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.  :-)

A Sneak Peek

Hi Everyone,

This is a quick update on the progress I've made in stripping my kitchen table base and chairs.  I have just finished stripping the table base and tomorrow husband will sand.  On Monday I will paint the last it. All four chairs are stripped, sanded and painted.  I must say that I thought stripping the chair legs and the lattice back of the chairs was the worst part of the stripping but I was WRONG...it was definitely the table base and the table legs.  The table legs are rounded with grooves that go around each leg three times. Try as I might, I could not get all the paint out in between those grooves.  Husband will have to use the handy dandy hand tool that is small and has attachments to get in to those hard to sand areas.  I worked tirelessly for 7 1/2 hours today to finish.  I'm pooped!  I'm headed to the tub to soak these tired old and achy bones.  LOL

Here are a few photos of the chairs finished:

(3) of the (4) chairs

The Lattice Back

The legs (I personally love the curve in the legs of these chairs!!)

Side view

So, there you have it!  I will post the finished photos of the table base with the chairs Tuesday or Wednesday.  Stay tuned for the big reveal!!

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. :-)

Stripping Furniture

I've been busy...

I have (4) of these chairs to strip plus a table base.

I started a rather large project...stripping and re-painting my kitchen chairs and a table base.  I spent approximately 8 hours stripping and sanding (husband did the sanding) one chair!!!  Then a lightbulb went off in my brain...I have a heat gun, why didn't I think of that before I spent 8 hours slaving with liquid stripper??  So, I will try it out on chair number 2 to see how it works.  I will still will have to use stripper to remove the final finish but hopefully it won't take me as long.

One down, three to go.  Sigh, I will keep you posted on the finished product! (I painted this one in bright white semi-gloss paint and it turned out great.  I'll post photos later.  :-)

Follow up:  After using the heat gun and spending just about the same amount of time, I decided to forgo using it and just use the stripper.  I am on chair number 4 now.  I have officially stripped, husband sanded and I've painted 3 of the 4 chairs.  Tomorrow is another day of stripping!  :-(  I don't mind the painting as husband has been using a spray primer from Sherwin Williams first and it covers wonderfully so that I only have to give it two coats of semi-gloss. The second coat just gives it a more finished look.  I'll keep you posted.  After this chair I still have the table base to strip, sand and paint.  I'll post pics when I've finished.

I hope everyone is enjoying this lovely fall weather.  It has finally gotten into the mid 60's and it looks like we might see low to high 40's at night and 70's during the day later in the week.  Take care!

Some Inspiration For You

I took to the internet looking for some inspiration and found it on Inspiration Lane You can Visit Here.  I enjoy viewing the different images and it gives me some great ideas. The music is soothing and pleasing to the ears and you can add the images to your tumblr account.  What do you think?

Yummy!

I love the texture of this lamp base and the distressed shutter in the background

Absolutely gorgeous!

A simple eye pleasing accessory.

This describes my life at the present time.

One of my favorite furry friends...So sweet

Words of Wisdom

I could not resist this...I added this to my collection
(Image via West Elm)

Along with two of these, turquoise and an emerald bottles.

Add caption

(Image via West Elm)