We continued to look for affordable properties a long the Oregon coast. What we found were , old cottages that would require complete renovations . Having a limited budget of 120 K there wasn't room left to do the kind of massive renovations most coastal cottages needed. Besides being old , the affordable ones had no view of any kind , more like old tract homes long neglected behind new small strip malls.
Pressing desire to own a tiny piece of beach living keep me searching , finally one search took me to coastal Wa. I happened upon new cottages being built within our price range, 2 bedrooms , 1 bathroom with a great room/kitchen setup. The finishes were granite, with stainless steel appliances...... While older places may have more classic details, there is something to be said for worry- free brand new everything. Here is an example of what is being built.....119K these little cuties are around 857 sq. ft.
However, I have visions of our kids and grand-kids joining our beach get away with us from time to time. One bathroom was not going to cut it. Then I found this house online:
It didn't have much as far as curb , or in this case beach appeal but it had something that caught my imagination:
Tucked inside this sort of boring exterior was this fabulous natural rock fireplace, and great room! When I first stepped inside it was ours. My husband and I couldn't get this house out of our minds. It was a budget busting 150K but... and this was a huge but, it had been on the market for 3 yrs!!!!! The owners had moved to Calif and were motivated to get out from under it. They left the house almost fully furnished, and that included full kitchen ware pots , pans , glass ware, even stemware!
This beach cottage would be a huge savings for us, as I pointed out to my husband, Terry, who was worried about our bottom line. Without the added pressure of finding affordable furnishings , we could replace things as we could afford it.
Plus this house had something else the others didn't have, to full bathrooms, large master and a massive trex deck patio on the front of the house for watching those gorgeous sunsets and sipping what I like to call "Loaded Slushies" . Those wonderful mixed drinks that you freeze and serve Yummy! AND a covered attached patio on the back for sunrises....
After some back and forth negotiations this little gem was ours! Only 5 yrs. old it came through inspections with flying colors! Another view from kitchen looking into the living area.
The first thing we tackled after closing, was weed whacking and removing a tons of useless stuff like previous owners bedding, a horrific monster bunk bed thing that was in the guest bedroom and double headboard thing that we actually ended up dismantling and re-purposing into shelves.
I had been collecting pictures of what I thought I wanted in our beach cottage. It came with big comfy leather couch and love seat, a nifty coffee table with hidden storage, the dining set picture above. These were things that weren't going anywhere, anytime soon. To save money I recovered the cushions on the dining chairs. The padded window covering were given a new material , once pale yellow marked up walls were repainted a warm white.
I quickly came to realize that , I craved color and wanted the cottage to feel fun...... So our bedroom went from this in your face blue (previous owners choice) to the calm fun feel ....
I found 3
adorable stools for a thrifty $18 a piece in colors I quickly decided to use as my go to color palette.. We purchased a neutral color chair for extra sitting and I commandeered on of the stools and re-purposed as a small surface to place drinks, or book.
While I had dream of these decors :
Remember that headboard we dismantled? Well they became the 3 Pottery Barn Knockoff shelves above the bed. Courtesy of my talented hubby. I asked him to recreate these shelves I soooo wanted from Pottery Barn , but just couldn't justify spending a whopping 700.00 for the three of them when I needed other furnishings first.
to this
I drew a template for my husband using the house above and the result was pretty close! It was the finishing touch we needed. I found this great surfboard on Craig's list the had OUR initials TVS already on it! It was meant to be!
I am the proud possessor of 7 of these awesome shelves created for me by my hubby! Best part, they were all free! Using the wood from the old headboard we were able to make all of these shelves. Only item purchased was dental molding for the 2) 5 ft shelves the last 2 pictures are from our guest bedroom in Oregon
For our guest bedroom at the cottage I wanted total fun! I was able to snag a few vintage sand toys and pails for this room as part of the decorations. A new $99 bed frame & $69 side table from Ikea and ta da a cozy beach bedroom. Over the window I have another shelf with more beach toys and canvas signal flags.
When it finally came time to paint the outside of the cottage, it was torture.... We went back and forward over colors with names like comfort gray, tide pool , drizzle , nautical blue , tropical blue sea glass.
You wouldn't think that selecting colors would be that difficult, but in truth it was agonizing. Especially when there are endless colors to select from these days. Finally after much debating we agreed on Drizzle and Tidewater with Alabaster for the trim and ravishing color for the door.
From this
to this
Once again ,I enlisted my talented husband to create shutters for me. The front window still looked a little plain, so I rummaged through my beach house images files,which was huge, and located a picture of what I had in mind .
It's funny how things fall into place , my husband & I wanted a place to store his yard equipment,that it was taking up valuable closet real estate! We found a cedar shed at Home Depot that they had marked down from $1200 to a wallet saving 650.00!!! I was so happy I couldn't stand it! Terry painted to it match the house, so cute! Seen in the background.
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