Lake house art & other details

I recently decided to change my focus with wall art at the lake. I have a lovely collection of framed bluebonnet paintings from the river house. But that just doesn't feel like the right vibe for the new lake house. So I decided to switch out the Texas state flower for herons. On our first trip to the lake, I spied herons on the water. I've ordered several different prints that will need to be framed as soon as they arrive. *Sigh* My lake to-do list seems never ending. This lake house that's a five hour drive from our primary residence in the hill country will definitely be a work in progress for the next couple months as I continue to tweak everything to get the look I want.

I worked with our decorator again today, looking at some of the things we ordered that arrived. Plus we knocked out a few more decor items I needed to figure out to get a better handle on how a common space like the dining room will look. With a substantial thirteen foot table and six foot sideboard anchoring the space, I've had to put a lot of thought into the other pieces because I like varied textures. The lamps are ceramic. Chargers on the table are woven seagrass. My new chandelier is forged iron. The trio of lazy susans to hold liquor atop the sideboard are marble. Some days it makes my head spin, all of the decorative choices needed to pull this place together. Any home, really.

One thing I'm definitely carrying over from the river to lake house is this picture above. It's OTTER-LY adorable. Otters are a favorite animal of mine and I hear they're occasionally spotted on our lake. I imagine this picture will end up on a wall in one of the guest bedrooms. Lest you think I'm overly focused on the "pretties", I've also spent a lot of brain power pondering practicalities, too. I asked our realtor to take some drawer measurements in the kitchen so I could start pricing organizers and slide out shelves we might need. You see these handy inserts everywhere now. However, I feel like I need to double check drawer dimensions before I place an order. Therefore, this line item was shuffled to the back burner until we sign on the dotted line this week and the home is officially ours.

Annual rodeo trip

The law school daughter C and her med student boyfriend J came to visit us last weekend. We had asked them at Christmas if they'd like to attend the city's livestock show and rodeo. They chose the night when Turnpike Troubadours were the entertainer. It seems their generation is familiar with this band from Oklahoma that appears to be going mainstream lately. I personally wasn't familiar with any of their songs, but C&J were.

We arrived a couple hours early to the venue so we could go check out the critter barns, as well as the midway and food offerings. The husband can never resist the siren's song of an old school funnel cake, so he indulged. I even spied an elephant ear, which was a really popular midway food back in the late 70s when I was a kid going to the fair with my parents.

My perennial rodeo favorite was the mutton bustin'. This year there were more little girls participating than boys, which I thought was interesting. Those little kiddos hang on fear dear life, each of them winning a participation prize bag. The winning ride gets a really pretty belt buckle as well as a little interview afterwards. The responses are always so danged cute.

As we snooped around the midway, the husband and I were shocked to stumble upon the Himalaya ride. That was around at our local livestock show and fair when we were growing up. I have fond memories of riding the Himalaya with friends and even a boyfriend back in the day. They'd be cranking the early 80s rock as the ride spun ever faster, and we enjoyed every minute of it. I even contemplated buying ride tickets briefly so the kids could stroll down memory lane with us. 

 

Cold as a well digger's backside

I love idioms. Pretty much any sort of figurative language. It's just so darned colorful and thought provoking. Where did it come from? That's known as etymology for those of you keeping score out there. My granny Doris was a pro at throwing out the interesting idioms back in the day. One of the more intriguing ones was "enough food for Coxey's army" when she whipped up a big meal. Who was Coxey? What army? I finally looked that one up for an explanation once I was an adult because sweet granny had no idea about its origin.

Today it's cold as a well digger's backside here in the Texas hill country. So cold, in fact, that I had to dig my big coat and gloves out of the closet to hike up to our front gate to bring in the emptied trash bin as well as a delivery of some lake house decor I ordered. As usual, it's all about the wind. If it would just stop blowing, it would be almost tolerable outside. It's days like today that I'm glad to be retired from teaching because my 5th graders would be pestering me to go outside for recess. Especially the boys, who wore their shorts and hoodies to school when temps were down around 20 this morning.

Last week I whipped up a big pot of supreme pizza soup and it was yummy. Maybe I'll pull out the container of it I froze because there's no way I'm making a run to the store to get the fixin's for chili. When it's bitterly cold outside, all I want to do is my best hibernating bear impression. You know, watching mindless TV and snacking on something carby like the Korean BBQ chips I picked up at HEB recently to try. Or maybe I'd bake some tasty chocolate chip cookies. It's no wonder I tend to pack on 5-7 lbs these couple months after the holidays when we're often stuck inside more. I need to not complain too long or loud about the cold weather because in about six months I'll be wishing my life away for a cool front after a summer full of sweltering temps that drive me nuts. And so it goes.

 

Decorating my little heart out

I've been a busy bee, y'all, getting ready to set up our new place at the lake. So far I've ordered a dozen dining chairs, seven nightstands, five beds, four bar stools, three bookcases, two sideboards, a coffee table, a big ol' dining table that will extend to 156", and a partridge in a pear tree. Things have already started arriving here since I couldn't get white glove delivery service for everything directly to the lake house. We'll be borrowing the brother-in-law's trailer to transport some existing furniture here in our home's upstairs living area, opting to repurpose it since it's virtually never used. 

I'll admit I've also been cruising over to pontoon boat, jet ski and golf cart websites lately to check out options. I'm really liking the Barletta and Bennington tritoon boats. We have two 25' boat slips in our boathouse/dock, so plenty of room for the 23-footer I'm dreaming of. The jet ski is a no brainer since we've had them before and it's easy to find the three-seater we need. We've never owned a golf cart, so this will probably be the most interesting purchase of the three because it's all new to us. We figure we need a four-seater, so there's that. Other than the covenants denoting all golf carts must be white, I guess we'll need to go on some test drives and read the materials to figure out what's best. 

As far as decor, I've decided to lean into an interesting mix of different color woods, as well as chinoiserie, wicker, bamboo and white. We'll also be including some vintage glass pieces in the usual sea glass colors. This house's overall feel is too formal for the lake camp experience I wanted for our retirement property on the water. So I'm gonna change out all ceiling fans as well as some light fixtures to give it a more casual and transitional vibe. Here's hoping the decorator's efforts with this process will mean that most of our selects will be keepers and I won't have to deal with a lot of returns for "misses" along the way. Ideally the lake house will be up and running by Easter, so stay tuned as I continue with the process of getting it all squared away!

 

 

 

 

Putting on my decorator's cap

Now that we've cleared the inspection period and are on track to close on the lake house at the end of the month, I realized it was time to think about getting it ready for guests. I knew that meant a call to our trusted interior designer Robin that has helped me build two homes and remodel another four. I love Robin's deep knowledge base and flexible attitude. She's one of those decorators that can do a mix of high and low things for a really welcoming feel. In my opinion, nobody wants a formal and fussy lake house that seems like a museum. I want our lake place to have a laid back vibe, saying something more like come on in, kick off your shoes and relax.

One of the first things I did was pore over my pics from several years ago when we had our weekend getaway on the river to find the pic above. I really liked this big blue hutch where I showcased an eclectic display of milk glass. I'd like to recreate this same look at the new lake house. Lucky me was able to track down a group of three stacked bookshelves with storage below in a soft shade of navy that will do the trick in my informal eating area that has six windows so sun can reflect off all the pretty white glass. And so of course I had to hit up eBay and a few local antique places for a couple more pieces like the one below. 

I had lunch with a friend on Saturday and we nosed around several local home goods stores where I stumbled upon this set of lamps below. If you've been in the market for lighting lately, you'll understand how thrilled I was to find them for $99.99 each. That is a really fair price for such a pretty blue ceramic base that's certainly substantial enough to hold the 80" sideboard I'm wanting for the lake house dining area. It was nice to shop in a physical store because I've spent a whole lotta time the past week looking online at a zillion furniture options that will meet our needs, doing my best Goldilocks impression. This one is too short. That's not the right color. And so on and so forth.

With all of my old lake and river house decor packed away in the barn at our primary residence, it will practically be Christmas around here when I get to open them all up. I haven't told the husband yet, but I have plans to load up the trailer with all of my boxes of pretties to take to the lake house in a couple weeks when we close. I'm planning to bring the dogs along and stay at the lake for several days after the husband returns to work to get a start on stocking the kitchen with all the necessities. That old saying about Rome not being built in a day is certainly true when it comes to decorating a 4200 sq foot home.

 

The lake house winner is...

OK, so it's not our dream house. We're still on the lookout for a great piece of land to build our forever retirement home once we're certain where our girls will settle down to start families. But my oh my, the water views on this property we're purchasing in east/northeast Texas are pretty spectacular. 

We've just cleared the inspection period after getting the sellers to sign off on a few things that need to be addressed before we close at the end of the month. The husband jokes that I'll be trying to pull up to the title company towing a brand new pontoon boat when it's time to sign on the dotted line and get the house keys. Oh sure, I'll admit in-between looking at lake house furniture that I've cruised over to a couple favorite boat websites to check out options. This is sooooo exciting, y'all. I've sincerely missed having a lake house the past three years. I'm absolutely like my mother because I adore the lake, and can hardly wait to get the house ready to enjoy with family and friends in the next couple months.

February volunteer day

I had my monthly volunteering gig with the girls at a local group home over the weekend. I bought the things to create a little charcuterie round-up they could snack on while working to put together inspiration boards as well as making homemade lip scrub. This is a fun group we get to hang out with, and I enjoy catching up with them at our first Saturday gatherings.

Lake days daze

I've just about gone cross-eyed, and surely ramped up the necessary power on my readers, looking at houses on the real estate websites. I have officially been searching for a lake house for a year. As in checking every day to see what is new to the market. We've worked with four different realtors who gave it their best shot. Below you can check out some of the back porch views we enjoyed while touring thirteen properties last weekend. If our current contract makes it past the period of haggling-for-inspection-repairs with the seller, I'll share some house pics of the winner. Stay tuned!

The husband and I have always been sunrise folks, not the sunset sort. If you're a fellow Texan, you know what I'm talking about. In the afternoon, you want to get the sun sinking to the front of your house as quickly as possible to get a break from the hot-as-an-oven temps on your back porch, back yard and boat house. And yet this sunset view below that God painted over the lake late one afternoon at our VRBO was a lovely end to the day.