So at the very beginning of the month we took the kids and a bunch of our neighbors to Carlsbad state beach. We camped out for 5 nights. We boogie boarded, collected shells, ate good food, visited the tide pools in San Diego, and enjoyed our one sunny day. You know they call it “June gloom” for a reason right? It was overcast 4 out of the five days, but that didn’t stop anyone from swimming.
Here is me with my two oldest boys.
Here Iam with my husband, Heber.
Here we are at the tide pools, where I spent most of my time taking the kids to the potty 1/2 a mile away. I think I was only at the tide pools about 15 minutes.

After Carlsbad…Heber drove me to meet up with my sisters, for a sisters weekend in Manhattan Beach, Ca. He then drove home to Utah with the three boys all by himself for 12 hours. What a trooper!!!

So we stayed at the cutest hotel called the “Belamar” in Manhattan Beach. They had complimentary beach cruiser bikes you could use to ride to the beach (1.5 miles). On the way we stopped at a few yard sales and bought way too much and had to come back with our car to pick up a HUGE mirror and bulletin board…lets just say the trunk wouldn’t close, so we drove around the rest of the weekend with our trunk flapping in the wind. We did buy rope and the bell hop helped us tie it down for our 10 hour drive home to Utah. The hotel also had a complimentary yoga class and ding dongs. It was decorated with a fun 50’s modern vibe with lots of fun fabrics. If you ever need a place to stay… I highly recommend the Belamar Hotel. I love sisters, because as much as our husbands love us…they would never let us buy stuff that wouldn’t fit in the trunk.

Here is three of us at a yard sale…we got some screaming deals, I got fabric of course and a huge bulletin board for $10.
Here is all four of us getting breakfast down at Starbucks by the pier.

Here is me and my sister Angie…two of my sisters are photographers and the other one is a massage therapist. We had lots of fun shopping, eating out, joking around with the bellhops, swimming, and swiping ding dongs from the front desk.
Then 4 days after I got home, Heber and I ran the Wasatch Back relay race. It’s 188 miles from Logan to Park City, UT with 12 people on your team. You run 3 times each, so total I ran 18.4 miles with 3 hours of sleep in the middle of the night. Our team finished in 31 hours and 20 minutes. Heber is wearing my running partners sunglasses to be funny. Gosh I love that man.

Now I am back home and trying to get caught up on work and manage the crazy summer schedule with all the kids. You know kids running in and out all day long with water guns and sand on their feet wanting you to fill up water balloons and make them food every other hour. We are also finishing up baseball games and since we had so many games cancelled because of rain, all the makeup games are this week. SO 6 games this week between the three boys.

So yesterday…we got to go back up to the cabin and put it back together since it was done getting painted. I was so excited to put all my slipcovers back on and Heber was going to finish up getting the trim on the windows and baseboards back up. We also got two more sets of curtains hung in the family room.

I love the paint on the walls!!! We left the ceiling and trim and doors and baseboards dark wood, and I am so glad I chose this option I love it. It helps it feel a little more cabiny than cottage with the wood paneling on the ceiling. You know it’s all about comprimise, I have a turquoise sectional and flowered pillows up there, I gotta give the man something.

So you know how men don’t get as excited as us women when it comes to before and afters…when I asked Heber if he thought it looked good, all I got was “It’s fine, I didn’t really think it need to be painted in the first place…and now it smells different when you walk in” HMMM maybe it smells like fresh paint and not rustic wood smell. Which is starting to come back since he cut a ton of new wood for the fireplace. I have to admit I loved that rustic smell too when I walked in. I love that man for doing all that work for me, when he didn’t really think it needed to be done.

Dining room
Family room
Bunkroom
parson chair in yellow polka dot with knife pleat skirt
Loft

So this last weekend my dad came and helped up put in three 48″x48″ windows on the main level of the cabin which replaced three 24″x24″ windows. I can’t tell you the difference in light and how much it opened it up. I was literally jumping up and down when they popped out the first opening for the first window. I found the windows on KSL.com (like craigslist) for $40 each, and they had never been installed. When I priced them at Lowes they were $120 each. So with the price of the windows and the lumber, trim, calking etc. it cost $250 total to replace the windows/trim and baseboards. TOTALLY worth it!!

before with small windows on the deck
after with big windows…you can see the small window that we took out sitting on the ground in between the two windows. This was a very happy day for me. The inside is now so light, and not just a dark whole with cute furniture. I love that you can actually see the view now. You can see all the trees and everything. I fall more and more in love with this little cabin with every project that we finish.

Here is a pic of the view from the deck. My nephew Seth also came up to help on the windows and hangout with grandpa and my sisters.

Here is a pic of the opening that was cut for the window…that’s my handsome hubby, Heber looking excited to be doing all the work with my dad.

That’s my dad skill sawing out the opening with saw dust flying everywhere. My dad came up from California to visit for a few days, so I talked him into helping us with one of our projects. My dad loves having a project. He built almost all of our houses growing up. It was fun to show him the cabin and get his ideas. One of his ideas that I liked was to remove the outside staircase and build the steps into the grade of the slope with railroad ties, then you would enter from the back of the deck. Heber doesn’t want to talk about any more projects though.

Here’s a pic from the inside after we took off the paneling to frame out for the window. Good thing men know what they are doing. That’s my dad.

Then Heber had to hurry and get all the paneling back up on the inside of the cabin, so that my friend Becky could come help paint the paneling. I decided to leave the ceiling and vaulted parts wood as well as the trim around the windows and baseboards. I debated what to do, which would make the biggest impact and not be an insane amount of work. After I saw a post on http://frugalfarmhousedesign.blogspot.com/2010/04/beach-cottage-living-room-before-after.html I finally got my inspiration. I don’t have it all put back together yet, but I was so excited to show you the progress, so I’ll post some more after pics when the trim and slipcovers are back on.

Here is a before pic that I found of the kitchen.

Here is the after (well the baseboards aren’t back on yet) with the walls painted.

another after of the kitchen

here is a way before pic of coming down from the loft into the family room. This was before Heber removed the two small walls and the header at the bottom, and put in bigger windows. Oh and the light fixture got switched out too.

Here is the painting in progress of the family room. I can’t wait to get all the furniture put back together, and the curtains hung. The curtain hanging might take some serious persuasion on my end to get Heber to help. His least favorite things are hanging curtains and shelves.