Design In Time

Amy of the beautiful blog Maison Decor had a giveaway on her blog of Shabby Chic Soho samples and gave everyone the chance to own a piece of Shabby Chic history.

I entered as did many others and the winner was announced,in Amy's words

Without further adieu I am please to announce the winner

 of the 25 swatches and 2 hand lettered clothespins are going to

  Michelle of Hello Lovely!

Congratulations to Michelle she must have been so happy to read her name.......i continued to read the post and read

And because I saw that many people felt the same way

 I did about having a piece of real Shabby Chic
 from design icon Rachel Ashwell to call their own,

 a few more will get a mini pack of samples!

• French Farmhouse 425
• Polka Dot Closet
• Fractured Fairy Tale
• Deb Murphy
• Pipigirl
• Shabbily by the Sea
• Jeanne from Texas
• Capers of the Vintage Vixens

Seriously isn't that such a nice thing for Amy to do? well i have sat by the letter box ever since  i read my name on Amy's blog:) and today was my lucky day.......

I love her card so beautiful........

Here are my  Shabby Chic Soho swatches.....all picked for me by Amy in beautiful coastal colours..... Thank you Amy i love them!........i am taking them with me today to the beach cottage........

Along with my Shabby Chic books.........for inspiration while looking around our beach cottage which is a blank canvas.........

I now have swatches too :) ................they go with my beach bag........

Amy's collection when it arrived as she sat and sourced names for all her fabrics Photograph from Maison Decor........

Amy's design office below and how she displayed her swatches.......beautiful right? photograph from Maison Decor...........

 

My coastal inspiration of Shabby Chic Soho swatches...thank you again Amy x

If you haven't already you should really visit Amy's blog...her home is stunningly beautiful and she is one very talented designer as you will soon see  by clicking here Maison Decor

Tell Amy i said "Hi!" and that i am on my way to the beach cottage with my Shabby Chic Soho Samples and books and that i'll be back Sunday.................

Have a beautiful weekend everyone......XxX

Coastal Blues

Last weekend at the beach cottage we put the new ceiling in what is to be the new bathroom and rolled out pink insulation above,we have used cladding like the ceiling in the hall....well we call it cladding here in the Uk,can i ask my American readers what name you use for it? as i have read on your blogs the words....planking wainscoting and bead board?

I didn't take pictures of the ceiling as it looks a touch sauna-ish with it still being pine but it will be soon painted antique white :)

This weekend we are fitting the shower tray and Steve is tiling the corner walls with faux marble porcelain tiles....a supplier Steve knows had six boxes left of what were originally expensive tiles and asked Steve if he wanted them for ten pounds a box to take them off his hands and thankfully my love said yes and it certainly helps with the beach budget :).....The tiles are nice and large and Steve is going to tile them in a brick pattern.....also known as subway.

This morning i was looking at this jug of dried hydrangea we have in our kitchen and was amazed at how they have kept their colour,i dried these about three years ago and they are still lovely and blue,their are a few pink hydrangea bushes at the beach cottage and i planted two white ones last Summer,i hope to have a garden full of them as i know they thrive at the coast...

A little later on upstairs i was in my sewing and crafting room sorting out boxes of fabrics,laces and trims and came across this Victorian picture of two little angels that i stood on my desk,Steve had bought me it for my birthday in July and although we are moving to the coast in the Summer and i should be packing things away i wanted to display it now....i love the hand painted roses on the glass and the soft blue painted edge.....

I have cards and cards of lace and trims to be sorted out and this card of sea foam velvet trim and satin ribbon really caught my eye today....i am really into sea coastal colours at the moment and everything blue or aqua is jumping out at me and we all know i love pink ;)......

The colours of the ribbon and picture looked lovely together on my desk so i grabbed my camera......

I thought of the blue hydrangea from this morning and fetched the jug from the kitchen.....

A vintage aqua feather from my drawer........

And came up with the vignette below to photograph for my blog instead of tidying and sorting out my room like i should have been :).........

So if you don't hear from me you know i am having too much fun....i mean i am working hard sorting out my bits and bobs ;).....

I can not believe its Thursday tomorrow and then Friday we will be back to the beach cottage....the weeks seem to be flying by....

XxX

Building A Beach Cottage

Thank you so much for all your comments and emails on my last post,it would seem my imac is now too old to update to google chrome and i am going to need to buy a new one,.....not sure how i am going to pull that one off while building a beach cottage but for now i have switched to Safari browser and everything seems to be working well.

At the far end of the hallway at the beach cottage is a room which was previously a bedroom....well it is soon to be our bathroom and i thought you would like to come on in and have a look around and see what we were up to last weekend........

There was a framed board over what we thought was a hole from where there had been a window in this room.....see the misty window to the right? that was no mist it was ice! on the inside! hope its better weather this weekend.....

Behind the board we found the original window.............

I think its beautiful and the beach cottage must have looked dreamy with windows in this style all matching.......we pulled the board of outside too and smiled when the light came shining in.....we are having a slipper bath in front of these two windows,well in front of two new windows.....

It was really handy too as it opened so we could throw all the old plaster board and wood  out of the window....do you like our glamorous out buildings?..........i think i could throw a match from here ;) .......................note to self get a skip!.......

Upstairs  you can see Steve,he built a timber frame to hold  insulation in on the gable end wall and to hold a window we will be fitting.........new joists too to hold the new floors and ceilings.....................

This will be my room where i will create and blog from with a window over looking the garden...it is a little hard to imagine right now i know but we have it all planned......

The window we uncovered at the start of this post is the large black board to the left of the picture below.... you can see the sun room i posted about here  and the door and brown board will become french doors.........my room window will be above in the middle under the eaves and the long thin black board downstairs to the right is the window pictured below....

Which we found hidden in the wall in our bedroom...........i would love this to be a door out on to a rose garden........Cindy you would be really proud i nailed these curtains up ;)............

Looking in from what is going to be the bathroom straight in to our bedroom you can see all the new joists in the bedroom ceiling too and the planked walls from the other side.....where the mirror is against the wall will be our bed.......

Its really strange being able to look straight through the beach cottage........

Well this weekend the planked ceiling will be going up in the bathroom and corner walls so Steve can fit and tile our corner shower so we have some where to get washed and then we can take the old shower and bathroom out of the room it is in now and start to build that in to a washroom.....

I love the beach house below from the  movie Practical Magic  and this quote “There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.”

After i heard that i planted Rosemary by our garden gate that Steve had made last Summer and this was last weekend and it is still growing,i have never been able to grow it inland.
I always take a little sprig back to the city with me to use for cooking...i have planted roses and now i need to plant lavender,i love gardening and can not wait until we move to the beach cottage and i can potter on an Summer evening,that for me will be heaven.

The End XxX

Could i ask you?

Sorry to ask but i seem to be having issues with my comments and i am not sure it is working so could i ask all of you can you leave comments on my posts or not? i am having trouble leaving them on yours and i am not sure why?......

if you can not comment an answer here could you twitter comment,facebook comment or email me at shabbilyeverafter@gmail.com?

Thank you XxX

Diary Day

I  quickly wrote down how i felt Sunday morning just as i experienced it to keep a record of my thoughts,i shall call it a diary day........ indulge me in my dreamy romantic ways :)


Early Sunday morning around 4am and i lay  awake in bed at the beach cottage.....I can hear the sea......waves are crashing on the shore....she is calling....i open my eyes....it is so cold...i hurry out of bed and pile some kindle wood onto the dying embers in the fireplace...if i'm quick i can save it and i will have flames crackling and the room will be filled with soft yellow light again....its the third time i have jumped out of bed tonight to put coal and logs on the fire.......its our only heat in the beach cottage and it is cold outside.....

I hurry into the kitchen and make tea.......when i return flames are flickering in the grate....i light candles and sit down with the book 'Hers' and start to read.......i would read books over the years and watch films with this scenario but today it was me...i was the girl by the fire wrapped in a blanket with tea and candle light...... no appliances or furniture just me and my love and a few things on the mantle piece.......we are living the old ways when we are here and i think how  it could stay this way.........

A thick frost covers the crumbly old beach cottage roof outside.......but inside i am safe and warm...i think of my son back home asleep,my mother,our dogs...they seem so far away with their modern life almost like they are in another time..i think of the ways i love them as the flames flicker and the coals  glow........

 

As i warm my toes by the fire my mind wanders to my thoughts and then i am back to the book....i think of making  linen slipcovers for chairs when i return home and how they would look when i bring them here..i mean home to the beach cottage.......i study the lessons the book is teaching me as the fire crackles and the waves crash to shore....my toes are warm and so is my heart......

I look over at Steve sleeping soundly he has worked so hard  building our dream...i see our air bed on two layers of wall insulation...stuffed with hot water bottles and it makes me smile our home made bed...i am happy and content....we have jumped in this bed after working hard all day early on an evening to be warm and we have laughed and talked for hours about the beach cottage and our life back home.....nothing disturbs us here....we can just be.....a girl.....a boy........ and a dream......... 

All too soon i am on the last page and i sit back with one thought in my head,on page 194 a qoute by Joyce Maynard "A good home must be made,not bought".........'home' i think how i am 'home'...this is our 'home'.........we are making a 'home'..........

I am grateful to have a 'home' and for the ways it is teaching me what is important in life.....on weekends at the beach cottage we have nothing and yet we have seem to have everything............

What would you write in your diary?

The End XxX

Books in my beach bag

The post lady just arrived with a book i had ordered the other day after reading Amy's design book review here at Maison Decor.... if you have not read Amy's blog you really should pop over and take a peek she is a  designer and her home is very beautiful......my text is black and grey best sort that out when i get home :)

The book i chose was 'Hers' by  Jacqueline deMontravel isn't that a fabulous name? i just said "Hello i'm Jaqueline deMontravel' it sounds really chic!......... try it?   but say the  Ja in Jacqueline  how you would say the j'a in j'adore ;)

I am really looking forward to reading 'Hers' in about ooohh an hour on my way to the beach cottage....i am also taking 'Shabby Chic Inspirations' and 'Romantic Prairie Style'....... oh and my trusty quilted faded stripey beach bag......

I had a quick flick through 'Hers' and it looks beautiful..........

I need this pink table its lovely......i really like the white of the room and then the pop of the pink table and accessorizes.......

In Shabby Chic Inspirations there is a piece  covered in raised china flowers and i thought i have two pieces similar,a footed bowl and an ink well that i laid on the left  page to show you........

The ink well flowers are pretty similar....can you imagine writing a letter to a friend by candle light and using a piece like this? so romantic i think......

When i first started my blog  we bought a  pine dresser top  and Steve made a bottom for it to sit on to make a  large wall dresser....... i then painted it and  this was the result...... after seeing a picture on tumblr.......

I am going to re paint the dresser as i love the colours of the one below and i think it will really work at the beach cottage.....

Steve just told me i have an hour so i better make sure i have my camera in my bag and all my things together.....we are knocking out the room that is going to be our bathroom this week and glazing the internal doors with clear glass....

Have a lovely weekend what ever you are doing and i will see you soon.....

The End XxX

Comment Test

Our beach last Summer.........

Right comments are back to normal everyone :)

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