Things I love about the Cottage:

The cottage is one of my favorite places. There's so much to know about it and so much to see that I'll have to do it in several installments. When we were back in Vermilion this time we made some new discoveries.

This watercolor below was painted by a neighbor in 1961 (when I was 3 years old). It depicts my grandmother's fruit and vegetable stand that was just down the road from the cottage. That's how their family made a living and probably why she had so many kids. She was an amazing gardener with a huge farm full of everything delicious...acres and acres of fresh sweet corn, watermelon, turnips, apples, peppers and dozens of other healthy treats. I used to stay with her and my cousin, Karen on the farm for a few weeks every summer. It was heaven! Even though this painting is far from professional, it brings back wonderful memories of her place.


But I digress...this is supposed to be about the cottage.

Here are just a few of the things that I love about the place:

LURES: My uncle has a boat and loves to fish on the lake. He used to take us out when we were kids. You can see that he has all of his lures hanging on the wall at the top of the stairs for anyone who comes to visit and wants to use them.

DOORKNOBS: The house is filled with working vintage doorknobs! This one is their front door. I have more pics of the knobs, but won't bore you with those. Once I get all my pics online, I'll link so you can see everything.

CHERRIES: My aunt & uncle's last name is Cherry, so the kitchen is filled with bunches of vintage cherry decor. This tray is just one example.


LOVE NOTES FROM OUR HOSTS: Over the years as my aunt & uncle having lovingly cared for and shared the cottage, they've discovered all the important do's and don'ts that keep it the special place that it's become. This bulletin board is a sampling of the loving notes from our hosts that ensure that we all have a grand time and keep the cottage in one piece.

LUCKY STONES: I showed you some of the beach glass collection in my last post and now you need to learn about lucky stones. The stones in the shot glass are called "Lucky Stones". They're not actually stones at all. (Click the link to find out more.) If you click on the photo you can see the "L" on each one. We spent many hours in our youth looking for these on the beach. The cottage guests have collected them over the years and we saw several cups full around the house. My aunt says that when you give them to someone else they are a gift of love and become "Lucky Love Stones". My sweet cousin, Elaine gave me a pair of earrings and a necklace that she made from these. Wow, did I feel loved!

Well, that's all for now...more to come.

My updated "cottage" furniture!

I'm so excited about the transformations that are taking place around my house lately.

Ever since we moved to Arizona 6 years ago, my goal has been to create a coastal cottage atmosphere in my Southwest desert home.  You may think that's crazy and out of place, but my heart just feels at home in the cozy comfort of pale blues, greens and lots of white.  I love the unpretentious air of painted furniture, yard sale finds, slipcovers and piles of throw pillows.  I want my guests to feel like they can kick off their shoes and put their feet up from the moment they walk in the door.

My inspiration comes from the cottage that my aunt owns on the shores of Lake Erie near Vermilion, Ohio.  This precious place is where we spent countless happy-go-lucky days swimming, spitting watermelon seeds and searching for Easter eggs.  It's a source of joy in my memory bank and I long to create the same atmosphere in my home even though we're miles and miles from the nearest lake.

So, it's with that in mind that I've been dreaming of painting some of the furniture that I've had for many years.  The pieces were acquired in a different era, when darker colors filled my home.  Now, even though I love the pieces, they needed a face-lift.  It's been on my To-Do list for years, but because of the time involved, it never quite rose to the top of my priorities for one reason or another.

That's why I was thrilled when my sister, Sharon told me that she and her boyfriend, Craig were starting a business of refinishing furniture.  Craig has been doing furniture refinishing for many years, so it was a natural progression to open his own shop.  These are the pieces I had them start with, for me.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a "before" photo of this cabinet, but this little slice from another photo gives you an idea of the original colors.  The body was a forest green and the top was a deep red.  Terry bought the piece (with beautiful hand carved wood front) for me years ago when I pointed it out at a craft fair.  In recent years I was using it to store VHS video tapes, so it was a bit outdated, both inside and out.  I still love it, but wanted a lighter version.

The other pieces were 2 vintage school chairs that I picked up at a swap meet in Ohio.

I decided on a palette of pale colors that can be moved throughout the house when I feel like mixing things up, which I often do.

The cabinet sports two subtle tones of sage green and the chairs are a pale buttery yellow.  An added bonus is their use of eco-friendly paints, stains and materials.  Low-VOC paint, etc.

Of course, Craig did a gorgeous and thorough job on the inside of the cabinet as well.  When I re-loaded the cabinet I updated the contents too, with some of my placemats and napkins, so it's more practical and user friendly since it sits in the dining room.

If you need any furniture painted or refinished, or are looking for some gorgeous pieces that they've already "Re-imagined" check them out.  Below is a link to their Facebook page and contact info as well.  They can also re-create new pieces from a combination of partially damaged old pieces.  Check out their pics on their FB page.

Re-Imagine Fine Furnishings

Call Sharon or Craig at 480 343 1189

Furniture Re-Imagined from a green perspective with Eco-friendly products and upcycle quality furniture for your home.

Re-created, Refinished, Re-purposed, Recycled, and Re-imagined.

Follow my blog and keep an eye out for my post about the other pieces that they're working on for me.  I have "before" photos of the next pieces. I'll also be showing the transformation of the living room with my new white sofa slipcover.   Hope to see you again soon!

ON THE ROAD AGAIN...I can't wait to get on the road again...(that's just about all I know of the song, but I love those two lines.)



WARNING - YOU MAY NOT WANT TO READ THIS IF YOU'RE HUNGRY.

So I don't want to go into too much detail, but we're sitting in our little studio condo on the coast of Oregon, just a smidge north of Newport at Otter Rock. iGoogle tells me that the current temperature is 61 degrees, which happens to be about 35 degrees cooler than the current temperature in Phoenix. Sorry guys!

The rain is drizzling outside, which it's been doing all day long off and on. We had a little bit of a rocky start last night with a flight delay and arriving in Portland to find that the rental car office where we reserved our car had closed at midnight (before we got there). Everything worked out fine with a few minor adjustments and now we're enjoying the cool cloudy days of Oregon. Ahhh...heaven!

The first picture above is of Terry standing beside our rental car, which happens to be an Escape Hybrid! We've been thinking about a hybrid for our next car and he got a great deal on this one, so thought it would be fun to try it out. So far we're getting around 33 miles per gallon and it does even better in the city.

After leaving Portland we headed toward the coast and made a stop in the town of Tillamook at the cheese factory. We got to see the folks dressed in white, packaging all those slabs of cheese. did you also know that Tillamook makes award winning ice cream and fudge? We were so tempted to get some Marionberry ice cream, but decided against it since we hadn't had any lunch yet.

After we checked out the assembly line, we went downstairs for a cheddar taste test. We tried medium, sharp & extra sharp yellow cheddar and a Smoked Black Pepper White Cheddar cheese which was really scrumptious! I've never seen that one in the stores so we'll have to look for it. They have a few others up here that I haven't seen in Phoenix. After tasting, we were led into the "cheese store" where we found every shape and size of Tillamook that you could imagine; little 2 inch square snack size slices up to large blocks of all kinds. They also had lots of goodies to go with the cheese. We picked up a few items to have as snacks during the coming days and hit the road.

Well, we hit the road for a mile or so, until we saw a cute little restaurant, then finally stopped for lunch. I have photos of all of our food, but won't bore you with that. We started on our week of seafood exploration and had 2 cups of clam chowder, halibut fish & chips, and a fried oyster sandwich. Then we drove a few more hours down to Otter Rock, checked into our hotel and decided to take a walk and do some exploring before it got too dark.

While on our walk, we went to Devil's Punchbowl (pictured) and right next door, was a little place called "Mo's". Our friend, Bruce told me that Mo's was one of the places with the best clam chowder in this part of the country, and since Terry and I didn't have any specific dinner plans, so we decided to try it out. It was this tiny little place that looked like a beach cottage had been gutted and 8 long skinny tables for 8 had been crammed inside. There was nothing smaller than a table for 8, so if you want to eat you sometimes have to share with strangers. This was the case with our little party of two. We sat at an empty table and were soon joined by 2 women and a little boy. Of course, when you're sitting at a table together you inevitably start visiting and low and behold...the older woman is the mother of the other lady and the grandmother of the little boy. She and the little boy happen to be visiting from PHOENIX!!! And get this! She lives at 32nd Street & Thunderbird!!! Seriously! Can you believe it? Anyway, what started out as a quick stop for a cuppa local chowda turned into this delicious meal that Terry and I shared with our new found friends from home. We had an appetizer piled high with Oregon Bay Shrimp cocktail and an amazing bowl of what they call "Slumgullion", which isn't anything like what my mom called "Slumgullion". Theirs is a bowl of delicious clam chowder, with a creamy base, perfect potatoes, and chunks of clams, but added in to the mix is a heaping helping of those wonderful bay shrimp and a little bit of butter for good measure. Oh my gosh! It was awesome!!! And on the side were two thick slices of homemade bread. No doubt, the PERFECT Oregon coast meal. Even though we shared all 3 of these servings, we were too full to try the Marionberry cobbler, so we had them pack it up for us to take home for later. What a fun Day One!!! I can't wait to see what we get to do tomorrow.

Making Progress:

I'm feeling good about progress in several areas over the last few days.

First, on a personal note; I have actually exercised both of the last 2 days. Yesterday I set up my laptop on our treadmill and walked for over an hour while I caught up on email. Then today, Terry and I went for about a 5 mile hike at the Phoenix Mountain Preserve. If you look at the map we were on trails # 100, 8 and 8A. We entered off of 40th Street, just south of Shea. Fortunately, it cooled down a little after hitting 100 degrees earlier in the week. It was probably in the mid-70's with a really nice breeze most of the time. So I'm feeling good right now. I'll probably be sore tomorrow though, but at least it's for a good reason.

We've also made progress on the outside of the house. Here's the new paint job above. It turned out more pale than I expected, but I think I'm o.k. with it. I would really like to get some shutters for the front windows to add a little more of the dark green trim color to the mix, but otherwise I'm happy with it. And at least it's not beige like all the other houses on the street. I also think that when we get more landscaping in it will be a nice background for the plants.

Speaking of landscaping...we're beginning to make progress there too, even if it's just baby steps.

First, we were able to use an old french door to replace the ugly wooden gate to the little atrium in our back yard. This is the walled-in area that looks out from the picture window in our master bathroom shower. The view below is from inside the atrium looking out to the yard.

Also, after almost 5 years of living in this house we finally put some plants in the atrium. This is a similar color scheme of blues, purples and white that I'm hoping to do in the front yard. We bought a Blue Plumbago, (thanks Linda for the idea). I'm hoping to get a trellis and see if I can get it to grow up over the wall so we can see it in the backyard too. We also bought this nice Mystic Spires Blue Salvia, as well as purple and white African Daisies.

I am envisioning a gorgeous view of this beautiful cottage garden from the master bath once everything starts to grow and fill in. Now Terry just needs to keep it alive. I'm terrible at remembering to water outdoor plants, but he usually does a great job at it and keeps the plants going that I've planted. Of course, this area doesn't get a ton of sun, but I'm hoping the light reflecting off the walls will be enough, so we'll see how these do.

Keep your fingers crossed that they will thrive and grow and make this little corner of our world pleasing to look at. If they do well, I'd love to add a bird bath in this area as well. Can you picture a sweet little birdbath fountain in there? It would be nice, especially since the salvias and plumbagos both attract hummingbirds and butterflies.