Finally Gardening again

Since I didn't do any gardening last year I decided to make up for it this year. The beach house entry needed some major attention and while I am still working on the light, house number, mail box situation I can share the beautification of the front (and back) yard.

This is what we started with. Some shrubs and not much love or color. As you can see it really needed attention.

So I decided to put some grasses on the side, add some groundcover plants and some Lily's (my favorite flower). All in all, it hopefully will bring some color and year long blooming to the front yard. I always order my plants from www.bluestoneperennials.com since they have a fantastic product and customer service. All other plant needs are usually filled by my favorite local nursery here in NJ.

There is still other parts of the front yard that will also need to be addressed but since this is the area that you see when you walk to our front door it is the most important to me right now.

After removing the shrubs (and putting them on Craigslist for free) I could finally plant the new stuff and mulch around it. Now I just have to wait a few weeks/months. I hope that by the end of the summer I will be able to share an awesome update.

The side flower bed only had weeds in it and is now filled with grasses and some phlox for some color. Now I just need to find some ceramic animals and decorations for the outside. Maybe I need to spray paint some flower pots?

 I can't wait to share with out what it will look like eventually.

I don't have a before picture of the backyard but originally we only had shrubs and bushes here as well, which weren't really summery and which I had ripped out two summers ago. Last summer I planted  some grasses and some butterfly bushes. This year I added some ice plant to creep along the bottom as well as some Aster to get some color in the fall as well as a hydrangea.

This side still needs some attention and mulch.

Last question. I need to get/ repaint some pots. Since the house is yellow with some stone. Do I want green or blue pots?

Liebe Gruesse.
Sarah

Hallway Lamps

Ok, so I started writing this post twice and never finished it. Go figure. I am finally having a new appreciation for the bloggers that write daily.

Ever since I started the hallway renovation I was on the hunt for new lamps. On all fronts...ceiling and entry table. I am still dreaming about high hat lighting but that will have to wait since its going to be a lot of work to rewire this lovely house.

The lamps that we had just weren't doing it for me. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the ceiling light but let me tell you it was ugly. The one on the entry tables (yes we have two) just didn't fit the new improved style since they were just too big and beachy in an old kind of way. Yes, I understand the irony of a beachy lamp in a beach house but you get the idea.

So this lamp was originally on the entry table. Not sure where it will get repurposed and maybe it will not be so bad with a new shade.

This was the other lamp that we also had in the hallway. Like most items in this house they are wood, dark and a little too cunky for my liking.

So we replaced the ceiling light (sorry for the missing before) with this lovely option from Lowes. I think it look georgous and it does really bring a lot of light into the hallway, especially since we have no windows.

So after I've been checking all my favorite stores (Target, Lowes and Home Goods) I could not find suitable replacements for the entry table though. I was already beginning to think that the old lamps might have to stay for a while, especially with the summer coming and the rental season hopefully starting soon, but then Home Goods came through with these lovely objects. The problem was that I needed two lamps and while they had a few nice ones before they always only had one.

Isn't it pretty? I am just working on the shade to bring some fun color into the hallway before the final big reveal. Thanks to another bloggers idea I picked up a shower curtain from Target's Threshold Line to use the fabric around the lamps. I can't wait to see how this will turn out.

Hopefully soon I can come back with the big reveal soon (I just need to finish a few items- rehanging the laundry door, finish painting the back of the front door and redo the hardware, lampshades).

Until then I will leave you with our sunset tonight.

Thanks for reading.

Sarah

Our House

After we have been talking about the Beach House so much (which you can rent through www.vrbo.com or email me) I figured a rundown of our regular House is long overdue.

We have a cute little Cape Cod style home, which needed/needs a lot of love. While we still have a lot of small and bigger items to do we know that we won't stay here forever and so we are working on the important items first.

I should probably take an updated picture when the flowers are out and pretty.

We have pretty much gutted (and put back together) the whole first floor at this point but there is still lots of items on the to do list.

That is during our destruction phase. Ideally we would have liked to take the wall down for a large open living and dining space but since we know that we will sell this house down the line it made no sense for us to do that (since bedrooms are more valuable in selling homes).

Living Room before (what can I say it was a boy house and it needed me :-) )

I need to retake a picture from the same point of view but currently the living room looks like this. Hard to believe its the same room. Oh and those pretty wooden floors were hidden under carpet- yuck....

You get the idea...As you can imagine everything changed.

The big to do for the fall will be our kitchen some of our neighbors have blow out the kitchen to make it bigger but that will not be in our budget and so we will need to redesign the room to make it functional even in a small space but this will also be a total gut job.

We are currently living with this dark, blue and no counterspace at all kitchen. This is what it looked like when Brian moved into the house. Blue wall,s blue vinyl floors and blue countertops.

I painted the kitchen yellow at some point but now it is just time to go and for this kitchen the time was yesterday.

My Wish List for the new kitchen:

• High hat lights
• Pendant light of the window
• new functional layout, including counterspace and cabinet space
• white classic looking cabinetry
• glass back splash (I am still working on options)
• depending on size a small breakfast 

I can't wait to start this project even though I know that I will get very upset durning the process when everything is messy and we can only eat sandwiches but it will all be worth it in the end.

Thanks for reading.

Sarah

Bathroom Renovation

I am a little behind and I know that I haven't show you our regular house but last summer we redid our main bathroom.  This was truly necessary since B had put his feet through the wall while laying in the bathtub at one point. The beauty of being 6'4" and having rotten walls. Plus, we were expecting a lot of company during our wedding all of which would be staying with us.

We started with this....dark, brown and blue and just overall in dire need to be gutted. The previous owners had replaced the sink and redid the floors at one point, which were cracked though when B moved in.

Original Bathroom:

This was a complete gut job, including moving the window and toilet, redoing the insulation and electric.

Moving the window in order to make it more functional. While we had originally thought to hire somebody to replace the window, we ended up doing it ourselves, since we were told by various companies that the job is too small and not worth their time.

The gutted room ready to be put back together.

Finally... window is in, insulation done, electric replaced, new lights installed and the walls are coming back.

We decided to go with classic subway tiles along with some accent tiles. Both products are from Home Depot.

For the floor we used slate tile, that we had purchased at the local Re Store. We purchased enough for redoing this bathroom along with the 2 main bathrooms at the beach house (various sizes all for $400). We are very excited and so far I am still loving the slate floors, even if they are little harder to clean.

I then also decided to try stripes in the bathroom in a grey/ greenish color combo. I will need to look up the colors and let you know.

Keeping it real. This is what the entry looked like during the renovation.

Finally the finished product. I am very happy on how it turned out.

We didn't want to go overboard and were working with a $2500 budget. Given that we did all the work ourselves we came in right around there.

Product List:

• The vanity is from the Restoration Hardware Outlet 
• Lights and towel bar are from Restoration Hardware
• Mirror is reused but we built a frame
• map is a Custom Map of my HomeTown in Germany from JennaSue Design
• Giraffe soap dish was from Lowes and got spraypainted
• Subway and Accent Tile Home Depot
• Paint Lowes
• Slate Floor Tile is Re Store

And since I love Before and Afters from other people....Sorry the POV is a little off but its close enough.

Before                                                                                                 After

Thanks for reading.

Sarah

Living Room to do

In order to keep me organized I'd like to keep track of what needs to be done.

We really haven't really done anything to this room except remove the heavy curtains that match the couch. Yes, we are very stylish around here.....I really do wish Grandma was still around since she knew her way around a sewing machine.

Current Living room

What I would like to do to this room:

• Install wood floors
• Install lighting in ceiling
• switch all outlets and switches to white
• paint all the brown trim around the room white
• turn the bookshelf into a sit on bench
• built in a TV/ Storage unit
• built a new dining room table for 10
• get new dining room chairs
• seating in general (new couch or reupholster the current furniture- maybe move this furniture to the porch?)
• new lampshades
• new curtains
• get new TV (we don't watch much TV but useful for a rainy day or our summer renters)

Our Beach House

I am still working on a Floor Plan and updated pictures but here are some older pictures of our house. I promise I will walk around soon and update the pictures fully along with a list of what has been done in each room.

Please keep in mind that this is our second home and we are only working on it on weekends.


Outside 

Backyard

Our beautiful yard during sunset

Porch 

In Progress

Before

Master Bedroom

In Progress

In Progress

Before

Kitchen

Living room

Bunk Bedroom

As you can see there is no shortage of work for us at our house but I think we have already come a long way.

Thanks for reading.

Sarah

Hallway- we are getting there

We are slowing getting there in the hallway.

I recently created another gallery wall on the left side (who would have thought that this space used to be all orange and dark.

I am still working on the other side as well and hope to have B built an entry bench sometime this summer. I can't wait for it to get warm so that I can paint the inside of the front door and OBR the hardware.

 Here is our new coat rack for towels, bags and all other stuff.

I am still on the hunt for the perfect lamps for the console table and I owe you a picture of the new hallway light as well. Can't wait to share final results in 2 weeks or so (after we come back from vacation)

Oh so much too do......


Liebe Gruesse
Sarah