Progress photos from inside the cottage

Not this past weekend, but the weekend before, I finally finally finished cleaning and organizing the cottage.  Every surface, except for a few windows, has been thoroughly scrubbed.  When people ask how it's going at the cottage and I mention all the cleaning, they kind of give me a quizzical look.  Maybe because they've seen my house.  (Just kidding.)  I usually remind everyone how the previous owners were elderly and I'm not sure how much use the cottage had seen over the past few years.  Add in the dust from the bathroom demolition and landscaping, and the pollen (gah, this spring was terrible), I just couldn't keep up.  I would clean the floors and a week later, there was visible dust/dirt all over the place again.  Never mind that every single piece of furniture was covered in cobwebs.  We're in good shape now.



The cottage was built with a screened-in porch off of the kitchen.  At some point (the neighbors think it was about 10 years ago), they opened the wall between the porch and the kitchen and added sliding doors.



We plan to add seating to the area around the rug.  Right now, it's the girls' play area.  We've still been using the kitchen table and chairs that were left by the previous owners.  Originally, I thought I could just paint everything but the tabletop is not real wood.  Rich actually picked up a longer table with six chairs on the side of the road a few weeks ago.  (Don't judge.)  It's all solid wood but needs to be sanded down and refinished or painted.  The table actually looks like it came from Restoration Hardware.  That will be a fall/winter project.

As for the kitchen,



it's staying as is for now.  I'm glad we didn't rip it out right away.  Actually living in the space allows you to see what works and what doesn't.  I had thought of losing the upper cabinets and using shelves because the space is cramped and that would probably open it up.  Based on the amount of dust that always seems to be floating around, I won't ever go that route.



The master bedroom is tiny but I think once it's all painted, it will feel bigger.  The few areas with primer alone have brightened the space.  Back in June, right before school ended, I had packed up all the bedside tables and brought them home, thinking I would have time to paint.  Yeah, so that never happened.  We brought them back to the cottage, cleaned off all the cobwebs and added (more) painting to the to-do list.



I love all the old furnishings that were left with the cottage.  Charming!

That's all I have to share for now.  There'll be more in the fall once school is back in session.  I need to sew new curtains for all the bedrooms and the bathroom.  We've been using an old baby blanket for a curtain in the bathroom.