Future back yard courtyard

Here is a picture of the area behind the house as it is now.

It is still a little too soon to begin a back yard landscape design, but we know it will include a brick courtyard and some sort of "secret garden" behind a gate. One of our new neighbors offered us these old clay bricks if we would pay a small amount for the person storing them to deliver them to us. How can you beat that.

It took Julie and I a quite a few trips to get these from curbside to our back yard using a hand truck.

Good exercise.

Adding texture and charm to the living room walls

Below are a few pictures that inspired us to create a shiplap look on the living room walls.

 

There is a certain character that this wood texture gives that drywall does not have.

The walls have all new drywall  which we are now covering with 6" horizontal wood pieces. This is very labor intensive, but well worth the effort with the final "look".
We began by having furniture grade 1/4" plywood cut lengthwise  into 6" strips.  Each sheet of plywood produced eight 6" wide and 8' long pieces. We then hand sanded the edges and pre-painted each piece including the edges.

After sanding, getting ready to paint

The painting begins

This is after the first 6" piece of wood was added. Thank goodness for nail guns and liquid nails.

Chalk line on the wall was made around entire room to establish a level line.

At the end of the day, we have one wall nearly finished. The windows have been rebuilt with new sash cords and are awaiting their wood trim. These will match the windows in the sunroom when finished.

Finishing the entry "Sunroom"

On the front of our cottage is a room surrounded by windows that we refer to as the "Sunroom". It is also the first room you enter when passing through the front door. Originally, this room had wood batten strips to hide the wall panel joints and help hold the wall panels in place. This look gave the walls texture and added a certain old Florida charm. We saved the original batten strips to be reused after the new drywall was installed.
At the same time,  all of the original double hung windows were made operative and new sash cords added.
Here are a few pictures of the process.

The dark vertical stripes are the wood batten strips before they were painted.

Adding door trim

First of three coats of paint on the ceiling

Wood trim around the windows

Getting ready to paint the walls

Finished room. Very bright and cheerful.

This is a collection of hardware removed from the original windows. To be replaced with brass window closures.