Coastal Love

I will start off by saying there is not a furniture transformation in this post.  This yucky weather has slowed my productivity and is depressing which makes me want to run away to the beach.  I LOVE the beach and the coast.  Love doesn't even really describe what it is...maybe an obsession?   I will live on the water one day, hopefully soon.  My husband isn't as obsessed with the beach as much as I am but he is obsessed with fly fishing and being on the water. Lucky for me, where there is pretty beach, there is fly fishing for bonefish so getting him to take me to the Caribbean isn't that hard. :)  Here are a few pictures from some of our trips.

Tropic of Cancer Beach,  Little Exuma, The Bahamas

Us on some beach in Little Exuma, The Bahamas

Long Island, The Bahamas 

Shallow flats for as far as the eye can see.  Amazing.
Somewhere off of Long Island, The Bahamas

5-prong and 6-prong starfish

Great Guana Cay, The Bahamas

Great Guana Cay, The Bahamas

Treasure Cay, The Bahamas

Grace Bay Beach, Turks & Caicos

The Caribbean really is one of the most beautiful places ever. From all of our trips, I have had tons of inspiration for decor in our home.  In the past few months I have had several clients and customers comment and ask about some of our decorations so I thought I would let y'all know more about them.   I have collected and inherited several items over the years.  For us, we want our home to reflect things that we love, be filled with memories of our trips, and reminders of our family.

Lets start with the entry.

I have my grandparent's dresser that I refinished as the main focal point.  

The "Wind", "Water", "Waves" signs I found a long time ago.  I have only seen them at that one store, which is now closed, and I instantly fell in love.  My mother bought them for me as a wedding shower present and I was so excited.  

The latern and vase are Pottery Barn.

The metal bonefish was made by a local New Orleans artist.  I can not find his info right now but when I do, I will add it.  He has a booth at the Art Market and does some amazing work.

The canvas on the left has cocktail napkins purchased in Great Exuma that I glued to a white canvas I bought at Michael's.  I stained the bright white canvas with coffee to give it a little bit of an aged look.  The map is a map of the Caribbean I bought on one of our trips and I modge podged it to a blank canvas.  The picture in the middle is a picture I took and had it put on canvas through Canvas on Demand.  I have another picture in my bathroom over my tub that was put on canvas by them.  It is a lot bigger as you can see!

We have a strange niche in our entry so I decided to make a subway art with our trip destinations on it.  Now I need to update it since our last trip but this is an easy and inexpensive project.  I got the idea and followed the instructions from this blog post.  

Our living room has a lot of art and pictures.

  All the beach photos were taken by the same photographer, Gwynemark Photography, during our Destin vacation a few years ago.

We bought this redfish painting at Winnie Trade Days (a once a month market in Winnie, TX) from an artist named Brooksie.  He is not there all the time but we lucked out one weekend and saw him there and loved his work.  This painting is on an old piece of paneling.

This sailboat was a model my paternal grandfather had.  He loved model boats and trains.  It is discolored but I don't care.  I love it and it fits perfectly in our home.

Mr. Pelican was bought at Molly's across from Central Mall in Nederland, Texas.

The huge tarpon over our double set of french doors was custom made for us by an artist that works here in New Orleans.  We originally saw his work at Avenue Art and Framing in Lakeview.  The owner of the shop called the artist to give our preferred measurements and a week later, we had our fish.

These shutters were in my parents home but they had to tear down the house after Hurricane Rita. I took the shutters to use as decoration. They are a great backdrop for another vacation photo.  

I am hoping to post a furniture before and after tomorrow but it really depends on the yucky humid weather.  It is making dry times super slow.  On a positive note, Brian and I are headed to south Texas this weekend for a little getaway for his birthday.  I am super excited!