Guest Bedroom re-do.....

Last year, my house underwent a significant renovation.  It was so significant - we moved out for 7 months.  As you can see, it really wasn't livable - as most of the house looked like this....and since there was no electricity - and the majority of the foundation was ripped out...we really didn't have much choice.

We live in house that was built in 1953 which is considered OLD in this part of Florida.  We purchased it in 2002 after the previous owners completely renovated it and since he was a general contractor, he added on some really nice details during the renovation.  One of the details I loved so much was the living room wall was completely covered in big slabs of keystone.  It really was such a beautiful wall...or so I thought.

A couple of years back, I noticed the seams between the slats of wood on the floors appeared to be growing.  When I mentioned this to my husband he said, of course they are going to settle over time, these are the original wood floors, they're 55 years old.  I thought...Hmmm.

Well, over time, it seemed to be getting worse and worse until one day the floor appeared to be sloping.  Next thing you know - I felt like I was walking downhill in my living room.  We had someone come in and take a look - and yes, the beautiful keystone wall was the culprit...it was way too heavy for the wall - and slowly over time, had caused foundation problems.  We contemplated on whether we ripped the house down and start over - or to fix the foundation.  For many reasons, most importantly that it would take at least two years, we decided to fix the house.

This is the culprit wall - right before we moved out.

                           This is the same wall - a few weeks later.

                                           Here is the same wall today.

So we hired a General Contractor and asked him to check underneath the entire house - and see if there were any other trouble spots in the foundation - so that they could be fixed at the same time.  There were... and they were fixed.  Or so we thought.  After we had been back in the house about 3 months - I started noticing that wood seam problem in the back guest room and hallway.  My husband gets out a level and tells me that I am imagining things.  Well fast forward to about three weeks ago when I walked into my guest room and saw that there was a 1 inch gap between the baseboard and the floor and big gaps between the wood slats.  The house was sinking again...only in a new spot.

After a small argument with my husband about him not listening to me 6 months ago....he agreed that we indeed had a problem but felt sure that we did not have to go through all the trouble we went through last time - that it was an easy fix.  So he hired someone to go under the house by cutting a hole in the guest room floor....I took a photo of the big hole - from my phone so it's a bit blurry....

So here is the room now....and it is level again.

So as of today - it is "fixed" - although I still feel a slight slope in the hallway.  I have a funny feeling this is not over yet...but I'm hoping that I'm wrong.  So my new decorating challenge is to re-do my guest room.  The walls are painted a really pretty very soft pink with a slightly darker variation on the bottom.

I'm currently searching for inspiration and have decided to challenge myself to re-do the rooms with all vintage, repurposed and recycled (except the mattress of course) pieces.  So I am going to use my favorite blogs for ideas....Wish me luck!!


I'm linking this up to:

The Shabby Chic Cottage Transformation Thursdays

Embracing Flea Market Style with a coastal twist

Until we renovated our home last year, I had never heard of flea market style.  Of course, I had heard of flea markets before – but have never been to a real one.  They are more like swap shops in South Florida with not too much vintage going on.  Unlike other parts of the country - where the flea markets look incredible.

I really love browsing through some of my favorite blogs and seeing all the vintage flea market treasures…I especially love the old seashells and distressed wooden architectural pieces like shutters, finials and old windows.  Especially old windows.  Displaying them together in a corner of your home…well – it doesn’t get much better than that.

I decided to do some research to learn more – and wow – talk about opening up a whole new world of things to put on my vision board.  I’ll need a new board as I have already ripped out enough pages to fill it up twice over.  One of my favorite resources is Better Homes and Gardens.   I just picked up the 2010 100 Ideas Flea Market Style magazine.  What I loved most is that it covers real life homes, with stories and tips attached to them.  I find it much more enjoyable to connect with photos of a beautiful home when there is a story about the owner.  Here are some of my favorite photos from BHG's website.

So even though my house is just about done, ok - well it is probably never "done" done...I’m going to see what I can do to infuse a little bit of flea market style into my home.  And the best part is, I just discovered that there are several really great ones in Manhattan - one in particular called the Hells Kitchen Flea Market open every weekend.  Since I am up here so often - on my next trip - I'll come up a day early little early and check it out.  Who knows, maybe I can find a vendor who will ship!