Top 10 Reasons Why we Should Win a Makeover for this room...

Vintage Revivals, one of my most favorite blogs is having a contest to makeover a readers room. So in order to plead my case to win the Epic Room Makeover Giveaway Contest 2012 (See more info here: http://www.vintagerevivals.com/2012/08/epic-room-makeover-giveaway-contest-2012.html ),

 I'd like to present the:

TOP  REASONS WHY I DESPERATELY NEED THIS MAKEOVER FOR THIS ROOM

1. We can't seem to figure out how to tackle the striped wood paneling that SCREAMS at everyone in this room.  Also I have recurring nightmares with clowns...not sure why.

 

2. In between working 40 hours a week Civilian Job, US Air Force Reserves on the weekend, Completing my Masters and volunteering with my Therapy dog at Hospice...I don't have the time!

And to answer everyone, we use staples to keep the sunglasses on him. ................OK, no not really, we found that super glue actually held them in place much better than the staples. 

3. My Ikea furniture looks fine but its too big for the room!

4.  My style leaves something to be desired. I love the old photos of my grandparents, the vintage japanese bowls, the candle and linens but they do not mesh together in a "craptastic" way. I need Mandified styling.

5. There are 3 doors leading into this room...Its impossible to figure out any other way to arrange furniture!

6. Yes the only piece of art on the wall is a free mural of my dog....But in my defense the tie he is wearing actually matches the stripes on the wall. I'm not sure if I should be proud that I found something to match the stripes or if I should go stick my head in the sand because I admitted to actually looking for something that matched those hideous stripes.

7. We have a lovely view of the Charleston, SC marsh, a cool pool and a wonderful cabana boy that makes the most wonderful mint juleps (with fresh mint of course)  all at your disposal when you need a break from the makeover and would like to go swim and enjoy the view. This is perhaps also the reason that I can't seem to find the motivation to work inside. :(

 

The Cabana Boy is the one on the left. 

8.  I'm pretty crafty and I'm a real good worker so I would be the most handiest helper you ever had. In fact, I am so helpful that you might just need to lay in bed, sip champagne and bark orders at me and that might be the most work you will have to do at our house. (I really just need some creative direction!) Look I can even paint! BTW, This is also our house number in case you'd like to jot it down for your navigation here later. 

 

9. We're a young couple that just spent a whole bunch on new AC and ductwork. If you've never priced a new AC system and ductwork....HOLY MOLY....There will be no more renovations for a while without this free makeover!

10. Did I mention the stripes? I'm sorry,  its just the worst paint job ever and when we were first looking at the house, I think I actually screamed when I first saw them. As you can see we need HELP!

So there it is..,.10 fabulous reasons to choose us in Charleston, SC where the stripes are screaming for us to win! Please vote for us to win the Makeover from Vintage Revivals!! Thanks Y'all! - MW

Swamp - Exit Stage Left!

When we moved into the house, in addition to the marsh, we also gained a swamp in the backyard. for more than a year, the pool had slowly sunk into a dismal state similar to a black lagoon. We actually could not see the bottom and were curious if we might find dead bodies floating to the top one morning. In any case, the gunnite shell of the pool was in great condition but the pool needed new plaster since the walls were pitted with algae and so rough that swimming against them would cause your skin to bleed. (Not good!) I had originally thought that this was a DIY job, but with the possibility of pool float, I wanted to hire someone with insurance that knew what they were doing. This was one of those times where we needed to hire a pro. So we hired Brothers Plastering to plaster our pool for us.

POOL BEFORE!

 (Note the black water! Yuck!)

The whole process started with cleaning out of the pool. There was a little paranoia on my part, because we were so close to the marsh and the pool shell could actually float up out of the ground from the pressure of the water table if we did not relieve that quickly. As soon as the pool was drained, the pool guys drilled a hole in the bottom of the pool to relieve the pressure and up came the groundwater into the pool . This was a relief! I was also relieved that no dead bodies were found in the bottom of our pool!

Sorry CSI, not today!

Then they chipped out all the tile around the top edge and laid in new square tile I picked out. Large square tile is better (from what I was told) because it has less places for the water to creep in behind the mortar versus the original tile that was 2 inches long irregularly shaped with fancy shmancy jagged edges.

That all happened in a day. The weather forecast was rainy for the next two weeks, so they had to come back after St Patricks Day. Needing a good excuse to relax, we went to Savannah for some festivities and returned on Monday for the plastering to begin!

So on Tuesday, the plasterer came and they pumped in the plaster from a truck to the pool and started smoothing it out with trowels. Then they pumped in more and troweled that smooth. Repeat. Repeat. Then it started to harden and into the pool they went with sponges taped to their feet to work out all the bumps and make sure everything was nice and smooth!

 

 ....Then add 30,000 gallons of water over two days and Voila! You get a POOL!

As some of you may know, I work from home, so below was my view from my office. 

:)

So now that the pool is complete.

 We are going to tackle the yard and HVAC and revamp our pool cabana. 

We've started demo on the pool cabana already....Here (below) it is in its infancy...

The Wysteria came FREE OF CHARGE! Woohoo!

Next post will be all about the crap you find in a yard and shed 

that has been neglected for years. :)

That's what Brothers are For!

It became apparent that we had a huge drainage issue when we got a crawlspace full of water one day! So we called in the pros...My brother J.T. came to the rescue! Reidl's Construction came down for a week and we rented a excavator and boy was that efficient! He dug trenches to put pipe in leading from the gutters to the storm sewer drain. He also installed a drain to catch the rain running down the hill towards our house.

Off to the left you can see the project manager Landyn. He is making sure JT is doing everything right.

 J.T. also brought his trusty chainsaw and went to town on our back yard, trimming up a very nice view of the marsh that we had never seen before! The view is even more amazing now! It brought back memories of clearing the land in Ohio with my family. (I didn't say those memories were fond.) In the middle of the yard, you can see the huge pile of branches and bushes we tore out. :)

 Since we could not get the excavator into the backyard, Chuck and I hand dug our trenches back there. We ran into a concrete slab under some dirt and had to rent a concrete saw. I must say that Chuck was quite the pro at sawing the concrete. After we trenched far enough away from the foundation, we filled the trenches with 3 inches of rock, laid in the hard drainage pipe and covered with more rock. 

We also got gutters (not so exciting) to tie into our new drainage system. We got gutter guards too (Rhino Guards) that come with a clog free guarantee! When we had to remove a couple of the shutters to install the gutters, we found pink paint underneath! The house used to be pink! Charleston Gutter Company was so nice that they even hooked up my Rain Barrel for free! They were a great company to work with!

   

 Lastly, after all that digging, we decided to get rid of a couple other plants that we weren't too fond of. They are called cast iron plants. Well, a neighbor wanted as many as she could get her hands on, so she came over and we dug out many wheelbarrows full of that plant! Voila! You can see what the plant looks like in the picture above. Its the plant that the bricks under the rain barrel are smashing.

Well, that's all for now! Next time, We should have some pics on the pool renovation!

Spring is in the...Ground?

 Spring is in the....Ground?

So here we are in January and my daffodils are confused! The warm weather has freaked out my bulbs into sprouting and blooming. Which is pretty cool, because when you buy a house, you have no idea what is in the ground until it starts popping up and blooming. Even more cool is the fact that I did zero work to get them to pop up in the first place!

On other planting adventures, I decided to use the used oyster shells from my friend  Ashley's New Year's Oyster Roast and use them in lieu of landscape rocks to force some Amaryllis bulbs I got for a steal at $2.50 a piece. 

 I thought I might as well show you the rest of the house, since you've been asking. We'll start with the striped guest room which is a small interior guest room that has wood paneling painted in red, yellow and blue. It will be the first room we repaint...as soon as I can figure out what color to repaint it. :)

 The view above is looking in from the hallway and into the next doorway which goes to the bathroom. The room is just big enough for a Queen bed and 1 dresser. (Ikea score from Craigslist!) The quirky thing is that the stairs to the second floor are located inside this guest bedroom. Hmmm. Not exactly the best location!

 

I do have to point out something funny, though. We won a commissioned painting of our dog at a Halloween Dog Costume Party and the painter portrayed Mojo in a red, yellow and blue tie...which ironically matches the striped room color palette to a tee! How bizarre!! (BTW, What a handsome devil he his!)

So lets go up the steps to the 2nd floor addition. 1 Room with (wait for it!) Built-in Bed and an amazing view of Turkey Creek! I've plopped my desk at the window and now have a home office with an amazing view of the marsh! Note the 2nd claw foot tub to the right of my desk which will serve as a handy dandy picture and diploma caddy until I can figure out how to cap that line and sell of the tub! (We also have a pink claw foot tub in the Master Bedroom in case you missed that earlier post!)

And behold............This is the fog of the marsh in winter from my desk. 

***Heavy Sigh***

 Its getting close to Mardi Gras, and after being a 5 year native of NOLA, I admit I severely miss that tradition soaked locale. So I cling to my memories by eating terrible SC renditions of King Cake and then making my own King Cake wreath. Which is not my best work by far! But it will have to do since my Masters in Engineering classes are much harder than I anticipated this semester!! 

(Not to mention that I spent time posting this instead of studying...oops!)

The Beginning of the Madness!

 Welcome to the Cottage of Marsh Madness! 

Built in 1952 but revitalized by the Whitfields in 2011!

To understand where it all began, we shot tons of pics from all kinds of angles 

so you could see our home from the start the day before we moved in all our stuff...

We'll start with the front entrance...

 

Here is the view looking out of the front door. It slopes down from the street to our front door. 

This is not what sold us on the house... 

The view from the back door is what swept us off our feet. More on that later.

 

The view of the front right side of the house and driveway, garage, etc. 

 

Here is the left side of the house. 

 Lets step inside the front door into the front family room...

 If you walk to your right inside the front door, you can see the kitchen/ dining room. 

Here is the front bathroom...full of some lovely vintage tile. :)

Please come step inside our Master Bedroom ....

with a Pepto Pink Clawfoot Tub smack dab in the middle of our bedroom. 

Our Master bedroom has 1 sink and 1 toilet...and connects to the walkin closet. 

 Here's a view of the TV Room/Den. Nice wood floors and Shrimp Pink walls. (The previous owner must have had something for the color of pink!) They also painted over the Charleston brick fireplace. :( The double doors open out to the backyard. The single door opens up to the garage. Note the beams above.

 Bathroom that opens up to both the TV Room and the Guest Bedroom, 

complete with toilet, pedestal sink and large shower. 

 

 Lets step out the back door and take a look at our backyard.

Here is the view from the back!!

A view of the house looking back from the backyard. 

You can also see the outline of the 40 x 20 pool AKA swap that came with the property.

The doors to the left lead to the TV Room with the fireplace. The doors to the right lead to the master bedroom. The door in the center is this weird space that is mostly a large storage closet.

There are also 2 sheds on the property. 

This is off to the left of the house if you were looking at the back of the house. 

 

Here is the back storage rool/pool rool. 

I did not yet include the dreaded striped guest bedroom nor the upstairs bedrooms that I have turned into my office. More to come on those when I can grab photos of those spaces. :)

Below is the floor plan of the house. 

Here are some of the hard wood floors we have in the house....

 That's all for now! Come back to see how our renovations are coming along! :)