in place, I was now ready to attach the picture hangers onto the back of the frame. Add the wire and Voilà!! What do you think?

DIY barn wood frame from picket fence pieces picture hanger and wire

DIY barn wood look picture frame from fence

Of course you may or may not have old fence pickets that belonged to your grandparents laying around, so you may need to be creative. Check craigslist, your local recycling center, or you could give new wood a barnwood look. I will show you how I did that for a project in a coming post!

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