Digging It Up

We did the first home improvement! Well actually we hired Brent Moralle with his big digging machine to clear the yard of all the overgrowth. Now we can really see the house and Love Shack and how big the yard is (it's big). Click on images to see them bigger.

All the overgrowth has been cleared away. I am so happy the overgrown Sago palms are gone and you can see the front of the house. One day there will be a walkway, pretty plantings, and a picket fence, and of course the house painted, and restored. Dave found the shutters for the house in a shed behind the Love Shack. We are thrilled to have found them!

Brett and his big machine pulled out all the overgrowth

Even the Love Shack looks bigger

Clearing it all away from the house

The yard looks a bit forlorn and rough and huge. Another guy is going to come by and smooth it all out and take away more debris. Sometimes things have to be deconstructed in order to build them up again. One day pretty plants and a picket fence in front and nice driveway will be in place.

In the meantime Dave is nearly done cleaning out his house in New Orleans, and moving his things to storage in BSL. His brother drove over from South Carolina to help with this last big push. The record breaking August heat hasn't made it easy for them.

I'm still packing at my house. Right after both our houses close on the 23rd of August, it will be my turn to get my things to storage in BSL. Our little shop in Antiques Maison will be ready for us this weekend to place a few things and to stage. I'm also teaching tango this coming Sunday in Biloxi, invited by local teacher there Percell St. Thomass. We're running on fumes and happiness.

As ever, thank you Charlie Pettway our broker who has become a friend, for her excellent referrals for the workmen we need.

Inspiration Wednesday

Inspiration Wednesday...
Every Wednesday I'll post about what inspires me
Ken Fulk inspires me... 

The first time I laid eyes on our beach house I was already mentally furnishing it. I started making floor plans and lists of things we would each bring from our edited possessions. Dave and I have different decorating styles, though we do have a love of old things in common. He never met a piece of vintage or antique brown furniture he hasn't dragged to his house in the past 25 years, and I proscribe to the Sister Parrish axiom that a room should never have more than two pieces of brown furniture. He likes white walls; I like color and pattern. Dave has suffered my doll house for nearly three years, living with my point of view. Now I want to combine our styles, use his beloved family furniture and his oriental rugs and lovely things.

Ken Fulk combines antique and vintage pieces. Dave has brown furniture and oriental rugs. When I see a room like this I know I can make it work and love it too. Our walls and ceilings are original bead board, and we plan to paint them white.

Our living room

Our living room - My lime green silk drapes on these windows!

Susanna Salk and Stacey Bewkes have one of my favorite blogs: Quintessence. Their "At Home With" tours are inspiring and personal. I particularly loved one they did about the Provincetown home of Ken Fulk. I used it as a jumping off point for a client's beach house I worked on a couple of years ago. I didn't want to do cutesy coastal. I wanted a collected look, like a sea captain bringing home treasures, or a sea cottage like the on in the old movie "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir".

This Ken Fulk entry hall is great. Ours is a center hall with an opportunity to use chests, tables, and maybe my French settee. It will be a gallery to display our too large art collection. It's painted yellow now, and maybe I'll do the yellow too.

This is the center hall in our house with the bead board painted yellow - I would choose a better yellow; I have a lovely red killim rug that was in Alberto's office that is now languishing in the attic. It would look great in this entry hall.

Ken Fulk gallery wall inspiration for our center hall

So now I have a chance to combine all the things Dave and I have into a really comfortable and cozy and unique space for the two of us. Each of us will have to let certain things go, but we plan to pass them on when we open a pop up shop at the beach once we're settled.

The Ken Fulk dining room has an incredible hand painted mural. We don't have a real dining room, but Dave has a lovely brown old round table that would fit in our planned large eat in kitchen.

Our kitchen - It will be reworked to make room for a dining table

Ken Fulk kitchen is so not generic or cookie cutter

Our kitchen even has an old stove like the one in the Ken Fulk kitchen

Ken Fulk kitchen

My mantra of art, books, flowers will be invoked. I look forward to marrying our possessions together. His grandmother's Governor Winthrop secretary and oriental rug with my lime green silk drapes. You get the idea. Our 1890 Queen Anne center hall cottage will lend itself nicely to it. I love what Ken Fulk did in Provincetown, combining vintage and antique and some modern things. I love his use of color. I love his art work and his sense of whimsy. He's quirky and stylish.

Brown furniture is growing on me

Dave has a brass bed he loves and after seeing what Ken Fulk did, I think it will be perfect for our new house

More brown furniture love

I will have to downsize my book collection

I love wallpaper but the bead board walls won't allow it

I can add print with fabric

One of our two bedrooms

Ken Fulk does great vintage bathrooms

Flowers and art forever

Quirky love

One of the two of our bathrooms has some nice old fixtures

It feels great to be blogging again and sharing with all my fellow decor mavens! You can now follow this blog. There's an email link on the right hand side...

Ken Fulk I love what you do1

Hello Again...

It's been over a decade since I blogged beyond picture collecting on Instagram. I'm not young. In fact I turn 70 in a few weeks. I was once told how you start a decade out is how that decade will go, so be in a good place in mind, body, and spirit.

So as I prepare for the next decade with my new life partner Dave, we have decided to make a huge change. He has been in New Orleans for 40 years, and I have been here for 20. And though it's daunting we have decided to sell our homes and move to the beach. It sounds glamorous, but the beach is in Mississippi a place we never dreamed of living. My girlhood fantasy was to grow old in Paris, sporting a Colette look and sipping champagne with young people in cafes.

So this is the beginning of a new saga, starting with the the house we found after looking at houses in Bay St. Louis for nearly three years. BSL is just 59 miles from New Orleans. It was pretty much wiped out by Hurricane Katrina, but has come back cuter than ever as an arty little town that New Orlenians have made their darling. Consequently real estate prices are high.

We found a wreck of a house built in 1890. We both love old houses. Dave is a contractor that only works on restoring old houses. The BSL house survived Katrina. The tin roof blew off but was restored. The property did not flood. It was one of three houses built around the same time on a very short street right across from an active railway track. In fact there are only three houses on this street. Let's just say it's not for everyone.

But we love it. It's just under 1500 square feet, a very simple Queen Anne cottage with a modest center hall. I always said I would only move again if it was to a center hall house. There's a mother-in-law shack at the back of the property.

It will mean a lot of downsizing and ridding of two households with lifetimes of possessions. Stay tuned for some really good tag sales.

Our first hurdle is financing in time to to make an offer. We are both debt free except for the mortgages we hold on our homes. But on paper no bank wants to loan us money because of our advanced age and modest incomes. So now we are pursuing a private investor to give me a bridge loan using my house as collateral until my house sells. The good news is my humble little piece of swamp has appreciated very nicely over the years.

So this is truly the beginning, starting with getting the money. Stay tuned for hopefully many more blog posts about Dave and Valorie's big adventure.

Just across from the front yard

Hello again - The real estate agent snapped this of me - Do I look happy hugging this old house?