Shabbying up the Living Room

The time had come to do a little something more inviting to one of my shore rental units. So today I got busy with it.

Sometimes when people rent it, they move furniture around to their liking and take paintings off the wall to replace with stuff they like for the summer season.

It has been looking a little thread bare lately so I decided to set out and gather all things soft, fluffy, shabby, white and lacy, and put myself to work! 

So first up are the before pics...

BEFORE

This area below is the first thing I am getting started on!

BEFORE

And little by little, I brought on the "Shabby" Vintage Cottage look.

AFTER

By moving furniture to a different arrangement, adding a vintage urn, some fluffy pillows, and a big white fluffy throw rug, I have created an inviting spot that draws you in.

The addition of a shaggy white rug, some vintage linens, pillows and a throw, complete the cozy comfy effect I was looking for.

The best part is, all of these items were around either my cottage beach house, or at the rental, in a closet or tucked into the shed. Even the lamps were hiding in a closet!

This transformation didn't cost one red cent!

I think it is fun to see what you can do to create a vision with just a little imagination!

I am more than pleased with how it looks now!

Vintage bottles for Vanity

 I love vintage bottles! Especially the Aqua or cobalt ones. I have discovered another use for them. 

Last year when I came home from St.John, I bought myself a little necklace as a souvenir and rather than throw it in my jewelry box where I would only see it occasionally, I decided to wrap that little necklace around a vintage bottle that I had on my kitchen shelf so I could look at it every day,

 and be reminded of my fabulous time I had while on vacation!!

What is awesome, is that the stones in this necklace are only found in the carribean waters. I forget exactly what the stone is called but it is such a pretty blue, like the water.
Now, after coming back from a trip to Maui, I have decided to adorn a few vintage bottles with little handmade necklaces I bought on that fabulous island as well!

It's just a nice reminder of the islands as well as a pretty decor item.

The Back Yard Down the Shore Before and After

The yard at the cottage down the shore used to be a maintenance  nightmare. The grass would always dry out from the hot sun, and it had sticky balls in it from the weeds we couldn't get rid of.

This is how it was, when we first purchased it. In the background you can see the seawall. This is before the township put up the concrete promenade over the rock seawall.

After a few years of this , we finally decided to rip all the grass out and completely EP Henry the yard.
I love it now. It's like one big patio.

This is how it is now.

This deck used to be an old worn out one, and we recently had it rebuilt  and I love that too.

If I can find some old pics of the deck before I'll post them later.

Even though that concrete promenade took some of my view from the yard and first floor, I've come to terms with it. I use that now to go for very enjoyable walks now down the coast!

We now use the entire yard, every inch. All the way back to the fence, where we have a firepit for the cool nights in May or September. That table in the pic is actually the firepit.  I love this because we can use it for a coffee table for drinks and stuff, when we don't have a fire burning.
And my daughters helped me build that little wall (under the fairy)in front of the fence, to create a little garden.



And then I decided that I wanted my porch to have more of an inviting, shabby chic, go ahead and fall asleep outside, feeling.  So I gathered up everything I had around the house to transform it from it's slightly tropical look to a place where you just were dying to sit and relax!!
First I started with the outside porch seating area

Which I added a ruffled white twin bedskirt to, and some fluffy pillow shams for the following effect:

and a duvet cover to the other side

Doesn't this look adorable?

And the best part is it held up with a group of 20 somethings down each weekend.

That was the true test. They started sitting out back more often because it was so inviting. 

And I thought 

" I'm going to have to readjust it every 5 minutes!!'

 But lo and behold.. I didn't have to ... and it stayed clean! I thought for sure it would be dirtied up inside a week, But NO. It looked this way from about early July till I dismantled everything in November when the weather around here gets kinda yukky. 

Now I can't wait for the nice weather to come back.

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Inspire me Tuesday

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Coastal Charm Party