2011 in review

Going backward over the past year, I realize it has been a very inspiring and very busy year. I really enjoyed blogland and visiting so many creative woman.
Even though my kids are mostly grown we still really enjoy our Christmas, and this year  Santa bought his big burlap bag of surprises.

Everyone came over to open presents.

The Duke was patient and good as gold while we opened our gifts

and he got his own little ornament from a neighborhood friend!

And grand baby had the best-est time.

December Merry Christmas... was a blast, I love to decorate, and even got help from the dog!

Duke help create this vignette below when I worked on the Dining room, here

 I decorated the mantle for a challenge here

November ...went to Denver for a girls weekend

 came home to prepare a great Thanksgiving

October...Early pumpkin picking

and gourd gathering, I found this awesome black gourd, that looked just like a ball and claw foot.

 In Oct I also opened a booth in Cape May NJ at North End garage

in Late October I went to New Orleans where I took a zillion pictures of houses, It is a pretty neat city.

and came home to pumpkin carving on Halloween!

September... my youngest went off to college, I missed her as I dressed the shore cottage for Fall

Painted some furniture with my sis

August... my son bought a house and moved out, so I began to re-decorate his room.
And 2 puppies came home with us, well one for us, one for my grown daughter.

July... was spent at the shore house, lazy days on the beach,

 also saw Ringo Starr at the Casino, and re-decorated one of my daughter's rooms, here
We beachified it.

June ..A wonderful prom and fun High School graduation party

and went back to Florida and visited hot springs

May... Opened the pool, lots of  gardening,

redid the patio

spruced up the shore cottage here

April...went on a trip to the Florida Keys with my sis.

March...Went to Florida and Beachified the dining room, posted about the table intervention here

This Florida dining room was my favorite transformation this past year... I had wanted to do something for a long time. the before was hideous!!

.....scratch that .....
THIS was my favorite.. the kitchen redo

February... finished renovation of my kitchen... complete tour here...

January ...started renovation of my kitchen

That's 2011 in a nutshell, backwards! All good stuff.
In between all this, lots of tables got painted, chairs got re-made, and crafty things got done.
I had a ton of fun, looking back, hope you enjoyed it too!
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Completed Kitchen Tour before and after "The Good the Bad and the Ugly"

Because I have previously posted bits and pieces of my new white kitchen as it was getting done, I thought now that it is complete with dishes all put back, I would give a complete tour. 
 A 360 * tour .....

The renovation of the Cottage Beach House down the shore.

One thing I haven't shared and have been meaning to is

Our  Cottage Beach House at the New Jersey Shore

 We purchased our home at the shore because it had a view of the ocean. It was dark and dreary inside. We did all the work ourselves with the help of family. Tearing out the pot belly stove (our only source of heat) was difficult . See all the brick around it? There in the back left corner?...

( Ignore those crazy ladies in costumes... One of our theme parties.)
The Kitchen Before

The kitchen floor got torn out completely down to the sand underneath. Funny thing is we found that it was all built with scrap wood and old doors! My brother, sister in law, son and cuz, rebuilt that floor.

That back wall you see where the door is...My sister in law went to lean on it, and her arm went right through it!!!
 We didnt know it was that rotted!! So we had to replace that entire back wall. My son did all the demolition and my brother did the rebuilding of the walls.
We got our cabinets from Home Depot and my brother and sister in law helped put them in.
This is how it looks now.
The After

The back wall rebuilt, a nice new double french door, and some soft blue paint

On the right side wall, I used an old door to create an access door to the new heat system we had installed. I sanded it and painted it white with a little bit of distressed blue running through it.

 My brother made me a door out of beadboard ( to match my cabinets) to cover the electric panel which is to the right because there is no where else it could go. It's a tiny house. He also made the woodwork you see around the old door.

This area that is now a closet for our heater was where the refrigerator once stood.
To the left of the above area was a horrible orange countertop, very dark smelly brown cabinets and a washing machine!

I could not find a picture but here is a diagram of the  Kitchen Before

I am talking about the area on the right of the diagram.

That area now

And the refrig is now where the washer was when we bought the house

The washer is in the same closet as the heatrer is now.
The sink  which was under the little window you see here is on the other side of the room, on an angle facing in to the dining area.

 Sink in this corner.
And it is a little bar area here too. Which once was a big ugly orange counter.

The entire house had brown indoor outdoor carpeting, which my daughter and I ripped out, and lenolium under that which we also tore out.  Then we had someone install  a whitewashed wood.

This is a picture from the little living room, as you can see it's not much more than a shotgun shack.
That's what they call them when you can look right through them.
But that is what sold me. When I looked at the house, I could see right through to the beach grass swaying in the wind, the minute I walked in. But I do remember standing at that fence with the realtor and not being sure. Because of the work it needed.

To me now this thought seems unbelievable. That I even considered NOT buying it, seems crazy. The view is great, I mean the ocean is right there. A lot more than I ever thought our measly pockets could buy. And fixing her up has been so much fun.

 A true labor of love.

Here is a flash from the past.

My area in the 1930's         ( more info about this pic later)

My area now

I was not happy when they topped these rocks with concrete 

( it obstructed my view from the kitchen of the waves) 

but now, this is a favorite place of mine to walk .

When we finally finished the kitchen reno i picked a laminate floor that looked like slate, because the rocks that lined the beach behind me are all a slate color. 

 The rocks

And the counter that I picked reflects that same slate color with splashes of aqua in it.

Here is a closer look at the cabinets I chose, and I still really love them, now which is 6 years later. My counter is formica, not granite because at the time we really could not afford the granite. But I still absolutely love that counter top.

 The reno took about 7 months, with the help of my son, a friend of his, and my brother and sis in law. It was a lot of walls being rebuilt and floors, and beams.

 All so very worth it in the end. 

I hope you enjoyed my little tour of the Cottage down the shore.

Thanks so much for stopping in!

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