The Big Beach Reveal Part 2!

I am so tired, I can hardly write this!! It's a good tired. Bone weary tired. A tired of accomplishment. A satisfying tired. Still, I will get this post done and then collapse in to bed with my book that is oh so good (The Push by Ashley Audrain---thanks Connie--she gave it to me for my birthday). I'm looking forward to that!!

Along with putting everything back in place, there has been a lot of cleaning. A. Lot. There was a construction clean done prior to us getting here, but it wasn't to my standards. I can be a little fanatical about that (don't laugh Judy and Chrissy--they knew me when I was a mess!). I realized I might be a little over the top when I did this:

I washed all the rocks and also sea shells that are in my decorations. If you look close, you might see a tooth and a diamond. As for the tooth, I thought someone was messing with me. Then I realized that it was just a tooth shaped piece of wax! As for the diamond, there were two. The candles in the background have little rhinestones on them. I guess a few fell off in to the rocks. 

Without further ado, here are the final pictures. 

The hallway is really long and was also very dark. We added the white beadboard to help lighten it up. To put it in to perspective, those rug runners are 12 ft. long. I actually could have used another---the hall is that long. This is what you see when you walk through the front door.

This is the view from the other end. I do love my green door! Considering there are just two bedrooms, I managed to use 9 different paint colors! I want what I want!

This is the view when you step in to the living room. You can see the dining area in the background. Before:

The furnishings were inherited from when we bought the place. We did replace the couch and loveseat. There was a lot of rust color--not my favorite. But, since we've rented it out for a number of years, we lived with it. I wasn't invested in it at all. It was just a rental. All that has changed now!

After:

Lightened it up quite a bit. We added all new lights throughout because it was so dark.

Before:

This is the couch and loveseat that we bought. 

After:

I swapped out all the pillows to make the furniture seem "new." We kept the mirrored wall as it makes it look much bigger--we only have about 1100 sq.ft. You can see the shades in the half open position--my favorite. I picked a colorful polka dot rug for a little extra interest. 

This is looking back towards the hallway. We put shiplap on this little wall. As you may have noticed, I LOVE white! It looks so clean and crisp. Plus I feel like white gives the place a beachy vibe. 

The kitchen was awful. I never liked it. I was really happy to see it go!

I only remember to take a photo when we were disassembling everything. You have to picture there were New England lighthouses lining the tops of the cabinets. We're on the gulf---no lighthouses in sight!! I was really happy to see it go! 

Here's the kitchen. Butch loves those metal fish over the cabinets. They were all throughout the place. I don't really like them, but decided to make him happy by using them. I wanted them to appear to be swimming in the ocean amidst some plants. The plants were from before. I literally dunked and swished them in sudsy water, rinsed and let them dry outside. Okay, you really have to use your imagination to think it looks like "under the sea" but it looks pretty good in person!

I couldn't wait to do the kitchen---we did it last. 

You cannot tell from these pictures, but we cut 9" off the counter and eliminated the barstools. It's really opened up the dining area. Considering all the problems we've had with our appliances, we're just happy that it has all come together. 

We're exhausted--3 solid days of work--but such fun work. We're not sure we could do another day. Tomorrow I'm meeting with the drapery lady about the bedroom windows. Also, the neighbors next door asked if they could come over. And then, Christy (my designer in Nashville) is coming by. I've already told her that we missed using her on this project. ALL of those headaches would have been HERS!! 

It's over now. Given all the hassles and headaches, would we do it again? Absolutely. Only this time we'd know what we were in for. And we'd wait for the pandemic to be over! 

One last thing I need to mention. I cannot believe how much hard, physical labor that Butch can do to his body. There is no way that I could be down on my knees on stone tile. He was up and down so much that you might think he was a carousel horse!! In this photo, he was adjusting the levelers on the refrigerator that kept it from moving. The delivery guy said there weren't any on it. I guess he didn't want to have to get down on the floor. He was a much younger guy, but a big guy, so he probably couldn't do it. Butch didn't give it a second thought! He just does what needs to be done.

Truly, he's amazing! He's so good to let me order him around. We've come a long way in 49 years!!

Okeedokee, my book is calling me!!