The Beach House:
Wedding Countdown & Utter Insanity

This post is from June 2008

As many of you know, my daughter is getting married in two months (TWO MONTHS? Holy cow.) Five months ago it seemed like a great idea to have the reception at our family’s beach house near Cannon Beach in Oregon. We’ve vacationed there with our kids for the past 13 years, and now it will be better than ever.

The house has been under remodel for nearly a year and a half, but we thought it would be done perhaps in March. Plenty of time for wedding reception decorating, non? That was optimistic. It is nearly the end of June and the house is finally ALMOST done.

The operative word here is ALMOST. The furniture is not in place yet, people. We have about 7 weeks to move in furniture, decorate the house, set up a wedding reception to serve 100 people following a wedding ceremony at a local church. Are we over ambitious? Can we do it? Can we do it with not enough help and no money? Stay tuned. The countdown has begun. You can be afraid for me. I don’t blame you. I know I am crazy.

Meet Cubby. Even he is afraid things won’t get done, you can tell by the look on his face. He is one of the beach boys (he and Winston). Doesn’t he look smart in his beach scarf?

It wouldn’t be all that impossible, really, if we didn’t have to hold down jobs to pay for this event in the meantime. Or move my daughter’s stuff into her new home. Or decide on things like cupcakes, shoes and flowers. Or create programs for the wedding. Or if my husband wasn’t interviewing for jobs outside of our state that might involve selling our house and moving soon. No biggie. Not much going on around my house. Just everyday chaos. But I’m not panicked. You’re all flying in to rescue me, right? Good. I love you guys.

Here is the garage, the doors are finally in. These are folding garage doors that open to reveal a garage suitable for guests, partying or a car.

The garage floor is heated so once it is all finished it can double as a guest room or game room.
I love rooms with more than one use.

Front door with reflection of outhouse in window. The outhouse must go before the wedding.
Either that or we’ll have to decorate it.

The wood walls in the house are hemlock. It will stay light and not change color over time.

This is looking down one hallway towards an office on the first level. The paint is Devine Paint, Manzanita. The stone floors are easy care so we can walk in with wet or sandy feet and not do any damage.

The whole office top to bottom is lined with hemlock. The antler chandelier is my dad’s choice in lighting. Manly.

The office has french doors to the hall.

This is kind of dark, but you can see the office has a view looking over the deck, hot tub and the ocean. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on working, I’d be daydreaming about that hot tub.

This is looking back from the office to the hall. Again, the paint color is Manzanita from Devine Paint.

This is the lower level bath, viewed from the hall. Still the same paint color on the walls.

The bathroom vanity was made from the lower half of a china cabinet.

This is the curved shower rod. This is the way to go if you like a little more elbow room!

This is an extra deep soaking tub for those late night bubble baths.
The hand held shower is mounted on the wall.
I like hand held showers for cleaning tubs and washing kids hair.
No more water in their eyes!

This is the laundry room, the cupboard is the top of a hutch found at a consignment shop, cut off from the lower cabinet now in the bathroom. We’ll fill it with cute containers and things so it will look nice through the glass doors! It has lights inside for ambience.
Will we have enough time to fluff this space before the wedding? Good thing I work best under pressure.
The wall paint color is Manzanita from Devine Paint.

The door goes outside to the covered porch and barbecue on the side of the house.

Coat rack and bench in laundry area.

A close up of the laundry sink.

I forgot to take new photos of the two bedrooms on the first floor, but they hadn’t changed much. Next time I go I’ll take photo updates for you. You can see one of them by looking at my last beach house update here.

Come back on FRIDAY if you can, I will finish the beach house remodeling tour (CLICK HERE FOR PART TWO) and take ya’all UPSTAIRS to the main level! I’ll show you our giant new window seat, one of my favorite things (next to the hot tub, that is)!