I am still looking for a few furniture pieces for the cottage and found a couple of little tables at two different yard sales over the summer. I bought a little side table at the annual Surfpines neighborhood yard sale just north of Gearhart on Fourth of July weekend. It was painted with a flat grey paint – it may have even been some kind of chalk paint – and I knew I would need to paint it some nice beachy color when I bought it for…
August on the Oregon Coast! Time for the annual gathering of the clan to enjoy the weather, the beach, family and friends, lots of good food and drink, golf, boogie boarding and just plain hanging out around the fire with a good book and a cold beverage! Let Beach Week begin! We started the week with buying a fresh load of firewood. My brother tracked down the wood cutter guys – what a couple of characters! – and got a cord of…
Our big old chair! … (Doesn’t everybody have one of these somewhere?) We have had this big oversized brownish/sage green chair for many, many years over at little Sea Star Cottage. We bought it at a second-hand furniture store in Seaside because we needed a big chair and it was the only one we could afford at the time. The color was fairly neutral and it has held up to many years of little kids and teenagers. It’s not really very beachy…. but it worked and it…
As some of you may know, Shell’s Cottage is not our first beach house. Back in 2005, we bought little Sea Star Cottage from a friend of the family. It had been a rental for several years and the owner was ready to sell. It needed quite a bit of cosmetic updating such as paint and flooring and tile, but it was the right low price and size for our small family at the time, and best of all it is just half a…
Remember the dark green carpet in the yellow bedroom? No more green carpet! We bit the bullet and had the carpet removed from the bedroom and had all of the wood floors on the main floor refinished. This bedroom was the only room in the whole house with wall-to-wall carpet and now I know why. The back part of the room and the closet appear to have been a later addition and it looks like they just laid down the…
There is something about spending time in an old cottage that makes you want to fill it with old things. Beautiful old things. Like English ironstone and blue transferware and comfortably worn quilts. In the case of an old beach cottage then there are also things like vintage Pendleton blankets, old fishing creels and historic seaside photos. I have found myself keeping an eye out for “beach cottage” items in my travels. Now…I will admit it…I am a longtime fan of…
Well….We sure had a lot of yellow beadboard happening in the cottage last summer! All the beadboard wainscoting in the party room and in the front entry was painted yellow. I’m sure it was great, once upon a time, but it was time for a fresh coat of something new. The color inspiration came from all of that blue-green-grey slate on the party room floor. After scattering a bunch of paint chip samples around, and wandering by at different times of…
The kitchen is one of the really fun rooms in this cottage – as kitchens should be! It’s big and has lots of storage and the major updates have been done. There is a newer fridge, dishwasher, gas stove and best of all – a garbage disposal – which is a rare thing down at the coast for some reason. The original 1920’s cabinets have been painted a soft green. The little cutout cabinet doors with the white curtains under the sink are…
Yes…we have a main floor bathroom. Forgot to mention that the other day. It is located next to the stairs between the dining room and the little hall to the bedrooms. Next to the bathroom door is an old-school, floor to ceiling, built-in linen cabinet. How cool is that? The bathroom has been nicely updated with white tile on the walls and green tile on the floor and newer fixtures. Just needs a new shower curtain and a cute rug. Now…
Now to the fun part – Paint colors! You knew that was coming up next – right? When the previous owner bought this cottage over twenty-five years ago, things were apparently a tad bit rough about the edges. It seems that all of the walls on the main floor, some of the woodwork, and who knows what-all-else had been painted a bright shade of yellow. That yellow was covering up a previous shade of robin’s egg blue – and not doing a great…