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.

Creating an organized tool storage in the utility room

We spent the last two days building shelves and hanging pegboard which along with the workbench, will help to create a place for everything. There have been a number of frustrating moments when you need a tool and cannot find it. Hopefully these moments are behind us. Of course, it will help if I put things back where they belong after each use :0)

These five 3'x3' shelves add a lot of storage. This space was originally designated for the electric hot water heater. The substitution for a tankless gas hot water heater created all of this space.

Building a cabinet for the pantry

We spent one day building and another day painting a cabinet that Julie designed, which will reside in the pantry. The microwave, mixer, blender, toaster oven, waffle iron, juicer, and four wicker baskets will be will be stored here.  The top can be used as a work area. Above this cabinet we are building  three 8' long shelves  to hold canned goods and dry goods. To the left of this cabinet will be the freezer.
Below is the cabinet before being painted.

Cabinet placed in the pantry with two electrical outlets above the work surface. 

Now painted with shelves added above for dry good storage

Freezer in the back corner

Finishing painting the ceiling

After a week of painting over my head and standing on scaffolding, the living room ceiling has three coats of paint and looks clean and bright.  I can only imagine how Michael Angelo must have felt painting overhead for four years in the Sistine Chapel.
Attached two copper ceiling pendant lights and the old vintage Hunter fan right out of Casa Blanca.
The living room continues to get brighter and happier.

This first picture was taken during the demolition phase where new wood was added as needed. Also. steel rods had to be added every  6 feet, anchored into concrete,  to tie the roof down to the ground. The ceiling fan was hanging just as a prop to help us visualize the future :0)

The first coat of primer begins. I really like  a product called "Gripper" made by Glidden. 

This picture and the next show how dark the ceiling was.

After three coats of paint on the ceiling and the drywall prepped for paint and the fan hung and wired

After the drywall getting painted white

After the copper lights being hung. We can now begin see how 

the room will appear when finished

PLay day, photos of local scenery

Here are a few photos taken a few days ago on a "play day" at The Canaveral National Seashore, 8 miles south of us.

Lots of water birds in the distance (click photo to enlarge)