abeachcottage

Vintage Treasure, Beach Combing, Seashells & Tealights

G'day bloggers, thanks for voting for me!  But I'm still in the low number doldrums so if you think I am the queen of Beach Cottages and you have a minute on your hands, surf on over and vote baby, vote..

 

I had one of those Sundays where you pretty much just amble around from one thing to the next, you get those too right?  Started off lazily with a bit of a lay-in after the neighbours came round for dinner last night and we stayed up late.  It was a nice evening, with a set table, slow-cooked chicken and sticky toffee pudding.

This morning we watched Mr Teenage Beach Cottage play soccer and then I headed off treasure hunting.  Cos I needed some more vintage plates and china.  Really needed them.  

I sometimes find there nothing better than a bit of weekend thrifting to cheer me up (find lots more lovely treasures at Rhoda's blog Southern Hospitality), for me it's kinda like a guilty pleasure that unlike quite a lot of things in life that cause you pleasure does not cause one to make an almighty great hole in one's pocket.

And more, along with the pleasure, comes the expectation of what might be found.  Today that was better than I hoped for, though those who do not get excited by the idea of an 80 year old vintage plate from the potteries of Northern England might wonder just what on earth I am going on about. 

But for me it was worth rummaging around in the plate undergrowth to find a Meakin Marigold platter from the 1930's, a Burgess and Leigh Burslem which is circa 100+ yrs old and one of my favourites a Meakin Rosa bowl, together with some vintage glasses - lovin' all for 5 bucks.  Not a bad bit of entertainment for the afternoon. 

 

After I got them home I enjoyed washing them up in soapy bubbles by hand when normally I frantically run round filling the dishwasher with teapots and vases rather than having to even think about soiling my fair hands with such drudgery ;-)

Oh and some pics of our beach combing haul, what is it about walking along the beach picking things up, examining and putting them in your pocket?  A great way to waste an hour or so and loved by most ages so perfect for our family...

after getting home the shells were scattered on the windowsill by the Beach Cottage kiddos and I thought how they had completely improved a rather tired looking window.. there with the sun streaming through... (and see more morphed areas at Between Naps on the Porch)

So it's over and out from Australia, I'm off for a long long bubble bath, then sitting here with these tealights watching a delicious episode of Miss Marple in my dressing gown and eating leftovers...see ya next time.

Under the Beach Cottage Camelia Tree

Hello bloggers, hope you are all well and not sweltering too much, I have been enjoying the garden this week, though it is truly a work-in-progress and will never be the old English country garden of my dreams. Sigh the garden in our English house is full of roses and the like...but you can't have it all in life, right? 

And I've been thinking about that a whole lot lately.  I've had a few emails this week along the lines that I've inspired them to get off of their pretty little behinds and make the best of what they have, even with tight budgets, far-from-perfect homes and all the restrictions that real life brings.   

And I am far from the guru on doing that all the time...it's not easy especially if, like me, you have that whiney, stubborn little streak that nags away in the back of your mind, bemoaning not having that perfect sofa or Italian kitchen.  There've been lots of times when I've sulked and moaned to myself and sometimes out loud about not having what I want and not having it now.  Pathetic I know.  

The camelia is a case in point of making the most of what you've got.  When we moved in here, it was the height of summer, the garden was sooooo bad, full of thigh-high weeds, no beds, soooo neglected and sad.  But the bones are so there and I could see that, just about  - a huge, I mean huge old Moreton Bay Fig tree, a couple of orange trees (which at the time we thought were limes) and the one camelia stuck in the middle of the top lawn. But I didn't like it much then, I felt it stuck out like a sore thumb.  Along with the electric blue bench that I squeeled and whined about.  I had visions of taking to the Camelia with an axe, it looked so wrong plonked there.  

And then the winter came and it bloomed and by that stage we'd tidied up some and I'd shoved in a few beds, added just a few plants and thrown around the odd vintage bench and peely chair...and oh-how-pleased I was that I didn't do the axe-job on it.  

Yesterday I sat out there in the sunshine after spending the morning pulling weeds and digging holes...a carpet of Camelia petals + winter sunshine = making the most of it. 

Do you have any little areas that you could make the most of?  I know that suggesting 'making the best blah blah blah' whips up images of smug little Martha types humming happily, please that's so not what I'm on about...if I can make this garden ever so slightly pleasureable, the garden that had a dead rodent in it when we viewed it, then anything is possible.  Anything.  

Enjoy your weeked girls, no whining (I'm gonna try, Mr BC will be struck down!) see you next week...got some interesting things to show you!

oh and poor old me, I have only 11 little votes for the Eye Candy Luxe awards, how about you hop on over and vote for me and my endeavours in making this tatty old cottage habitable?  (click the box and then scroll down, I'm right near the bottom!)

blogged for Kelly's Korner Friday event and Melissa's Making Life Beautiful 

oh and p.s thanks for the plate stand help and all your tablescaping love, I so knew what an idiot that table-setting-pirate was...

Dining Tables and Shattering Vintage Glass

G'day gals, hope you are enjoying the summer heat, I hear it's hotting up in the Northern Hemisphere with sizzling skies...well, we are enjoying beautiful Australian winter temps here so I guess we're all doing well. 

Someone recently told me that setting a table was just so passe.  Someone who knows a whole lot more about what's hot and what's not in homes and dare I say it lifestyle, than I do.  Which is I have to admit, not hard.  I play by my own rules for sure. 

I thought I'd better not, then, mention my dangerous new sport, tablescaping, and that I get some twisted pleasure out of spending some of my lifestyle time putting plates and such like on the table, standing back, often in my undies and wondering if it looks nice or not.  Best to keep ones mouth shut on occasions like that. 

Please I am just so not interested in interior-snobbery and whether or not it is hip to set a table.  But I thought I would investigate this advice and sure enough, could I find a set table in any of the hundred-and-one home books I have?  Nope, not at all, though, a lot of 'undressed' heavily 'un-styled' tables for sure.

So having friends over for lunch at the weekend I contemplated a more casual pile-it-on and pretend I hadn't tried to make it look casual look.   But what's inviting someone over for lunch without a set table?  

My weekday life is busy and stressy and my cottage is often so untidy it's mind blowing so at the weekend it's good to potter about making things look nice and I like that.  For this one I used new striped nautical table mats and everything else plain with a few vintage pieces thrown in for good Beach Cottage measure.

How much pleasure you get out of tablescaping I couldn't be sure, but a warning for those of you partaking - do not put tealights under a much-prized vintage glass cake stand unless you are particularly interested in frantically vacuuming up shattered glass just before the doorbell rings...

blogged for Susans Tablescape Event at Between Naps on the Porch

tablemats - Target

vintage & white cake stands - thrifted        

pitcher & spheres - Wheel & Barrow

white jugs & vintage cutlery - thrifted               

            tables, chairs, tablecloth,china & glasses - IKEA           

green vintage chair - thrifted   

A Beach Cottage, The Washington Post & Wardrobe Love

Howdie beach loving bloggy gals.  Remember that bed from Friday, that nice crisp, tidy percale one?  Well Friday night we were tucked up in it, me reading, drinking hot chocolate, Mr Beach Cottage making notes (he likes to write notes a lot).  So I thought rather than, you know, blow one's own trumpet, I would nonchalantly throw into the conversation the Washington Post mention (and thanks to those who emailed me about it, if not for you I would never have known).

Me:               "Do you know where Washington is?"

Mr BC:           "Err ye-eah, of course I do.  Why?"  writing while speaking

Me:               "'Cos our old cottage got featured on the Washington Post website!" (trying to voice a mix of nonchalance with you-should-be-impressed)

Mr BC:           without looking up:  "Oh that's good."   Carried on note-writing

Me:               "I mean you know the Washington Post, the place where the President lives"

Mr BC:           "uh huh, great" copious note-writing

Me                 getting irritated "do you think you'll ever be in the Washington Post?"

Mr BC:        "Nah"  

So that's the kinda recognition I get around here, this Beach Cottage Crew are a tad more interested in going down the beach or playing their various sports or writing notes than talking about old pieces of furniture or mentions in publications or decorating beach homes.  And that ladies is why I write this blog.  Do you feel my pain?

Talking about vintage furniture (please I hope you are not getting bored with yet another post of a piece of furniture) and after showing you all my bed on Friday here are some pictures of our new old wardrobe.  Would you believe me if I told you we got it for free?  You are probably thinking that I cannot possibly have come across another thing for nothin'?  OK well I'll pretend then and tell you I bought this for a few hundred dollars.  But that wouldn't be true. 

I came across this and arm-locked Mr BC into putting it on the roof of the car, this was truly a precarious job, but with his male-physics-tieing-on skills and my supervisory/instructing skills from below we made it home safely onto the drive of the Beach Cottage. 

I'm sure there were curtains twitching as a little circus of lifting and instruction then ensued to get the thing into the cottage, but to be totally honest, I didn't really care. 

Soooo, she was in great shape, and I was absolutely lovin' the plainness of this piece, the simple lines of the period, in particular the inlaid sides and rounded door fronts and the classic Deco adornment hinting of delicious old days gone by.  This was exactly what I had been looking for to tie-in with the floor and the bed and the cushions. 

Here's how she looked before:-

In not bad shape, but certainly needing a tidy up - a coat of primer, a couple of coats of my secret *wink hand mixed beachy white and a quick sand and distress...

I love her, and gave her a full-on Beach Cottage initiation - taking not very good pictures of her and asking her last night, if she had heard of Washington...

blogged for Susans Metamorphosis Event and Rhodas Round Up of Thrifty Finds

At Home in the Beach Cottage Bedroom

G'day fellow beach cottage lovers, how you all going?   A good week at the beach cottage, busy, but good, no trips to the ER or skate parks...nice winter weather, sun and running on the beach...and in case you missed it, found myself on Apartment Therapy (click if you wanna look)

 

So how about a little look at my new bedlinen?  I'm never going to be a Tidy Bedroom Queen - I'm telling you lovelies I had to do a huge amount of frantic scrambling around tidying up for these pictures, so you better give me some comment luv for my efforts.  Kinda the blog version of having someone over for dinner, you have to get your act together and get it tidy.  Purging was good though.  Once I'd started I got right on into it and threw out a large garbage liner full of clothes that I don't like, or ever did like and was for some eason holding onto.

Funny that isn't it, how you hang on to this stuff "just in case".  Rummaging around in the storage boxes under our bed I came across a black 50's style dress I had bought when we first came to Australia, it was trendy then.  Think Hepburn.  I was coveting scenes of me flitting along in said dress, tanned, carefree...cute little pumps...get the picture?  But hmmm, people, me and the dress, my white bits and the arms made me look far from Hepburn.  So there it stayed in the box.  See it under the bed?

Until today when I let go of it.  Ahhhhhh.  But then thought, 'what if I go to a fancy dress 50s party' (cos I go to so many of those), ummm I think I'll keep it. Whaaaaat the heck! You'll be pleased to know it went to Vinnies for someone else to wear to a fancy dress party or perhaps skip along the beach all carefree.  Someone with better arms. 

Back to the bed.  

I came across this wonderful bedding from Margaret Muir.  There's something addictive about white bed linen, is there not?   I instantly fel in love with the pattern on the crispness of the white and loved how it hinted of the romantic without that OTT feeling you so often get with that whole ruffly romantic thing.  

Do you like it?  I am pretty happy with it, though two of the buttons fell off the first time I used it so I wasn't so pleased about that, but the percale luxury is quite nice to climb into when you're exhausted at the end of the day.

And how about your weekend?  Well think of me, I am treasure hunting tomorrow and I am making these and these to fulfill my ever-increasing chilli-lovin addiction

....see you all next week

chair, free

vintage suitcase side table, old treasure found & painted 

bed, budget repro 

vintage door, garage sale $5

drapes, IKEA 

Pitcher, Wheel and Barrow

linen, Shabby Chic, Margaret Muir 

bolster cushion  IKEA

if you'd like to read some Beach Cottage bedroom decorating ideas on a budget, you can go here 

and come on over for a surf at Beach Cottage Inspiration

blogged for The Inspired Room and Kelly's Korner events, thanks

irabdz4qty

Getting Nautical - Beach Cottage Trunk and Apartment Therapy

G'day bloggers, hope you are all sizzling in the heat and thinking of us Down Under where though hardly cold, (it hit 21C today on my walk by the sea), it is certainly chilly in the evenings.  Before I tell you about my beachy trunk love a couple of bits of news.

First I got featured earlier this week on Apartment Therapy, that's good isn't it...go take a look...

 

and second I'm guest posting at Sandy's this week who persuades us all to open our homes to others and not worry about things like tatty old cottages on the wrong side of town...hop on over for recipes and advice to get you back in the groove of having people over without any stress...

Anyway after the tips on Monday I thought I'd put it into practice...a very old trunk, on it's last legs some might feel, but for me when I came across it  was just what I was looking for for an awkward space in the sitting room.  A somewhat blank wall but because of it's window and aspect is difficult to get most anything right in there...and as you can only too well imagine, I've had the males in this old cottage hauling lots of different pieces in and out of there til this one when it felt right.

I found this unique little baby at a sale all old and wearing time, and got it for $35, it's very scratched and a teeny bit musty inside, but that's ok, I wanted it more for it's aesthetics than it's storage capacity. 

I did the dance when I got it as I had been looking out for a rustic, bit unusual wooden trunk, that with any luck had chunky old latches and was the right shade of weathered wood.  I had come across a few others on my travels but the wood was paler and, yep, believe it or not, in the white world I live in, I wanted some natural dark wood for a pop against the backdrop. 

Now, sorry but I can't go on without telling you that I did seriously consider the paint treatment on this one, you'll be pleased to know that didn't last too long  - I rather loved it once it was in here with a few bits and bobs to dress it up on the top.  And am I wrong to call this tablescaping?  I am not sure of tabelscape etiquette, but I believe these little side table vignettes are great to fiddle about with so I'm including in my learning-to-dress-a-table-journey (find more tablescaping delights at Between Naps on the Porch with Susan.  

What do you think?  Do you think it adds a bit of vintage marine style to the sitting room as per those tips the other day, even with those oh-so-girly pink beauties I pulled out of the front garden this morning?  

I do beieve it was a gift at that price, do you?