Cabin Update

Our little Rockport cabin has been going through some very nice renovations and they're almost done!  

New windows have been put in and the outside has been repainted.  We have done most of the interior touch up painting too and it's getting back to normal!  I can't tell you how nice it is to have windows that open and close and lock.  We've had the windows open and you can hear the ocean... when the boys aren't screaming over it.  Ha.  This crazy life.  

Here's the new color - it's BM Woodland Green and the trim paint is Madison Milk Paint (a custom color for some builders down here.)   The front door will be painted to match the trim - it's darkened quite a lot since we painted it a few years ago and I think it's too yellow looking now.  

Here's what it looked like a couple days ago

On the inside, it's a circus.  

Huggies boats and fancy hats.  That's how we do it down here.  

It's been a wet couple of days so I am so glad we finally got a day of dry so we could get the paint on... Jason's elbow is probably going to fall off from all the painting - he's a trooper and he is FAST.  I am slow, and meticulous - it drives him nuts.  Marriage.  Yep.  

I hope you all have a wonderful New Years Eve and enjoy the last hours of 2015!

xoxo, CB

Beach Cottage Interior

Ahhh... the interior.  

It isn't finished (will it ever be?) but I have so loved seeing the transformation it has made from where it started to where it is now.  

I think, the fastest way to update a space is with paint... and we did a lot of painting!  

Almost every single surface has been repainted!

We started with Kilz - Jason Kilz'd the entire inside all by himself. (YAY, daddy!)  He didn't want Travis to be surrounded by paint fumes, so he went up for a couple days before we got there and got so much done.  A fresh coat of white over the previously hideous paneling made a world of difference!   I wish we had pictures - but you can use your imagination. 

Next up, a little color!  I love light and bright and airy and that is exactly what we got.  

The front of the cottage is painted this ever so light blue.  It is just off to the left of the door when you walk in.  

Look at those fishing rod holders!  I almost asked Jason pull them down, and boy am I glad I didn't - not only are they extremely functional, I think they're super cute... and they give you something to look at on the ceiling!  

The lamp was inherited when we bought the cabin.  I'll change out that shade one of these days.  I found the bed at an antique shop in Rockdale called Antique Queens.  I love the chippy paint - Jason doesn't :( and sadly, it is a REALLY tall bed with the box spring, so I don't know how realistic it will be for us to keep it in this space once Travis actually starts sleeping on it... I can just picture his little head thumping on the tile floor when he falls out.  Terrible! 

But for now, it is my favorite piece of furniture in the whole cottage.  :) 

And yes, the frames are missing pictures.  

We'll get there - hopefully very soon, it's driving Jason crazy.  I just can't decide what to put in them. 

In the next photo, I'm painting the living room (across from the guest room - to the right when you walk in the front door) and I had a very hard time telling if the blue color was actually going up on the walls because it is so light!  Surprisingly enough, it took on a lot of pretty color.  

I love it, I love it, I love it - I am so happy with how it turned out!

Keri came up one weekend over the summer and dove right in!  I bet you don't believe this by the look of the picture below, but she hates painting!  Not only was she a huge help on the painting front, she was amazing at keeping Travis entertained.  I think she read him "The Gruffalo" 40 times that weekend.  Poor little guy was not getting his normal attention from us but it was definitely a treat to have his Aunt Keri to play with! 

The main portion of the cottage is painted a very faint green color.  I was so impressed with how much color came out of the blue that I undershot the pigment of the green.  

I'll probably end up repainting that area because I think it is too light, but for now, it'll do!

Can you even tell the color difference in the picture?  It's hard to tell when you're actually standing in the room too.  

You might also notice in the window nook, the railing was taken down! YAY! 

Why someone would have staircase railing there, I will never know... but it's gone now!  

And Jason fixed the broken trim moulding on the frame of the wall.  

The master bedroom has an original map of the Rockport/Fulton/Lamar area from 1958!  

We haven't figured out the bedside-table situation yet so for now, a beer cooler and a rinky-dinky table, that we inherited when we bought the cottage, are working just fine :) 

You can barely see it on the right side of the photo, but I added a couple hooks on the walls with crystal(ish) knobs.  

Soooo exciting!

The little dresser at the end of the bed came from Pottery Barn Kids.  There is another one in the living room that the TV is sitting on.  We store our extra sheets, beach towels and blow up mattresses in them.  The circle mirror came from HomeGoods. I love that store. 

In the kitchen, Jason did a lot of updating! 

He and Evan added bead board to the back wall (it's nearly impossible to see in these pictures - sorry!).  

I love the bead board... we haven't painted it yet, but I really like it white... so maybe it'll stay like it is. 

I have grand aspirations to eventually get rid of those old cabinets and put in a decent countertop.  One of these days (when we save up enough American Express points!) we may do that.  They function now, not perfectly, but they are good enough.  Oh and the sink.  Oie.  And the faucet... I have dreams about updating all of it but if I keep fussing, I'll drive myself nuts.  

It works.  I'm happy!

We got rid of the old yucky refrigerator for new bigger model.  Jason and I went round-and-round on if the fridge I wanted was too big.  Jason wanted a smaller one... but guess who won?  hehe.  I am really glad we got the big one because it fills up quickly (especially when there are lots of boys down there and we need space to keep all the beer cold!)

Jason took down the cabinet that was on the right wall of this photo... it was about to fall off the wall, so it's good that it is gone.  He also took down a random shelf that held a mustard yellow 1970's bread box and an old mirror.  

Now this wall is blank and I don't know what to do with it.  I think mounting a TV up there next to the AC would be cool, but we'll see.  

I'd also like to add something above the stove - shelves? A pot rack? I don't know if it's worth changing before (if?) we update the cabinets, so maybe I'll just get a clock. 

Eventually I'll refinish that table - it came with the house too!  Bonus! 

Do I love it... nooooo.  

It is far far far from anything I would ever buy, but it is a solid table and with a lot of TLC I'm sure it could look cute. 

  In the living room, you can see the couch I reupholstered.  Jason framed a map of Rockport and he recently made a side table to replace the one that is falling apart below (I'm not sure I love it yet, but maybe it'll grow on me - he worked so hard to make it.)  

 I obviously didn't stage these pictures to get all our junk out of them... next time I get down there I'll try to take some fancy pictures for you.  But most of the time, this is how it really looks when we are there:) 

The itty bitty couch folds out into a twin, so we can comfortably sleep 4 and there is still room for a cot or 2 for the kids and another cot for an adult.

We once had 5 adults and 1 Travis here... it was tight, but it was a lot of fun!

My plan is eventually to get a normal full sized couch and move the little couch to the side wall, where the map is.  That way, if someone didn't mind sleeping on a couch we could add one more overnight guest. 

The important part of this picture are the window coverings.  The old blinds were dirty, metal and broken, so we threw them out and put up new ones.  I think they look 1000% better.   

So that's it!

With 2 new little boys joining our family, we are already brainstorming how we can re-vamp this space to sleep 3 boys and 2 adults while still having enough room to move around.  I'm so curious to see how it will change with us as we all grow.  

I love this place and I am so glad we made the crazy decision to buy it when we did.  I can tell you, that if we had waited even 6 more months, we probably would have chickened out.  Who in their right mind would do that if they knew they were going to be having twins?! But I am SO GLAD it has worked out like it has.  I can't wait to get back there, and to watch our family and friends get a lot of happiness out of this place over the next chapters in our lives.   

Love you all, sweet dreams. 

- CB

Beach Cottage Exterior Remodel

Now that you've seen some of the "before" photos, here are some of the "during" and "after" shots of the exterior. 

The exterior needed some of the most immediate attention.
There were pieces of siding that were broken or rotting away, so one weekend Jason and Les pulled down the parts that needed replacing and put up Hardie Board. 

Right Exterior: 

before 

during

Priming with Kilz

 Left side:

before

during

Priming with Kilz

 Below is the front of the cottage as we primed the outside and started painting the trim.  

The trim is the color "milk paint" from Sherwin Williams. 

You might also notice, we put a new roof on it! 

I think that made a huge difference in freshening it up. 

Our next big goal was to paint the exterior.  The color did not come out how we wanted it (we both think it is WAY too bright and saturated) but unfortunatley, the paint was mixed improperly and we just went with it.  It's pretty bright, but the sun down there is so strong, that I have faith it'll fade soon enough - either that or I'll repaint it.  But for now, here she is. 

Jason removed the super heavy concrete blocks that were flanking the cottage. 

He also pulled down the random piece of gutter that was over the front door. 

I was very glad to see them go!  I think it looks a lot less cluttered now.  

 

Here is the view looking at the water down our little street.  

 

Jason was so excited to be able to hang a flag, so we have our American flag, a Texas flag and we just got an Aggie flag to fly when we are down there.  

I like how this picture is showing the green in the paint but it is still pretty bright. 

Soon, I'll show the interior - I don't have "finished" photos of the inside, but they're good enough for now ;) 

and I don't know if I'll ever really consider it finished... we still have a lot of ideas on how to spruce up the inside. 

xoxo, cb. 

Our Beach Cottage

A little over 6 months ago, we bought a beach cottage :)

I've been quiet about posting it here because I don't want people to get the wrong idea about us - it is absolutely nothing fancy, but Jason is down there hunting, and I am missing that place so much that I can't get my mind off of it.  I wish I could be down there.  I think January is one of the best times of the year to go to the beach.  But sadly, one of the not-so-fun things about being pregnant with twins is that I'm on travel restriction - and even if I wasn't, I wouldn't be able to feel my legs at the end of a 4 hour car ride.  Boo.

Jason and I have dreamed of having a place in Rockport since before we were married and for years would go down to the beach and hunt for houses.  We would drive around for hours.  Looking at vacant lots, looking at so many beautiful homes, we even meet with a few realtors over the years.  Unfortunately, we were never able to find anything we could actually see ourselves owning, at least that we could afford!  So for the longest time, it remained just that, a dream.  We never wanted anything big - a place for us to be able to watch our kids grow up on the weekends, decorate with beachy stuff (though our opinions of what is appropriate in a beach house are completely different!) but mostly, we just wanted to have a place to call our own.

So, last January, we made a trip down with some friends and visited their cabin in Lamar (just north of the Copano Bay Bridge, near Big Tree and Goose Island State park.)  It was completely lucky when, one block away, I caught a glimpse of a "Cottages for Sale by Owner" sign.  They were all in a row, on a terribly paved road but just off the water, and some were in pretty rough shape.  Frantically, I made my sister-in-law Kristi, memorize the first few digits of the phone number on the sign, while I memorized the last and I called as soon as we could get cell phone reception.

I even made Jason drive by later that weekend to get his input... and as you can imagine, he didn't show all that much excitement, but I knew deep down he liked the area better than downtown Rockport.

Weeks went by and I didn't hear anything.  I called again, and nothing.  And again.  Nothing.  Maybe it was a sign.

Let me tell you, these dreams, they were lofty dreams - Travis was barely a year old, and really, who are we to buy a beach house?  We are most definitely not fancy people.  But, it was just too perfect - the timing, the location, to be so close to our friends and have the sound of the water outside your open door and the smell of the salty ocean breeze drifting in as you nap in the middle of the day.  Oh, I love it.

After much pestering, I finally got a hold of the owner, and a few months later, we went back and stayed in one of the cottages - the owner was selling 3!  Kristi, Jason's brother Les and their two girls rented one of the other open cottages that same weekend.

I was so cool because we got to see how different they all were and decide which one we liked the most.

There are 10 cottages/cabins/shacks lined up in a row off the water.  They were built in the 1950's and I believe they were originally all part of a fishing club, but slowly were sold off one by one.  So, they're all very similar, but each have their own little differences; some have exterior walls still up as interior walls, some have the refrigerator in different places, some have been updated, but most are just weekend get-aways that aren't all that fussy.

They are a mere 480 square feet and the house is split up into 4 tiny sections.  They were originally somewhere around 300 square feet until the front porches were built-in.  The roofs are slanty, none of the exterior colors match, but our place is less than 150 steps from the water and there is a boat ramp at the end of the road.  A fisherman's delight.

There is so much to this fun story, but I won't share it all here, now.  It's getting late and I'm exhausted after a day of chasing my little man.  We've done a lot of updating to our cottage, mostly cosmetic, and we aren't done - but at least I can go to sleep dreaming of the smell of the ocean and the sound of the water tonight.  

Before

(sorry, this first shot is completely overexposed) 

I'll take you on a tour of the cottage clockwise.  

The first space off the left of the front door is the "guest room"

Next to it, is the "master" bedroom

You can see the entrance to the bathroom, next to the "master" on the right side of the picture below.

I'll spare you those pictures for another time. 

Across from the "master" bedroom, is the kitchen and dining area.

Get a load of that amazing fridge. 

There is a side door to exit to the back yard. 

Across from the kitchen is the "living room" - they're using it here as a 3rd "bedroom" 

And then, voila! you're back at the front door! 

It's not big... that's for sure!  

But look at the view.  

That is Saint Charles Bay.  

And our neighbors white picket fence :) 

Want to see what we've done with it since?  

Well, you'll have to wait :) 

I've got to upload and organize those pictures, but I'll share them soon.  

It's cute, I promise.  

Love you all - have a good night, don't let the bed bugs bite. 

xoxo, CB

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

How does your garden grow?

About a week ago Jason and I (mostly Jason) planted a couple different types of veggies in our little garden and this week, after all the wonderful rains, they started to sprout!  

Enter: Lettuce, Squash, Bell Peppers, and Okra 

We are a regular farm here at the Bagley household... chickens, dogs, babies and veggies.  

What else in the world could you ask for?

Here are some pictures of our happy little ladies... 

Love you all, 

Cyndy

Baby-Palooza and the joys of nesting...

Yes, that's right.  Baby-palooza... this past month has been full of all things baby... baby showers, car seat adaptors, strollers, nursery organization, linens, crib skirts, 4,000 trips to target, pottery barn baby, babies r us, buy buy baby and BABY CLASSES.

This past weekend Jason and I went to our first Child Birthing class at St. David's Hospital.  Did I mention that I was born here?  It is so special to me that our little guy will be born in the same hospital I was.

The class was from 10-4pm this past Saturday, we learned all sorts of things about breathing and the support persons role and Jason's amazing abilities to massage my achy back (he's actually REALLY good at it - who knew, all these years he's been holding out on me!)

Last night, we had Baby Boot Camp - it was GREAT... a 2 hour class that focused on swaddling, how to change diapers, how to burp babies, car seats, circumcision, breastfeeding vs. formula, the magic fever number of 100.4 degrees, and SO MUCH MORE... I learned a TON.

We have 2 more classes to go to; next Saturday is Child Birthing part 2, and next Monday is the Breastfeeding class.  J is coming to all of them with me and I feel so blessed to have such a supportive husband (even if he moans and groans about it from time to time.)  He is going to be a great father.

Nesting or Crazy??

I don't know if this is nesting on crack or if I'm actually going crazy, but this week Jason and I are trying new things to make new habits before we have this new baby...

The "Fresh Eggs" in Fresh Eggs and Laundry

My recent trip out to Orange County enlightened me that many of you didn't know that Jason and I are the proud parents of 6 beautiful little lady hens... they are the reason I love fresh eggs!  Every day we have more eggs then we know what to do with and it's been really fun being able to spread the (healthy!) wealth with our friends and neighbors.

I'm going to take you through the construction of the little lot the girls call home and then show you pictures of our girls so you can see how pretty (and productive!) our little hens are...

Farm Fresh Eggs from the Bagley House:

 

Here's how it all started... Jason borrowed our neighbors (Jonathan, thank you!) bobcat and scraped down a section of dirt at the back of our property then started to add a couple planks of wood to frame a level base of what eventually would be the chicken coop.  

I found those brand new Jeld Wen windows at an antique shop for $10 a piece and begged Jason to find a way to incorporate them...

 Here, you can see how the coop looks after all the walls were framed up and then pieced together.  J did this entirely by himself, I was about 7 weeks pregnant at the time and traveling (surprise, surprise) and when I came home after a 3 day trip, he had made SO MUCH progress. 

In this picture, you can see where the windows will eventually be framed out as well the future home of the  coop door. 

Next, came framing out the run, and as you can see, he started tacking on the siding to the coop

 (which I promptly painted white.)

It was a bit of a balancing act getting everything up and level for the run... but piece by piece we kept going. 

A bit more framing...

...and a lot more hours, sweat and paint, and voila! Here is what the run looks like now!

Sorry for the big jump in progression/pictures, we got busy and I got hot, and forgot to take photos along the way.  Originally the coop was painted entirely white, but instead of it looking like the cute chicken cottage I wanted, it ended up looked like an awkward white box in the back of our yard, so I decided to paint it the same color as our house. 

This is the front view of the coop from inside the run.  Jason added metal roofing so the girls would stay dry and built them a ladder to get into the coop.  Later, we added a door to keep the rain and the potential predators out. 

The back of the coop is almost as cool as the front, there is a door where we go to get the eggs without having to walk through the run and disturb the girls.  

Here is our niece, Lauren on her first egg hunt in the coop.  See those nest boxes behind her?  We can access those from that back door.  

And who, might you ask, gets to live here?  Our girls -

Aren't they sweet? 

xoxo, Cyndy