{In my mind} I've gone to Carolina . . .

We are still in the Carolinas (now North Carolina) and we are enjoying the most beautiful fall along the blue ridge.

Thanks to all who asked for updated Michigan beach cottage pictures.  New pictures and decorating ideas are coming soon!  I expect a good coat of snow will be waiting our arrival back in Michigan .. .   I have wanted to decorate a beach cottage for Christmas ever since I picked up my first December issue of Coastal Living years and years ago. 

In the meantime, we are enjoying our time down south immensely.  The weather has been beautiful and Wynn is at such a fun and curious age, we are out and about with him all the time.  Most days I tell him that we are going to "go on an adventure" and he runs for his shoes and waits at the door saying "vrooom!!!", meaning "let's get in the car!"   He is the best companion, we have so much fun together!  He is obsessed with pumpkins.  After his Grandaddy introduced him to his first jack-o-lantern, he took to calling all pumpkins "Jack" and now walks around waiving to any pumpkin he sees saying, "Hi Jack!!!!  Hi Jack!!!" 

I am blown away when I look at pictures of him this year as compared with one year ago . . . 

 I am starting to think he really needs a little brother or sister for a playmate! 

Tide Pools and Undertow

Oh good, you are here! 

I have been waiting for you . . . 

here on the beach in South Carolina.  The beach is magical in the fall, when golden leaves find their way next to seashells and powdery sand.  Come and see the wonders of this place.  Sit with me, won't you?  Lend your ear that your heart may be filled with good news.

 
                            (Wynn, 19 months, seeing the ocean for the first time) 

See the playground that was created for you.

See it through child eyes.

The vibrant colors and salty goodness, for even the very air He has filled with flavor. 

Notice the way ocean tides create shallow, warm tide pools, perfect for tiny hands and shovels and plastic red buckets?

 How I wish that life would be a constant succession of tide pools, far from the edge of undertow and sharks and cold ocean depths.  But we know differently, don't we?   That is why you are here.  That is why we are friends, you and me.  High tide will wash over the beach and the landscape we know will change.  Waters will rise. God will shift our focus from our comfort to His glory.


I am here to tell you that He will never leave us or forsake us. He wrote that in a letter to me once . . . have you read it?

As we stand at the edge of the coming tide, the Father is at our right side and His Son is at our left.

(Three generations: Wynn, his daddy and granddaddy) 

 And for today, dear friend, may it be enough to know that He never lets go.




.

Little Girl Grown up

This July, we bought our beach cottage in the small hometown where I spent my childhood.  I spent thirteen years away, growing into an adult.  Everything my child eyes once saw and knew here, that child, now returned, recognizes.  She remembers.

Here, I am two versions of myself in the same five minute time span.  I walk downtown past the same mom and pop stores that I knew in my childhood.  I am seven years old and wondering if my mom will hand me a cherry lollipop from the bank teller if I sit quietly and don't squeak my shoes on the marble floor.  Then a little boy with my same brown eyes takes my hand and whispers "mama" and I am 31, a little girl all grown up.   The adult I have become walks alongside the girl who once was. 

I ache to tell her all the things I wish I had known. 

Curly hair is beautiful.  Really, it is.  I know it is different but, really, that is a good thing.

She runs her small child fingers across my stomach.

Stretch marks aren't so bad, she says.

I struggle to believe her.

You get to be a mommy,  She breathes in wonder.

 


Don't fear, I tell her in return, for He is with you. 

Fear not, for He has overcome the world.  

She nods understanding.  Her eyes dark solemn.  On tip toe, she encourages in return.  Reminding  me of things I once knew:

He's got your whole world in his hands.

And it is then I realize that perhaps I have traveled 13 years and thousands of miles to discover I knew the most important thing all along.  Before I allowed the lies of a broken world to teach me a new song.

So today I sing along with her.:

He's got you and he's got me in His hands,
He's got the whole world in His hands . . .

Together we teach it to our little boy and  I thank her for meeting me here.

I am proud of you, she says.

You are lovely, I say.

And for today, we believe it.


images via here and here.

Beach Cottage Update: October 2011

So here is the thing with renovating an old house: it is fun, exciting, crazy, messy, stressful, dusty . . . there is blood, sweat (lots) and tears (lots and lots) . . . add in a very busy toddler and things really get interesting!  I have come to the realization that it may be the next beach season before I have any one room completed enough to do a full before and after reveal, so I thought I would share the bits and pieces around our cottage that I am loving right now . . . it is slow going and hard work, but it is still a dream come true for me.

I have about 100 projects going at any one time.  The floors are mostly done and are A-mazing.  I think they are the coolest hardwood floors I have ever seen, but I am probably prejudice after spending about 70 hours on my hands and knees hand sanding and applying polyurethane to each and every board.  They are the real deal-thick solid wood planks with knots and oodles of character.   We did not stain, just applied the poly.   The natural shades of the wood really gleam.

I love my English roll-arm sofa. It has beautiful lines.

This is a vintage finial that I purchased from White Flower Farmhouse to dress up our staircase. I pulled the carpeting off the stairs and removed approximately 1,000 carpet staples with pliers.  I painted the stair risers white and left the steps their original wood.  I will do a full post on the staircase when I am done with it.  I am contemplating painting a striped " carpet runner."  There are fun pictures on Pinterest, but I am worried it would not wear well?

Every beach house needs bright colored stripes.

Metal beach buckets are ideal for holding matchbox cars and other odds & ends. Their scale is wrong, I know, but they are cute and useful so for now, they are staying.

The front door is done for now, after a coat of oil-based exterior primer and five coats of Benjamin Moore Heritage Red.  I bought the school house light for the entryway at Lowes.






 A trio of my favorite pictures hanging next to our bed.


Chandelier in our bedroom

Pages from a vintage Golden Book that I mounted on canvas for Wynn's room.

The monstrous ceiling project that I started about a month ago. 

 Mr. Marvelous was on a business call at about 10 a.m. and I was antsy, so I started pulling down the drop ceiling tiles in the living room.  He came down from his upstairs office and was less than thrilled to see the ceiling laying in bits and pieces all over the living room floor.  What can I say?  Drop ceilings do not belong in beach cottages.  I have now pulled 100,000 staples from the ceiling (each square of drop tile was stapled into the ceiling), primed and painted.  The ceiling itself is a soft blue called Love in a Mist by Martha Stewart for Home Depot.   The "beams" are white washed using the left-over white paint from our walls.  I have been painting on the white paint and then immediately wiping off a good bit of the paint with a paper towel to allow the wood grain to show through and to give the wood a distressed weather-worn look.  I cannot wait to do a full post on the ceiling before and after!!  See the remnants of drop ceiling still in these picture?  Yes, I have a ways to go.  The bronze lanterns are Smith & Hawken.  It is so fun to sit with the candles lit on date nights at home.

I suppose that is all for tonight.  I hope that everyone is having a great week and thank you so much for following along!