A little more of our home.....

Hi!

I hope that you all had a nice Thanksgiving! We did! It was a very relaxing day in the country with some of our family and friends. I really like being able to visit and catch up on what has been going on with everyone. Oh yeah, and the FOOD was YUMMY!

I've been busy getting the house ready for Christmas. I like to start the weekend after Thanksgiving so we have plenty of time to enjoy the decorations. We decided to get a real tree this year and I love the way it smells when I walk into our great room. I will share some pictures with you a little later.

Today I thought I would share some pictures I took of our great room before I began decorating for Christmas.

 

I've been working on this room over the summer. The back of the bookcase use to be white and I decided to paint it aqua. It's a little lighter than the bookcase that I showed you in the blog about the dining room.

 

As you can see, it's not a big room and that makes it a little difficult to photograph. I hope you can get the general idea of how it looks. Most of the furniture is stuff we have had for awhile. The chairs are slipcovered in a white cotton duck. The sofa is also slipcovered it is the basic grand sofa from Pottery Barn(http://www.potterybarn.com/products/pb-basic-grand-sofa-select-items/?pkey=cpb-bassic-sofa). The coffee table was made from a vintage oak dining table. William, my husband, cut the base down to shorten it and I painted it and distressed it. The end tables are auction and flea market finds.


The lamp between the chairs is a thrift store find. I painted the metal pieces with texture paint then with a water base paint that blends with the shade. I then antiqued over that to give it an aged look. The base is filled with on of my favorite things, SEA GLASS! I have been collecting it when I walk on the beach. It is also in the jar on the fireplace as well as a few other places in our home. You may have seen some on the dresser in our bedroom that I blogged about last week.

It's a light filled room, which I love! It's so nice in to be in a sunny, warm room when it is windy and cold outside. Looks like someone should have gotten the iron out to steam that ottoman!!!! Sorry about that:) I will try to do better next time!
I hope you enjoyed my little tour. I've got to run for now, but check back with me soon! Also, if you would like, you can take a peak at my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/-the-beach/284785513815?v=wall&ref=pdem. Take care! Happy Monday!

Debbi

@ the beach: From the beginning....

@ the beach: From the beginning....: "Happy Friday everyone!!! As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to share with you a few furniture pieces that inspired me to start '@ the..."

From the beginning....

Happy Friday everyone!!!

As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to share with you a few furniture pieces that inspired me to start "@ the beach."

 This armoire is in our bedroom. It was a darker off-white color when I found it at a consignment shop in Wilmington. I painted it a more suitable white and roughed it up a bit to give it a beachy relaxed look. My husband built some shelves in it for me. It holds our television, books etc. I try to keep it neat, but I didn't think was neat enough to show you a picture of the inside. :)

Next is a  pretty vintage dresser that I found at an antique show. It has moved around the house a bit, but has been in our room for awhile now. As you can see it also got the beachy white treatment. :)

 
I  shared with you in another post that I love white lamps! Here is a close-up of one of many!!! I found this one at a thrift store. I took it apart, reworked it a bit, resurfaced the metal with a vintage silver look and added the drum shade and glass finial. I love the look of the milky white glass! I really like drum and french shades as well, but they are hard to find. Do any of you have a good source for lampshades?


I would love to hear from you. Please share your thoughts and comments about this post or any of my other post. I hope that you have a great weekend!


Debbi

More about @ the beach

Hello everyone!

During my last post, I told you that a small business has evolved from my love for decorating. The business really began about 6-7 years ago when we were building our beach house. We were on a very tight budget and there was very little money for furniture, so I began looking for vintage furniture pieces in need of a little work. I searched auctions, estate sales and local thrift stores shopping for beds, armoires, dressers, tables, chairs that I could paint to give a relaxed coastal cottage look. It took awhile to find everything we needed to fill the house, but once it was move in day, we had everything we needed to make it livable.  I really loved the way the furniture looked!  I was hooked! I kept my eyes open for furniture, even though the beach house was complete and I kept finding things that needed to be rescued!

 That is basically how the business began. I was looking for something to do on a part time basis, my oldest two children were getting close to graduating from high school and my younger two were in elementary school.  I began to have time while they were at school to work on some of the rescued pieces. I painted, shopped and began looking for a space to rent to start the business.

At first, I rented a small space along the coast to give it a try. It went well until the end of my first year, I think it had a lot to do with the economy, but I got a little worried and pulled my things from that space and decided to wait until things got better. A few months later I had the opportunity to go into a space with my sister in law and a friend splitting the rent three ways. That went really well, but I felt like I took the space over because I had so much inventory....

 Near the end of that year, I got the opportunity to open my own space with the same business featuring my painted furniture and accessories and I decided to give it a try. That is how" @ the beach" began!

                                                     

My husband had a small movable building built for me. The guys who built it helped us move it to where it is located today." @ the beach is located in front of "Secret Treasures Antiques and Collectibles" in Cedar Point N.C.  I just celebrated my 1 year anniversary in the new space last month. 

                                            1 year ago, after the move


Well, that is pretty much the story.  I'm gonna go for now, there are lots of things out in the garage that need a little coastal updating.  If you are in the area, please stop by to see us. We would love to meet you.

Have a great week!
Debbi

 Check back soon, I am going to share some of the original pieces I recreated for the beach house:)

A new adventure.....

Hello ! 

Thanks for stopping by for a visit. This is my very first post so please forgive me if it seems like I don't know what I am doing. I have spent a lot of time looking at blogs this year, and felt it was time to give it a try myself. A new adventure this will surely be! I am excited to share my passion for decorating with you. I think my style is best described as a relaxed coastal look with a vintage, yet current flair. Decorating has been a passion of mine for about 20 years, and a small business has evolved from it. I will share more about that later.  I hope that you will find inspiration from some of my ideas as I share in this blogging world.

Here is my dining room, I've been working on it over the summer.  I started with the large white cabinet you see here.  It is an imported piece that has a aged look to it.  It is a great storage piece! The chandelier was already here, but I added some aqua beads and a string of shells (that I found at Michaels) to give it a different look. The table was an estate sale find that had a maple finish.  I painted the base white, distressed it, then painted the top a dark walnut. I found the four chairs around the table at a thrift store for a great price. The pine drop leaf table in front of the windows was purchased at an auction.  I painted it white and distressed it to give it a more relaxed feel.  The two chairs beside the drop leaf were in my kitchen before, I just reupholstered the cushions in an aqua fabric that I found at Printers Alley. The curtains were a great price as well, I found them at IKEA.

This is another view of the room. The bookcase in the little hallway is also an imported piece, it was originally off white. I painted it aqua and distressed it to show the wood and white paint underneath. I love  vintage white and off white vintage planters and vases.  I have a few of my collection displayed on the shelves of the bookcase as well as a few other items.

Here is a close up of the items I have displayed on the drop leaf table. The green box is made from reclaimed wood out of an old farm house, I think it is so cool! I also love the aqua vintage bottle displayed as well as the vintage crystal knob. I found the lamps at HomeGoods.  I think they give the table the little touch of current that I try to add to my rooms. As I share more of my home with you, you will begin to see that I have many obsessions one being white lamps!

I hope that you have enjoyed my very first blog. I would love to here from you. Your comments and advice are welcomed!  I feel like I have so much to learn. Thanks for stopping by and please check back with me soon. I am already thinking about what to share with you next:)

Kind Regards,
Debbi