My Shabby Cottage Home

Long Time No Write!

2011-01-17T11:57:00.000-08:00

I know it's been over a year since I've posted and I really regret this. Life just keeps getting in the way and your priorities keep changing. So well I have the chance I thought I would update a little.

I am STILL working on my house. I think I will be working on it until the day I die. Unexpected emergencies come up and I have to allocate the money for remodeling to the "emergency of the week".

I have not done much except more painting and tiling. Although, I am in the process of posting something to hgtv. They have a new site called hgtved and they are asking for entries for anyone who has ever wanted hgtv to come to their house and makeover something. Well, Hello!! Here I am!! Can you see me hgtv???....Papa, can you hear me???

So I've just finished writing my plea for why they should pick me. I'm digging out some pictures now to post on the site. I'm going for the pathetic factor.

So if anyone is still reading this, please look for my post and comment that hgtv should pick me. I'm asking them to come and makeover my pool area (remember my post abut the black hole that the county pulled a dead raccon out of? Yeah, that the one)

It would make me a really happy camper and give me more motivation to work on another area of the money pit.

Thank for your support!

Linda

p.s. If they pick me you can say I remember her when.........

Still Alive and Kicking

2009-11-09T15:03:00.000-08:00

Hi Guys!

This is just a short post to let you know I am still alive and kicking and still working on my shabby cottage which I have now nicknamed "the amityville horror". Things just keep coming up that I hadn't expected or planned for in the now defunct budget. I just had to replace all my ac and heating ducts to the tune of $3000 so that really cut into my afore mentioned now nonexistant budget. I am living around ladders, paint cans, tiles needing to be grouted and a polypebble pool deck that keeps kicking up everytime you walk on it. At one point I was going to jump off the roof looking at all the work that still is in front of me. Sometimes it's just more than a body can take....Damn you HGTV!!! It's all your fault. You make it look so easy and do it all in less than an hour!! Side note: If anyone from HGTV is reading this, you have my permission to come over and help!! Holmes on Homes would be nice and where is Genavieve when you need her?? And the guy that ambushes you and does your yard, come on down!!! There's plenty of work for everyone!!

Anyway, I said this would be short. I have a show (the Sarasota Medieval Fair) for the next two weekend and am going crazy making jewelry. I hear my round nose pliers calling me now.

After the fair I will post pictures of my new backsplash and new wood floor in the third bedroom.

Cheers!

Linda

Super Affiliate Success Story

2009-06-03T15:49:00.000-07:00

Hi All!

At the moment I have no new pictures but am in the middle of tiling my backsplash and will upload the pictures as soon as it's done. Progress has been very slow as work has gotten in the way and I've started another endeavour. First I want to tell you a story which leads into that endeavour.

We all love to hear about people being successful, and I want you to take the time to read this story because you can learn a lot from it.
Internet marketing expert Liz Tomey is known as a "softy". She has a real commitment to people, and when she found one of her close friends in need, she came to the rescue, and turned a total newbie into an "insane affiliate marketing machine".
You see, Liz's close friend Michele was going through a divorce, and losing her husband's income. She knew that she couldn't pay all the bills and in turn would have to sell her house, and uproot her little boy from his "little world". All Michele really needed was a few extra grand a month to pay the bills and keep everything "normal" for her son.
Now to some of you that doesn't seem like much, but to most of you, a few extra grand a month means a lot.
So, Liz took 5 days out of her schedule and showed Michele one of her very own affiliate marketing systems that had worked for her for years.
Now Michele had never heard of affiliate marketing before. She knew how to check email and surf the Internet, but had no idea that you could make money online.
Boy was Michele shocked to find that after 5 days of implementing what Liz taught her she was able to make over $500 and get 400 new subscribers that she could make money off of time and time again.
Michele wont be worrying about bills now as she continues to make money. She'll even be quitting her job in just a few months!
With Liz's teachings, Michele has an easy to obtain income goal of $500 a day, and now Liz wants to show you how to do the same thing... Here

Like Liz, I'm very proud of Michele, and hope that you will take advantage of Liz's help, and start creating your own autopilot affiliate income today...

Grab the new course from Liz, and get started right now .... Grab it Here

Well gang, we all want to make extra money so check out the link and see what you think.

Right now, it's back to tiling for me. The faster I get it done the quicker you'll get to see it. I must say tho, it's looking fabulous!

Linda

Yes, I'm ashamed of myself but.....

2009-01-30T08:16:00.000-08:00

Hello again and, yes, I'm ashamed of myself for not posting but I have a reason. I ran into some trouble with the people that were helping me with the renovation. They didn't live up to their end of the contract and caused me some huge problems, emotionally and financially. Fortunately they are gone off to, I think, live in their car and I'm still in my shabby cottage so I get the last laugh....ha ha!

Anyway, I do have some new pictures and I wish I had more of finished work but now it's going to be slow going as I am doing most of the work myself and paying in drips and drabs for work I just cannot do. Plus I am living in complete disaray. But, it's all good and better than a poke in the eye!! Plus I still have my health....cough, wheeze, spit.....

Ok, on to the pictures. These are the before...

Island and kitchen counters - before

The before and after pictures of my kitchen counter. It was battleship grey (the before pic makes it look beige) to match the crappy formica battleship grey cabinets. I painted the cabinets a cream color (after 2 coats of zinzer 123 primer) and then antiqued them with translucent glaze mixed with "melted chocolate". They came out fabulous and with the copper hardware I will put on, they will down right sing!! I only have one picture of the drawers as my camera battery died, but if you've waited this long for one picture of the cabinets you can wait a little longer for more!!

And these are the after...

Counter

Island Counter

Edge of island which has been cut and is not rounded anymore

And this is the one picture of my new antiqued cabinets. More to follow after I get a new battery. You can see how they look with the new beveled edge counter...just a peek of them.

I have some random peeks at what I've been doing but don't really have a complete picture of room except for a temporary look at my family room. So here they are...

New tile in the family room

New Kitchen Tile

3 peeks at my unfinished family room

And this is my "Craig's List" Find, glass topped table with 4 chairs, unbrella, unbrella stand and lounge chair, all for...ta dah.........a whopping $25!!!

>
It's been real chilly in Florida at night, so I had to take a picture of my first fire! The lonely little log I bought at Home Depot looks pathetic!! But the ambiance of the fire was fabulous!!

Well, that's it for now. I have to go finish painting the cabinet doors, 12 down and 18 more to go, then antiquing them and polyurethening everything. No rest for the wicked!!

Oh, the pendant at the top is one of my new pieces that I sell. I had to throw it in to remind myself that I do play and relax sometimes, although the times seem few and far between.

Stay Warm!!

Linda

Finally, some colorful progress!!!

2008-10-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

Well things are finally coming along. You can really see some progress. We have 3 rooms painted and what a difference!! This is really looking like "my shabby cottage home" with less shabby and more color!! My home is really a palette of color!

And for your viewing pleasure....VOILA!!!

This is looking from the great room to the family room. The blinds have been taken down and they're not going back up. I love the open look. So bright and fresh! And check out my beautiful new fan! I love the intricate work on the top. Very victorian cottage! I loved this fan so much I bought 3 of them!!

And this is one end of the family room with the triple sliders leading to the pool!

If you look at previous posts you will see what a remarkable transformation these rooms are. When we finish I'll post before and after photos so you don't have to scroll back to remember how bad the rooms looked. I feel very lucky that others did not see my "vision" of this home and I was able to "steal it"!

This is the master bedroom painted. The color is called "haystack", such a crappy name for such a pretty color. It came out a little darker than the sample but it still will look beautiful with my bed and quilts, especially when we get the cherry floor down.

This is the new addition to the master. It looks fabulous! We still have to add the "bungalow" full arch which will definitely add more character.

And look how the "la di dah" library turned out! I'm just crazy about it! The color again turned out darker than the sample but It still looks fabulous!! One of the photos is the new painted wall against the white windows and the other is even more fabulous! The wall of closets wasn't there before! That was the huge opening that had the triple sliding asian screens for a door. Isn't is awesome???

This is the other side of the closet wall in the family room. Isn't it incredible???

Well that's it for this post. I was up til 2am priming the trim and today I get to paint it! Plus clean all those beautiful wood shelves in the "la di dah" library. No rest for the wicked!!

Linda

OK, I'm behind again

2008-10-08T09:17:00.001-07:00

Hello again!

Again I've been remiss in my postings but there's just been so much to do! I do have more pictures tho! It seems like it's taken forever but just about EVERYTHING had to be redone in this house plus add new walls. So here's some progress...ta dah!!!

This is a look at the new hall painted "havana cream". I love the color and it looks just like I thought it would. It still needs the white trim added.

Here is the view from the kitchen looking at the new wall. The top has a shelf which will be painted white and then trim added underneath it. That's sheetrock leaning against the yellow wall.

This is the view from the family room to the front door. You can see that adding the wall has taken nothing from the space in this very large room and the ceiling still looks sweepingly beautiful! The short wall on the right does a lot to separate space and hide the kitchen from the front door.

This came out fantastic! This is the new wall and door for the "la di dah" library. Remember this was completely open with the triple asian sliding screen doors. It is now a la di lah library bedroom and Dale has build a double closet in it (photo to follow) and moved the light switch to the right of the doorway. We had a surprise with this room as Dale almost fell off the library with a "hot wire", which has since been capped off. This room is at the end of the family room and an electric strip will be added and my entertainment center will go on this wall, which was unusable before.

This is the end of the hall that was added. The hall ends in my master bedroom so we closed it up and added 5 1/2 feet to the bedroom.

This is the new addition of the master bedroom. Looking from the original bedroom towards the new addition, you can see the closet on the right. You can see the separation on the floor which will be evened out and cherry flooring added. Since I LOVE arches, we are adding an arch between the 2 areas. It will be the kind of bungalow 1940's full arch. And when it's up I'll tell you how we did it! What a money saver it was! Don't forget to look for that tip!

This is the painted pantry. It came out pretty nice since EVERYTHING in this pantry was wallpapered!

Here are 2 pictures of the "final decision" (it took me forever to decide!!) on the floor tile for the formal living, dining and family room, 1500 sq feet of tile!!! It just looks beige in the pictures but it's actually a really pretty cream color with splotches of butter cream. It's ceramic but looks like porcelain. I'm very pleased with it. You're probably thinking, why all this tile in the formal areas, but I live in Florida and it's great for the way we live down here.

And finally, since granite counter tops were not in the budget, I went with a laminate that looks like slate. It's called Colorado Slate and has the tuscan feel I wanted. I can't wait to get it on and see the finished product with the cinnamon colored floor, light copper walls and copper hardware! Doesn't that sound nice? Betcha can't wait to see the finished product!!

Well, you can see we have been busy. We only have 3 1/2 weeks left before I move so we are definitely on a time crunch!!

Finally, I think Sky personafies about how we feel. We are just pooped!! He has the right idea!

Til next time!!

Linda

Halls and Walls and More Walls

2008-09-03T20:36:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been so long since my last post but there's just been so much to do. I'll try to do better...

Anyway, since we were last talking we've added the hall wall and begun the priming on the walls and kitchen cabinets. We've also had to deal with the possibility of 2 hurricanes, but fortunately, they missed us. Below are some pictures of the work we've been doing.

The first one is of the hall to the right of the front door. You can see that it really does privatize the bedroom area. This is the view from the kitchen sans paint. Doesn't it look like the entrance to a crappy Italian restaurant? Can't you just see the Chianti bottle with candles in them on the tables? Nice arch, though, huh?

Another view from the front door. You can see the paint primer on the 1/2 wall with some of the yellow paint. I couldn't wait to see how the yellow looked and it looked great! We didn't want the wall to go all the way up and loose the beautiful ceiling and because we did it this way, there's an illusion of separation without any of the large expanse lost.

This is the view from the family room towards the front door. Again you can see the hall and 1/2 wall. Believe me, the space is much bigger than it looks.

Because we're putting a ceiling at the end of the hall to extend the master bedroom, I had to paint the area above before the ceiling went on. It would have been much harder once the ceiling was on so I had to decide what color to paint it. I just threw all the yellow tinted chips in the air, picked one and that was it. It's a soft sutle yellow. I like it a lot.

Well that's it for this post. I'm sorry I just don't have much time tonight. Well on a trip, I got food poisoning and am still a little shaky. Need to get off to bed. I'll post much sooner next time.

Linda

Still....BUSY BUSY BUSY!!

2008-08-10T20:29:00.000-07:00

If I'm not flying around the country, I'm working on my house every free day and after this, my question is, "Why would anyone in their right mind put up wallpaper"!!! Do you know how hard this stuff is to take off??? I've been stripping wallpaper for a week. It's been up since 1961 and does not want to move! This room has been the bane of my existence. The gold is the foil wallpaper and the green is the wall color under the lovely paper.

This stuff is awful. They even put it on the ceiling in the master bath. Yuck! We still have a little more to go and then we're done with stripping wallpaper. Next on to washing and priming the walls for paint!! I love paint and color! But the indecision of which colors to choose. So many beautiful colors, so few rooms to embellish!

The most dramatic progress has been the framing of the hall wall. This is what we've done so far. The first picture is of the wall up and the extension of my master bedroom is laying on the floor.

This next one is looking from the front of the house with the hall on the right. You can see that the stripper poles haven't been boxed in yet. They are next to go!

The view in the next photo is looking from the family room towards the front of the house. I have 2 great remodelers, Dale and Denise and they are like the energizer bunny. They just keep working!

In this one you can see the framing for the arched doorway into the hall. I've always loved arched doorway so this time I get to have one. We're not going to have a ceiling on the hall, just a shelf for plants or artifacts or whatever. It will give the illusion of separation of spaces but leave the gorgeous ceiling and open space.

The house is slowly coming together. We've been so busy but there's just so much to tackle. I gave myself 3 months to work on the house before I move in and we have to keep with that timetable as I have renters moving into my house on Nov 1, so I have to be out.

We've also started to take up the tile in the kitchen. Under it is vinyl flooring and under that is terrazzo. We have to take this up slowly because we can only put 50 lbs in each trash can on trash day and tile is heavy. I'm definitely putting mexican tile in the kitchen and back hall and bath into my studio. I talked to someone at Lowe's and they said that if you seal mexican tile 3 times you won't have any maintenance for about 15 years. Sounds good to me.
This picture shows the different flooring and a little pile of the old tile.

Well, that's it for now. As soon as the paneling and sheetrock is up, I'll post more pictures. My realtor is coming to see what we've done on tues and we're going out for lunch . I'm going have her reiterate to me again about the great deal I got on this house!! LOL!!

Be Safe!

Linda

Busy Busy Busy!!!!

2008-07-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

Hello All!

I haven't posted since I closed on my shabby home. It's been a very busy time with ripping up carpeting, pulling out old appliances, cleaning up the yard, stripping wallpaper and on and on and on. In between all this, I have to fly off for my trips to pay for all this luxury.... Below are some photos of what I've been doing.

The first is the view from the front door since all the carpeting has been ripped up and boy did it stink!! The house had been vacant for over a year and I don't know what comes out at night, but whatever it was must have gone into the carpet, pee-hew!! Under the carpet was lovely terrazzo flooring except for a huge cement square in the center of the great room. Come to find out, the previous owner had a baby grand piano on a stage in the center and they must have reinforced it with cement. That's another problem for me as we have to chip around it to even out the floor before tiling.

Below is a picture of the view from the back of the house toward the front. I'm standing on the fireplace hearth to take it. The 2 rooms look a lot lighter and very airy with the light colored floor. To the right is the torn apart kitchen.

This is the kitchen with all the cupboard doors taken off and all the appliances gone. It looks kind of naked, doesn't it? I'm lining up all the doors in the family room to paint them. It's way too hot to paint outside. It was like 100 degrees the other day so thank goodness for good old a/c!! Check out the foil 60's retro wallpaper. Isn't it AWFUL!! It's all coming down!!

This is a picture of the "library" (doesn't that sound la-de-dah) full of carpet.

This has taken me 2 days to do and it's not done yet!! Stripping bamboo wallpaper is very difficult since there is a layer of paper under the stringy bamboo material. This shows I'm vertically challenged since I didn't have a ladder (I do now) and could only work on what I could reach.

And finally, the pool is looking better! We can finally see the bottom. My helper actually dove in!! I'm going to wait til it's finally crystal clear before I take a dip. That should be very soon.

Well that's it for this post. I have to go pack my suitcase for a trip tomorrow. For those of you who don't know, I'm a flight attendant so when I go to work, I leave the state.

See you in about 3 days!

Linda

P.S. About the two little guys at the top of this post; the pretty one in the back is my bestest friend, Skyla, a maltipoo. He is helping me renovate our new home. And the cute one in the front doing a spread eagle, is my daughter's baby, Detective Munch, or Munchkin, a schitzu maltese. His name comes from our all time favorite show in the world, Law and Order. Aren't they adorable!!!!

It's a done deal! Now the work begins!

2008-07-08T20:36:00.000-07:00

This is the key to my future! I closed on my shabby cottage yesterday and now the work really begins. Closing was at 11:30am and I was numb! It's a lot of money to fork over. I was really having buyer's remorse and was literally feeling ill. In my head this voice is screaming "WHAT HAVE I DONE, WHAT HAVE I DONE!!!", but I'm numb on the outside. Then I kept remembering that killer view from my front door and thinking with a little tile, paint and a sparkling pool, I could sell this place tomorrow and make over $50k. So I took a deep breath and felt better.

My lovely realtor, Britt, gave me a perfect gift. A very sweet card and a Lowe's gift card! How appropo! Since I'll be living there and the habitat for Humanity store. Can't wait to use it!

I had contacted a great pool company (If you're in the Sarasota/Venice area it's ElSol Pool) so as soon as I closed they started on the pool. My first post had a picture of the black hole. After 2 hours it was already a blue green and today it looked like this.
I took the picture through the window so it's a little out of focus but the pool is looking better, if a little cloudy. Ryan said it will take about 10 days to get the pool crystal clear. He'll be coming over once or twice a day to take care of it. I think it looks smashing! We still can't see to the bottom so still don't know if Jimmy Hoffa is down there. I'll keep ya posted!!

Anyway, after the closing I went to the house and did a lot of measuring, measuring and more measuring and had a spurt of energy so started pulling up the carpet. Under the stinky smelling carpet are terrazzo floors. I've never really cared for them, although they are very in. The floor isn't bad looking a very nice white. If I cleaned them and polished them they probably would look great but, as I said before, I just don't care for the look of terrazzo.

Today I brought some things to have at the house while working on it, tools, water for the fridge, scrapers for getting rid of the wallpaper, sharp knives for pulling up the carpet and cutting it into smaller pieces for the trash, hedge cutter for all the overgrown plants etc. I went into the back yard and found I had a tangelo tree, a huge ficus and tons of philadendron and wandering jew plants. I also pulled down a dead tree and have started a pile of brush to be disposed of.

This is my backyard behind the pool. The house sits on a very large lot so besides the huge lanai and pool area there is still a lot of backyard. It needs a lot of cleaning out of the bush but when It's done, fairies will be dancing in the dusk.

Linda

Independence Day

2008-07-05T20:32:00.000-07:00

I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend and exercising your own personal independence. I know I am by sleeping in and doing just what I want to do. So today I looked at tile and new countertops. Since I'm on a tight budget, I'm going with formica. I'd like granite or soapstone but just can't fit it into the budget right now. So I went to a tile store and saw formica that looks like granite or even corian. I'm getting the beveled edges which makes all the difference. The beveled edges makes the formica look extremely upscale and from a distance you can't tell it isn't granite. Ok, you can, but looking at it with one eye closed, you really can't. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The clerk at Lowe's almost had me talked into corian as they have a color called, butter cream that I really like but since I need a huge amount of countertops the price is like, 3 times formica plus it does scratch. So now I'm looking at all the colors on the formica site to find the closest color to butter cream. With the white cabinets and brushed silver hardware it's going to look fabulous!!

Anyway, continuing my "independence day", my daughter and I went to trivia night. We were the "fly girls". And boy, just like passengers with their luggage, I think we checked our brains at the door. Can you say stupid??? A tip, always go with your first inclination. We didn't so, hence, we got 3 answers wrong!! Well, after the first half we were in last place. Now I have been in last place before and in the second half gained a little and then at the end bet the farm and came in 2nd. But tonight, we were just plain dumb. So we paid our check and with heads down slunk (is that a word?) out of the door. I think I'll wear a hat next time so they don't recognize the "dumb fly girls".

I am continuing on with my painting frenzy. Here is a picture of my new pink rocking chair.
Pretty nifty, huh? The pillows, believe it or not, I got at 50% off at dollar general for a total of $8 for both!!!! I've also repainted the iron legs on the table in a previous post pink to go with the rocking chair and am almost finished mosaicing it.

I close on my house on monday and will post afterwards. I'm excitedly SCARED TO DEATH!! but in a good way....

Ciao for now!!

Linda

Inspiration and Motivation

2008-07-01T10:05:00.000-07:00

Hi all! or hello to myself if no one is reading this.

I have been so busy painting! I looked at Joanne Coletti's site and was so inspired! Her house is GORGEOUS!! I just want to move right in!

Anyway, I have painted a cabinet white, a lamp peach, a small wooden table with iron legs, white (but I think I'm going to paint the ironwork yellow) and have the top of the table half mosaiced. This is all in anticipation of decorating my new home.

I gave an old rocking chair a dab of paint on one arm to see what it will look like. It's probably going to take 3 coats as it is very dark wood and I think I'm going to paint it shabby pink. I'm trying to get all this done before July 7 as that is my closing date and after that I will be extremely busy redoing the house. I don't plan on moving in until late October and I have my present home rented as of Nov 1.

I also am so motivated to finish other projects I have started. I want to finish this stained glass window to hang in the new house as some kind of room divider.

With all the skylights in this house, it should really glow! I scrounged up 4 of these wooden framed windows on freecycle and want to mosaic the frames of 2 of them and do the fourth on the glass again.

I'm also keeping my eyes open for a "shabby floral" couch on craig's list. I saw one in a huge red floral but I don't think I want red. I looking for one in muted colors.

Well as usual the day is getting away from me so I'll end this post and get back to painting.

Linda

Flamingo Alert

2008-06-27T09:08:00.000-07:00

I love flamingos! and palm trees and kitsch!! So since I have a retro pink tile bathroom that I can't afford to gut right now, it's just screaming FLAMINGO!!! And I'm listening! This is the bathroom, again foil paper and all, yuck!!! But the tile is perfect in it's 1960's glory and maybe it would be a shame to gut this perfect piece of history kitsch.

But....with a little stripping of the paper and a little light aqua or seafoam green paint on the walls, a new mirror over the sink and a couple of my mosaic flamingo pieces maybe another mirror and a large flamingo and maybe a flamingo light switch etc and... Voila....Pink Flamingo Kitsch!!!

How can you not LOVE flamingos! They make such a statement and conjure up such nostalgic thoughts.

Kitschy Koo to all!

Linda

Check out the ceiling

2008-06-26T11:47:00.001-07:00

Hey again! I forgot to show you all the ceiling. It is incredible and oh so high!!

You can see the ugly black poles in the picture. I want to box them in like columns and paint them. Otherwise, when I run out of money I can strip on the side and pay for more remodeling!! LOL!!

Introducing My Shabby Cottage Home

2008-06-25T19:42:00.001-07:00

Hello to All!

I am purchasing a real "fixer upper", the jetsons meets starwars with an asian Mediterranean theme!! And I'm planning on turning this into my own shabby cottage! It's going to take a lot of elbow grease on a limited budget but I think I'm up for it!! This is what I'm starting with. This is the view from the front door a 35' X 22' space, which to me seems very wasted. I'm going to try to "cottage" it up to my liking. I'm going to take up all the carpet and lay down tile with a mexican tile look but not real mexican tile. A friend has it and regrets putting it down. It stains and has to be sealed every year. Too high maintenance for me.

The next picture is of the kitchen. Way too modern! The foil paper is just horrible. Then the family room with the great fireplace. It's gonna look great with the tile!!

Then we have the black lagoon, oops, I mean pool. Isn't it wicked aweful??? It needs to be emptied and cleaned and all the screening needs to be replaced but fortunately the frame is ok.

Well, this is what I have to work with, and I do mean Work with a capital W. I will take pictures as I move along and you can see the progress of turning this wreck into a beautiful shabby cottage. Oh, one more thing! This is the view from my front door and the reason why this house is soooo worth all the effort!!!

Stay tuned!

Linda