Julie's musings

Hello everyone.  Starting this blog was my idea but Pat embraced it so fully that I just abdicated my position as blogster.  So today I decided to just share my rambling thoughts.

We are fully committed to making this move and as you know we are veteran remodelers so we are into this process.  We really enjoy the creative process of taking a so-so house and making it into something new.  This project, however, is the largest in scope that we have tackled.  I am wanting to be past the planning phase and on to the doing phase.  All in due time.....

New Smyrna Beach seems like the perfect fit for us.  The coffee shop in the morning, the beach, the opportunities for Pat to show his art and to get involved in teaching.  I hope to find a church and other volunteer opportunities once we are here full time.

Just glad to be here for short intervals for now.

One of the up sides for me is that we will be downsizing.  I look forward to a smaller house with less "stuff".  So far the only one getting rid of stuff is Pat.  What a great job he has done so far!  One boat, one motorcycle, one bow flex, three guitars and one mandolin, gone.  Whew!  My contribution sadly will be to part with my baby grand piano.  We realized that it just will not fit in our plan.  Hopefully it will go to someone that will play it much more than I did.

Thanks for letting me share.  I'll post again soon.

Plans for new addition

We are at the NSB cottage again this week and will leave  in a few days to visit family in West Palm Beach for Thanksgiving. While here, hope to finish off the new opening from the living room onto the sunroom, plant some tropical plants we brought with us, and possibly add some new entry steps to the front porch.

This is a sneak preview of the house plan we have arrived at. Back in May, shortly after purchasing the house, we bought a computer program that allows one to design a house and actually be able to walk through that design and see how it feels and looks. We must have come up with 25 different designs , some one story and some two story. We then began making little changes to each plan to make it better. Then we had to choose which one had the most advantages.   

The opening in the upper left is to avoid an old oak tree we want to save.

The area shaded light blue is the original house footprint, about 600 square feet. We plan on adding about 1000 square feet for a total of 1600 sq. ft.

One of the big pluses of this design is that the front view of the house from the street will be virtually unchanged. We did not want to loose the charm and character of the original cottage that initially attracted us.

Creating a larger living room

This door coming off of the living room opened into a smaller 7'x11'  bright sun room. The problem was the light did not come into the living room and the sun room felt a bit claustrophobic. We decided to open this area, which will create more light and more space in the living room. This above photo is the before and below is the after. The door, hardware, and framework were saved to be used elsewhere in the renovation

Here is another view of the before

After

In addition to getting some work done on the house, there was a local art show known as Flamingo Follies  one block from our cottage. I set up some of my paintings for display and met a number of new art friends.

This painting is heading for the Berry Islands  :0)

It is always nice to find a new home for a painting.

Painting study

While at the beach this weekend, painted this little 8"x10" study for a future painting

And The Walls Came a Tumbling Down

This weekend, we began taking down the interior walls in the living room. When this house was built, the builder used a product called Upson Board to cover the walls. It came in 4'x8' sheets, was 1/4" thick and resembled what we call Masonite today. Over the past 100 years the product became very brittle and flimsy, not good.  We will be replacing the walls with wood.

The other reason for removing this surface was to be able to inspect the wood framing materials for moisture and or termite damage. I am happy to report that 99 % of the wood is perfect.

Walls Before

Walls After

Another Before

Another After

Mr. Destructo

Now that the walls are open, we will be able to easily run new electrical wiring and add insulation.

We went to the beach three times over the weekend which included two swims.

Dirk, on the front porch looking for lizards

We were at it again this weekend opening up the living area ceilings. Last week the ceiling material came down and this week the wood that was not structural came down. We worked together all day and by days end got a glimpse of how the ceilings will look all opened up. It really creates an illusion of a much larger room.

                                                                SUNROOM     BEFORE

SUNROOM   AFTER

LIVING ROOM BEFORE

LIVING ROOM AFTER

While in the attic area we came across some of the original "Tabby". This was a stucco of sorts made from sand, lime, and sea shells for the aggregate. It was applied over wood lath strips as a durable exterior surface. There were only a few small remnants of the Tabby, so we took this photo and carefully removed it to possibly frame in a shadow box one day.

The day was capped off with a walk to the beach just before sunset

And then there was no ceiling

I spent all day Sunday and Monday with my friend ,John Simpson, taking down the original ceiling material .  It came down pretty easy but was a huge mess working overhead and having 100 years of dust and I am sure many other particles  coming down in our face. 

The good news is that the wood looks great.  

Our plan is to have open ceilings to give a large feel to a small room. Also to expose the old pine tongue and groove roofing material. This will all eventually get painted white.

The wood you see at ceiling level in the photo is not structural and was used to hold up the hardboard ceiling material. It will get removed next week.

The ductwork seen will also get removed. All of the old wiring will get taken out soon and replaced with new wiring for lighting and ceiling fans. The new wire will be hidden behind the upper rafters.

John and I capped off the day with a few cold beers and a hamburger overlooking the beach :0) 

The magic of paint

This is how yellowed the bedroom walls had become. There was a mild lingering smell of stale cigarette smoke. The cleaning last week helped, but the paint really sealed it off and began to brighten up this part of the house.
This is a before and after.

We ran into this little guy on our neighborhood walk this morning

The north end of the island ends at Ponce inlet. Across the inlet is the southern tip of Daytona Beach with it's landmark lighthouse seen in the background. We had a nice early morning walk here with our pooch this morning.

Adding an electrical outlet for gas stove

Our gas stove in the kitchen  requires a standard electrical outlet for the gas ignition system. There was no outlet on the wall behind the stove, so the previous owner had an extension chord running  from the kitchen into the bedroom. Not a good idea.
We added an outlet behind the stove this morning. No more trip hazard and eyesore.
The present kitchen area will not be the kitchen some day, so this was an interim fix :0)

Why is the name Artists Cottage?

The above picture is a beach cottage I painted a few months ago. It turned out to be prophetic :0)
I also enjoy painting seascapes and tropical images, so I will be surrounded with endless painting possibilities .

Some of our future projects will be to build an art studio and a new combined kitchen/dining area.

Took the front door and back doors off and attacked them with a belt sander. We can now easily open and close the doors. It's those little things that make a big difference.

Julie organizing the kitchen area. The cabinets are the original build in cabinets and were designed for "Hobbits". I can only guess that the average height was shorter 100 years ago. The countertop is even low for Julie.

First things first

We spent our first overnights in the beach house this week. It took three days to do a major and thorough cleaning of the floors, walls, ceilings and fixtures. The picture below illustrates how much accumulated dust and grime we were dealing with. These are the same exact clear fixtures except one has been cleaned . Yikes.

While in New Smyrna Beach, we were able to take a swim in the ocean each day and take several bicycle rides on the beach. The sand is very hard packed making this possible.

A View From The Front Porch

I hope to spend a lot of time on this porch. The yard is entirely tropical with no grass and no need for a lawn mower. Just the way we like it.

Moving In

This will be the first, of what we hope will be many posts chronicling our beach cottage renovation.  We had been looking in the New Smyrna Beach area for some time, when this cute little beachside cottage became available by owner. The cottage is about 750 square feet, 3 blocks from the beach, one block from the intracoastal waterway, and one block from the main drag (Flagler Ave.).

We are very excited about the future move to this area and about the renovation coming up. Many happy hours have already been spent this summer gathering photo ideas online.

Welcome to our blog

We are Pat and Julie and our dog is Dirk.  We have enjoyed renovating several houses during our twenty years together and we are looking forward to this new project.

We have recently purchased a 100 year old cottage three blocks from the ocean in New Smyrna Beach, FL.  We are very excited to be back near the beach. We look forward to long walks on the shore, swimming, and walking or riding our bicycles to most places we want to go around town.  

The cottage is quite small and dark.  We are hoping to open it up, lighten it up and add a couple rooms to make it our full time home.  We hope you will tag along.