Fall Bouquets, Bringing the outdoors in :)

I love to pull things from the yard and use them in a bouquet.  This one has some mums, fern fronds, berries from a tree, flowers from the garden, lavender and rosemary, in different sized and color vases, arranged on a silver platter I inherited.  Voila fall coastal chic! :)

I also recently received this bouquet with some wetland and upland foliage.

Message in a Bottle Guest Book :)

One of my favorite decor items is our "Message in a Bottle," which we used as a Guest Book at our wedding.  While it was perfect for our sailboat wedding, what beach house doesn't need a lovely guest book?

This was so much fun, as it includes little bottles for individual messages and a large bottle for multiple messages.

Choose a ribbon to match your decor, set up a pad of notepaper next to the bottle, with a pen, and you're all set!

Best of all, the final product adds to your beachy decor :)

Make your own, or I bought mine here:  http://www.etsy.com/listing/22868217/message-in-a-bottle-station-guest-book

Wood tiles? OK! (UPDATE!)

UPDATE:

We finished up the tile!  A little further behind schedule than planned, but c'est la vie :)  We love the final product, but these were a pain!  Bc each piece naturally has some "warp" to it, with their length, they can be difficult to get leveled out, so that you don't have toe stubbers, and of course, the narrower the grout line (which makes it look more "wood authentic"), the trickier it is.

Here's an in-progress:

Tile is done!  Time to put things back, and put up new trim:

(older post)
So, my husband and I could not seem to reach a consensus on what type of flooring to put in the kitchen.  He wanted tile, "because of all the moisture," and I wanted wood, because it looks nice, is softer underfoot and you don't have to worry about cleaning out grout lines.  We went shopping at Lowes, and what did we find?.... Wood tiles!  Well, they are porcelain really, but they use an inkjet printer to make them look like wood, and they actually look pretty good, and at $2.99/ sq ft, they price is right.  Here is a shot of them

Each plank is 6" x 24", so you can lay them in the same floor designs that you would actual wood planks.  Right now, we are trying to decide between herring bone,

or just plain horizontal or straight.

Anyway, I cannot wait to get the tile in there instead of the nasty linoleum!

Here is how it looks at the moment- ripped up 80's linoleum:

Making an Indoor Flower Box

We have an awkward opening in the wall from the third floor master bedroom, into the main (2nd) floor open living/ dining area.  It has shutters that open and close, but has always seemed a little silly, aside from its ability to let in a little more light from the skylights in the 2nd floor's cathedral ceiling.

I had the idea to find a way to hang some plants there, so that when they grew out, it would become kind of a "tropical waterfall" of plants falling down the wall, into the living room... right...

(In this picture, they are just placed on the windowsill, so that we cannot close the "shutters" into the bedroom.)

After searching and hunting for something to hang there, that would be sturdy enough to hang plants from, and also large enough for the window opening, I was coming up dry.  Wooden flower boxes cost hundreds of dollars, which seemed pretty ridiculous, and I would either have to settle for 2 smaller boxes, or have one custom made.

I decided I'd go ahead and give making one a shot, and... it was pretty simple, and I am thrilled with the result.

Here are some of the tools I used:

-mitre saw (although there are no "mitre cuts," so any saw is alright to use)

- (drill;  I LOVE cordless drills, but once again, any drill will do :)

 Wood glue and wood screws

 5 boards (try to buy the "least knotty" and the straightest boards you can find)  Do NOT get pressure-treated either, if it is going indoors, as these have chemicals on them that you don't want to be breathing in daily!

Before you pick out your boards, you need to decide what size box you will need.  For my box, the window sill is just under 8'.  My plan was to screw the side boards into the sides of the bottom board, so the boards would need to be wider than whatever I wanted by at least the width of the bottom plank. My two end pieces would also be screwed into the end of the bottom board, and the edges of my "long side boards," so the long pieces would be the full length of the sill, minus the thickness of the two end pieces, if that all makes sense.  Depth and width-wise for the actual interior of the box will depend on the size of plant containers that you would like to place inside.  Mine were only a 4" diameter, and 4" deep, so I used 1x6x8 boards for the sides and bottom, and a 1x6x4 to cut the end pieces from.

You can certainly do fancier cuts (mitred angles) or other things with this, but I was looking for something basic.  

Once I measured out the lengths that I wanted (be careful- measure twice, cut once!), I took my remaining pieces and laid them out how I wanted them to fit (I kept the "ugly" sides toward the back or inside).  

Once I had my setup, I took wood glue and began gluing them in place.  After I glued each one, I immediately took the drill and drilled the ends together (a screw every 3" or so).  This is a close-up of one of the ends, prior to filling, sanding or painting.

Once I had all the pieces assembled, I went back over the whole thing and filled in all the screw holes and any knots or other blemishes that would be visible with wood putty.  I let that all dry and then sanded it all down with some medium and then fine sandpaper.

Once it was nice and smooth, I gave it a nice coating of Kilz primer to prep the box for painting.

Once it dried, I painted it with a high gloss interior white paint.  You can use whatever color you like, or I've seen really neat ones where you can take paint stirrers or flat wood stakes or wedges and paint them different colors and glue or nail them onto the sides.

I had my husband help me hold it up from the upstairs, while we screwed it into the studs on the wall, and VOILA!  "Custom made flower box!"

Starfish

I love natural elements brought inside, and the shape and color of bleached starfish are perfect for beachy decor! After my neighbors put some starfish up, we followed suit and love them in our half-moon window!

We also have a garland of them, currently keeping a place on our coffee bar (until we find the perfect place to hang it:)

I think next will come one of the beautiful starfish wreaths for the door, and then, who knows!

Some other lovely starfish items:

http://hausandhome.blogspot.com/2011/05/starfish.html

(and one of my absolute favorites, from etsy)

http://www.etsy.com/listing/62235881/beach-decor-starfish-wreath-seashell?ref=&sref=

More Painted Stairs for Thought...

While I'm on a stairs kick... here are a few others I enjoy!


From Coastal Living.  This one is pretty involved, but lovely :)

Some pretty aqua stripes from http://classicfauxsandfinishes.com/2011/10/25/stenciled-stairecases/

Love the rope banister and colors on Jonathan Adler's painted beach house stairs

Even Lowes has a lovely stenciled set of stairs

Navy blue stripes:

Love the idea of adding yardsticks (they kind of remind me of stacks of books :):

Painted Stairs

A beach cottage isn't quite a beach cottage without lovely painted stairs!  As part of our "carpet removal" process in our home, we saved the stairs for last (they were a pain!), but the end product was totally worth it!  The first thing we had to do was remove the carpeting, which was mostly painless, with a utility knife in hand.  Then, came the real pain.  We had SO MANY STAPLES in the stairs!  I'm sure there's a better way, but we went up them with a screwdriver to pry them up and pliers to remove them from the wood.  Next we had some kind of white lumpy mixture on the stairs, so we had to sand them down with a hand sander.  Then, came the fun!  Initially, I used a primer and then just a regular high gloss paint, but I quickly learned that it was not made to be walked on!  Ultimately, I switched to a floor paint- Valspar Oil Gloss Porch and Floor Paint, which took awhile to dry, but turned out beautifully and has been SO easy to keep clean!

(We also removed the old banister from the wall, since the other railing already extended up the whole stairway, painted the entire banister glossy white, and the walls a pale blue.)

Before:

After:

I'm contemplating putting black numbers up the stairs, like I've seen on some cute painted stairs, or something like, "Leave the sand at the beach" scripted on them.  Still have 1 more set of stairs to go...

Beachy Mood Board

So, in my interior design course, we were asked to put together a "mood board" of our style.  Mine being coastal, this is what I came up with, which fortunately has some elements that are already present in our current living/ dining area.   

Love, love, love Dash & Albert Rugs!  They are in so many coastal home magazine pics, and their striped cotton rugs are surprisingly affordable- I have 2 in my house right now! :) So, that is my background.  I like the cooler colors of the blues, greens, and whites, too.  Love sea glass colors and texture and anything driftwood.  

I like a nice, light blue that brings the sky in, without overwhelming.  I would love to do an entire HOUSE in white beadboard.  I think it portrays the ultimate beach cottage look.

I could go a few way on window treatments.  I like gauzy white drapes for windows that get some breeze, but in bedrooms particularly, plantation shutters or bamboo/ wooden roman shades.   

I also love bamboo floors for a sustainably harvested, sturdy flooring, canvas (reminiscent of sailing), and slipcovers (for easy cleaning after the hubby comes home covered in sand).

What do you think?

Is this blog "the one?"

Well, after several attempts at having enough patience to keep a blog going, will this finally be the right one?  A friend down from D.C. (at http://www.goldennuggetgourmet.com/) has encouraged me to try to blog about interior design.  I am no professional by any means (although even using the term "professional" has become very controversial anyway irt whether certification is required or not, etc), so  who know, really.  But, I do not do it AS a profession.

I do have a very particular style though, and that is very definitely coastal.  Since moving from Cincinnati, Ohio to Virginia Beach to become a United States Naval Officer, the beautiful coastal views around me have developed my love for bringing that look inside in a (hopefully) tasteful, fun way!

Welcome to my CHX BCH (Chick's Beach, aka Chesapeake Bay Beach) blog!