Saturday At The Beach

Hi Everyone,

Saturday we spent the afternoon at The Pier on the beach side.  We decided to take a walk along The Pier which is 17 feet wide and 1,500 feet long.  You can just stroll along or you can fish off The Pier.  It was a beautiful, breezy and sunny day with temps around 77 degrees F and great white caps on the water.  I took this opportunity to take a few photos (really a lot of photos LOL) to share with all of you.  Not bad for a November day!

Restaurants at the end of the shopping district before you head onto The Pier

A side view of The Pier

A straight view of The Pier.

Yes, they are playing volleyball!!

The start of The Pier

My favorite view of the Gulf

A view of the coastline from The Pier  (If you look real close you can see a dolphin in the center bottom portion of the picture).

Metal artwork for sale along The Pier

It's interesting to me the various artwork available for sale here.  I love the metal art and these are all handmade by local artisans.  Pretty cool.


We ended up having lunch at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville's restaurant with a view from outside seating here:

The view from Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville's Restaurant

Husband's Lunch ( a Cuban sandwich with fried onion rings)

My Lunch ( a Cheesburger with Smoked Bacon and Cheddar Cheese)  Not very dietetic.  LOL

All in all it was a fun filled day.  I will leave you now with Jimmy Buffett's famous record that inspired the name of the restaurant.  Here he is performing at the Gulf Shore Jam.

A Life Less Ordinary, Interiors and Inspirations

Hello,

I've been reading a wonderful new book called A Life Less Ordinary, Interiors and Inspirations by Zoe Ellison and Alex Legendre.  This is the most delightful and inspiring book I've read in some time.  It is the journey of two women, Alex and Zoe, who, although from very different backgrounds, found a connection through the beauty of everyday objects, design an antiques.  Their story and friendship is inspiring enough but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the book is also filled with gorgeous photos of items in their shop, (you can check it out here) i gigi General Store and Cafe.

In 1997 Zoe and her mother first opened igigi, a women's boutique in Brighton England on the South coast of England.  It has evolved since then to include home decor items, speciality items and it also has a cafe.  It was after she opened the shop that she met Alex, who came to work for her.

I am about 1/4 way through the book and find it to be so enchanting, charming and sweet I can barely put it down.  I have posted some photos off their website and I hope that you will check it out as well as purchase the book.  If you have a love of old and re-purposed items as well as antiques then you will love this book.  I hope you enjoy the photos.  I would be interested in hearing what you think of the shop.  :-)

Filled with lovely pottery

Sigh...I love this chair!

A photo taken inside of the shop

Linens

Soaps 

Candles

Suitcases

Charming pottery.  I love the creamer and sugar bowl...I might just have to add the creamer to my collection.

My Reveal

Hi everyone,

Here is the finished table base and chairs stripped, sanded and re-painted.  It was certainly a job but well worth it.  I really liked the way they turned out.  What do you think?

Angled view

Side view

I added a small stenciled anchor in navy blue centered in the middle of each chair as an added accent to the otherwise white chairs,

The table with top

The shelf above the slide in drawer that is removable from both sides.

The hardest part of stripping the base was these legs.  Sigh...I spent a long time on each one trying to remove the paint inside the grooves.

I fell in love all over again with my set!

My newest wall art...a giclee map print on canvas of France with the locations of each city within the map.

I hope you enjoyed the pics.  Since I am a pro now ( LOL, LOL) if any of you all need any advice on the "how to" just let me know, I'd be glad to show you how! :-)

It was another lovely day here in the high 70's near 80 degrees F.  I spent the afternoon cleaning up the mess on our patio from the stripper, sand and paint from redoing the kitchen set.  NOW, I can rest!!

St Andrew's Bay At Sunset

Just a quick pic of St. Andrews Bay at sunset!  Gorgeous!

Stay tuned tomorrow for my big "reveal" of our kitchen table base and chairs revamp.  :-)