:: a lake house renovation - the kitchen

{ Driftwood Cottage }

Now that all of our renovations are over the dust has cleared & we've christened it with fun weekends with friends & family... I'm finally ready to document all the changes we made to our vacation home on the lake. Welcome to { Driftwood Cottage } our little slice of lake life.

Of all the spaces in the lake house, the Kitchen is my absolute favorite. I love how everything turned out. I love the newly painted white cabinets with their new bronze hardware. I adore all of the new lighting, and I'm especially in love with my new bookcase/banquette... it was the perfect solution to hide the fridge at the end of the cabinets.  I had to share the after first because I think it's just so much prettier than where we began.  The kitchen wasn't so bad to begin with, the cabinets were relatively new as well as the tile backsplash and granite countertops... so they stayed and the cabinets got a paint job and new hardware. I'm happy enough with the granite countertops, if I changed anything it would be the tile backsplash, but it works and doesn't bother me...not worth the money to change it. The major changes in the kitchen & throughout the house are the ceilings and the flooring. We had all of the popcorn ceilings removed throughout & also had bamboo flooring installed through the whole house. We went with bamboo because of the durability & the fact that it plays well with water... that's pretty important on a lake & when you have a basement. 

Here is the kitchen before we purchased the house. That's vinyl flooring not tile & though it's not horrible & was in good shape, we wanted a cohesive look throughout the house.

Here it is with the ceilings stripped & paint swatches on the walls, 

it took me forever and about a zillion paint pots to decide on a color.

We decided to keep the appliances because they were all in good working order, 

In fact the black ties in nicely with the bronze hardware I chose.

Here are the cabinets with their first coat of primer, looking better already.

Cabinet doors & shelves being painted in the basement, all that nasty carpet has to go anyway.

Looking a bit less stark with the new paint color, also blends a bit better.

At this point I also contemplated leaving some of the cabinet doors off.

I decided for practical and visual reasons to put them back on. 

The bookcase ended up being all the open shelving we needed.

Woo Hoo the flooring was going in...what a huge difference!

The new bookcase wall is up to mask the fridge,  and the new lighting has been installed.  

The fixture above the sink is Bristow by Allen Roth from Lowe's, and the lovely Twig Orb is from Shades of Light I ordered the Large.  I just adore it & I think it adds the perfect rustic touch. 

Then came the best part of all, the built in bookshelf & banquette. 

This is my absolute favorite part of our whole renovation... it absolutely makes the kitchen,

now it's so much more functional and quaint. We also now have a much better view from the living room not looking into the side of a refrigerator. It took a little bit of research to figure out the whole banquette thing. I had never had one before & I've never designed one until now ;). I wanted it to be deep enough for lounging {in fact it's large enough to sleep on...my kids have done it ha! ha! } but easy enough to get in and out of, and oh there are so many different opinions on the depth of a banquette seat on the web. I decided by sitting in a comfortable wicker chair that I loved measuring the depth then adding an additional few inches for throw pillows in the back.  I also chose to leave the seating open underneath so feet could swing under comfortably. It looks a bit low to the ground in these photos & it is, but I had to account for the 4" of foam cushion that would be the seat.

Here we have our beadboard back in place & our new coat of White Dove,

and she's all ready for some cushions, a table & some goodies for the shelves.

Starting the decorating process my favorite part. 

We have uncovered foam, a few throw pillows, vintage books and baskets. 

It was and still is such fun looking for treasures to add to { Driftwood Cottage }

Lots of vintage and used books for relaxed weekend and summer reading.

I found a great stash of vintage Reader's Digests all with the great printed covers,

I love the pops of color they add to the space, and they are great for weekend reading.

Here it is again in all it's finished splendor {so you don't have to scroll back up}

I absolutely love this space.  It's where we all gather for morning coffee & conversation,

where we read, craft & even play on our computers.  This is truly the perfect spot for lounging & laughing with family & friends, and we are so blessed to have it and share it.

Oh & here she is our little { Driftwood Cottage }

{ lake side }

{ street side }

Just wait till you see the changes we've made outside...

more photos coming soon!!

{ peace, love & a hug }

Carrie

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:: a lake house renovation - the kitchen

{ Driftwood Cottage }

Now that all of our renovations are over the dust has cleared & we've christened it with fun weekends with friends & family... I'm finally ready to document all the changes we made to our vacation home on the lake. Welcome to { Driftwood Cottage } our little slice of lake life.

Of all the spaces in the lake house, the Kitchen is my absolute favorite. I love how everything turned out. I love the newly painted white cabinets with their new bronze hardware. I adore all of the new lighting, and I'm especially in love with my new bookcase/banquette... it was the perfect solution to hide the fridge at the end of the cabinets.  I had to share the after first because I think it's just so much prettier than where we began.  The kitchen wasn't so bad to begin with, the cabinets were relatively new as well as the tile backsplash and granite countertops... so they stayed and the cabinets got a paint job and new hardware. I'm happy enough with the granite countertops, if I changed anything it would be the tile backsplash, but it works and doesn't bother me...not worth the money to change it. The major changes in the kitchen & throughout the house are the ceilings and the flooring. We had all of the popcorn ceilings removed throughout & also had bamboo flooring installed through the whole house. We went with bamboo because of the durability & the fact that it plays well with water... that's pretty important on a lake & when you have a basement. 

Here is the kitchen before we purchased the house. That's vinyl flooring not tile & though it's not horrible & was in good shape, we wanted a cohesive look throughout the house.

Here it is with the ceilings stripped & paint swatches on the walls, 

it took me forever and about a zillion paint pots to decide on a color.

We decided to keep the appliances because they were all in good working order, 

In fact the black ties in nicely with the bronze hardware I chose.

Here are the cabinets with their first coat of primer, looking better already.

Cabinet doors & shelves being painted in the basement, all that nasty carpet has to go anyway.

Looking a bit less stark with the new paint color, also blends a bit better.

At this point I also contemplated leaving some of the cabinet doors off.

I decided for practical and visual reasons to put them back on. 

The bookcase ended up being all the open shelving we needed.

Woo Hoo the flooring was going in...what a huge difference!

The new bookcase wall is up to mask the fridge,  and the new lighting has been installed.  

The fixture above the sink is Bristow by Allen Roth from Lowe's, and the lovely Twig Orb is from Shades of Light I ordered the Large.  I just adore it & I think it adds the perfect rustic touch. 

Then came the best part of all, the built in bookshelf & banquette. 

This is my absolute favorite part of our whole renovation... it absolutely makes the kitchen,

now it's so much more functional and quaint. We also now have a much better view from the living room not looking into the side of a refrigerator. It took a little bit of research to figure out the whole banquette thing. I had never had one before & I've never designed one until now ;). I wanted it to be deep enough for lounging {in fact it's large enough to sleep on...my kids have done it ha! ha! } but easy enough to get in and out of, and oh there are so many different opinions on the depth of a banquette seat on the web. I decided by sitting in a comfortable wicker chair that I loved measuring the depth then adding an additional few inches for throw pillows in the back.  I also chose to leave the seating open underneath so feet could swing under comfortably. It looks a bit low to the ground in these photos & it is, but I had to account for the 4" of foam cushion that would be the seat.

Here we have our beadboard back in place & our new coat of White Dove,

and she's all ready for some cushions, a table & some goodies for the shelves.

Starting the decorating process my favorite part. 

We have uncovered foam, a few throw pillows, vintage books and baskets. 

It was and still is such fun looking for treasures to add to { Driftwood Cottage }

Lots of vintage and used books for relaxed weekend and summer reading.

I found a great stash of vintage Reader's Digests all with the great printed covers,

I love the pops of color they add to the space, and they are great for weekend reading.

Here it is again in all it's finished splendor {so you don't have to scroll back up}

I absolutely love this space.  It's where we all gather for morning coffee & conversation,

where we read, craft & even play on our computers.  This is truly the perfect spot for lounging & laughing with family & friends, and we are so blessed to have it and share it.

Oh & here she is our little { Driftwood Cottage }

{ lake side }

{ street side }

Just wait till you see the changes we've made outside...

more photos coming soon!!

{ peace, love & a hug }

Carrie

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:: million dollar baby

It's all about the kitchen

a dining room with water views

a huge room for lounging with guests after a day on your yacht

a lovely room for the ladies

and one for the gents

a lovely sauna

grab a vintage from here

or maybe you prefer a more intimate space to unwind 

you can live the dream here

Your cost....a mere $49,500,000

for a lovely little 11 bed / 18 bath / 22,000 sq ft home

and I thought I dreamt big... 

{peace, love & hugs}

Carrie

Home Found Here

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:: moving in & moving on

Okay, let me just start my saying what the heck was I thinking when I agreed to move. Oh my, I think I never really thought through all the work and stress that would be involved. All I can say is that never never will I bring everything with me ever again when I move....

can we just say "too much stuff".

Well anyway, I wanted to share a pretty picture with you so above is the kitchen before we officially moved in. So lovely, clean & serene....this photo makes me want to simplify even more.

Here's what it looked like during the moving in process.  STUFF EXPOLOSION. I'm pretty sure it was multiplying in the truck. I seriously thought we'd never get out from under the piles.

By the way, there are two ways to have a professional mover move you. 

OPTION 1, they pack you up, unload the boxes stack them into mountains & leave you to it.

End Result....lots & lots of boxes & packing paper to deal with. 

OPTION 2, they pack & they unpack...putting things on any available surface {they DO NOT put things away for you}. End Result....piles of stuff, & they take all the packing mess : ).

Can you guess which option we chose?

Ha Ha...yep Option 2.

Crazy Huh.

Well here's the plus side to Option 2....you HAVE to deal with the stuff, lest you live in an episode of hoarders forever {no offense to any hoarders, love that show...and I'm pretty sure I have some hoarding tendencies}. I went that route the last time I moved and it took me nearly a year to deal with the boxes. In the end I lost a whole box of swimsuits & a pair of rx glasses to Goodwill {that's how hubs deals with boxes of stuff ha ha}. 

It was a pretty mountain of boxes though : ).

Not to say that my house is in complete order yet....far from it, but I have dealt with a lot of the stuff {should have dealt with it more before I moved...holy mess} anyway, hindsight you know.

Oh did I mention that during the move I turned 40 and buried my grandfather the same day.

Needless to say so far 40 hasn't been so great. I've had more than my share of breakdowns, and If you've been with me long you know what I'm talking about.

Moving is stressful business....especially when it happens so fast.

It's been over a month now, and I'm starting to feel a little more settled. Still lots & lots of stuff to deal with/get rid of...ha ha you may even see some of it pop up here on the blog. Oh yeah, we also decided to downsize in this move....hence too much stuff & not enough space.

So if you've seen anything here on the blog that you love just tell me & if it fits it ships. Ha Ha.

Stay tuned for more house updates.

{peace, love & hugs}

Carrie

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:: dream pantry

                            Spaces design by Other Metros Design-build Witt Construction

{ p a n t r y   l o v e }

This is what I've been dreaming about lately.  I love this pantry....every last thing about it. Due to a recent failure of our lovely builders wire shelving, we are now looking to redo our pantry.  This is the look I'm going for....to a point of course...but you get the idea.

This is as good as my current pantry gets. It's just impossible to keep it looking this neat.

So, wish me luck & I'll keep you posted on our little pantry project. 

Hopefully I'll end up with a pantry worthy of Houzz { fingers crossed }.

{ peace, love & hugs }

Carrie

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