Saturday's Score

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Today was the best day of the season so far for yard-saling! 

Perfect weather and sales around town in all of my favorite neighborhoods. 

Here are a few of today's favorite finds ...

The Lilac Pitcher. 

I'm not one for collections, but I do love to buy unique and brightly colored pitchers to use as vases for cut flowers. 

For next to nothing, I now have several great colors that I can pick from to give away when I want to share my hydrangeas with my neighbors.

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The Resurrection

Pin It With Easter around the corner I think it's only fitting to share our most recent "resurrection." We bought the "Periwinkle Palace" last May from a local woman who had enjoyed the cottage and it's prime location in our coastal community for the past fifty years.
 *side note- the former owner just won the largest Powerball jackpot in history last month and is likely headed towards building the "cottage" of her dreams down in Texas!

As a yard-saler, you should have an affection for "Shabby Chic" but this little cottage had way more shabby than chic going on.

From the moment I saw it I knew I had to save it. I hadn't even gone inside but I could see that someone had once loved it. The garden was overgrown, but there were tangles of raspberries and roses mixed with budding asparagus. I think the asparagus was what clinched it for me.

The house itself is tiny but still functional enough for our needs and had a lot of potential so we decided to find a way to revive it while spending as little money as possible and furnishing it with yard-sale finds.

There were a few odd items to deal with, like that giant plate glass window which was serving to turn the living room into a convection oven.

After looking back at some photos of a recent trip to New Orleans we settled on full length shutters to solve the problem. I knew these inspiration photos would be put to good use!

Here are a few exterior after photos... 

There is still so much to be done, replacing the remaining six windows (that tells you how small it is!), the sliding glass doors, maybe some built ins for storage, landscaping, garage repairs... the list is endless but I'm looking forward to starting the next phase of exterior updates!

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Welcome!

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As a child, I watched my father build houses and developed a passion not only for architecture, but for wood. I loved the smell of sawdust and the way he could take a pile of sticks, a few simple tools, and some drawings and quickly turn them into a real home. It seemed so easy and natural, and I wanted to do it, too. My parents teamed up to build homes, and Mom and I would sit at the kitchen table scouring design books and rearranging walls while we dreamed. For a child, having the opportunity to offer an opinion in an adult world not only sparked an interest in home design, but taught me that I too had a say and could contribute to creating my own environment.

Ten years ago, I had the good fortune to move from Boston to Newport, RI.
My husband and I bought a small cape house with a front porch perfect for rockers, a great yard and fantastic neighbors. With very little money, a lot of paint and an abundance of youthful energy, we turned that house into our first home.

Four years and one baby later, we purchased our current home, or what we affectionately refer to as "The Plantation." It has taken almost seven years of trial and error, a lot of hard work, and some creative accounting to take this house from "homeless shelter" to "home", but here is the end result. 

This is what we bought...

And where we are today... (even the skies brightened up when we finished!)

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