Beach Getaway & A Winner!

WOW! What a great response to the giveaway. I had so much fun reading all of your comments and I wish I could give everyone a decorating book. So, without further adieu, the winner of the BHG Decorating book is:

Linda/Mom - who didn't think she was eligible to win the book because she doesn't have a blog, but that is not the case. Linda, I hope you see this, since I have no way to get in touch with you and there is no email listed. I'll give you until Monday a.m. to claim the prize & if I don't hear from you by then, it will go to the next winner on the list. If anyone has an idea who Linda is, please let her know.
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Click all pics to enlarge....my normal method of enlarging them isn't working right now, but if you click they should all enlarge for you.
Of course, we had a great time at the beach. It was chilly a night, but the days were bright and sunny. What better way to spend a few days during October than on the beach, where it was totally uncrowded. We had it to ourselves. My friend here in Birmingham has an absolutely stunning beach house, which we stayed in and it was heavenly. I'll give you a quick tour of the 4 bedroom beach cottage, which she graciously allowed me to share with all of you. I knew you'd want to see it! It's a beautiful place. This was my first time in Gulf Shores, but probably won't be the last. Growing up in GA, we always went to Destin or Panama City, but a lot of Alabama folks consider Gulf Shores the place to go to the beach.

Coming in the front door, there are stairs going up and down.
Master bath, those windows look out over the greatroom.
Master vanity

Master bedroom. Color used throughout the house is Restrained Gold, in case you are wondering. It all looks beautiful!

Master bedroom

Landing outside master bedroom.

Landing

Kitchen

Greatroom

Extra bedroom

Bath

Bedroom armoire

Another bedroom

Bedroom armoire

Twin beds in one room.

Oil painting on landing she commissioned an artist to paint of the beach house.

Dining area

Mudroom downstairs

Tile and stairs

View from balcony across to the ocean.

Front porch/balcony.

Their own pier in the bay out back of the beach house.

Back of the beach house.

Off the diningroom.

Looking out from the landing at the beach.

I took a ton of pics, so I'll share more of the area too. It was such a blessing to be able to use this beach house and we had a great time.

We:

Rested and read books

Walked long walks on the beach every day

Picked up seashells

Ate lots of seafood

Slept later than usual

Enjoyed our beautiful surroundings.

But, it's great to be home too. I'll share more pics later!

It's a Giveaway!!

You can never have too many decorating books, so here's another one to add to one of my reader's collection. The New Better Homes & Gardens Decorating book is a classic that you'll enjoy for years to come.

Chock full of inspiring pics and lots of reading material too, there are many tips and decorating ideas in this soft-cover book. From bathroom inspiration....
To bedrooms....
To outdoor decorating ideas....
Full color inspirational pictures all through the book.
Learn more about arranging too.

To win this book, simply leave a comment on THIS post and tell me what you'd like to learn more about in decorating if you get the book. If you add a post on YOUR blog about my giveaway and link to mine, you'll be entered twice, so double your chances to win! Be sure and tell me in the comments that you've posted a link too!

If you want to get in on many more giveaways this week, check out the Bloggy Carnival...here!

A very sweet friend of mine has graciously allowed me and Peter to use her beach house in Gulf Shores this week, so we'll be gone for a few days...chilling on the beach. The contest will end at 6:00 pm (Central time) on Thursday, the 30th. Winner will be announced on Friday the 31st!

I think I'll paint something

Sometimes you have perfectly good accessories that are still pretty, they just don't work with a new scheme or plan. So, what do you do?? Why, you paint them of course. I know most of you know this already, but the power of paint is so alluring. With just a little time and effort, those old accessories get a whole new look, so why throw them out. These are all yardsale mirrors that I've had for a long time...gold was fine.
But, creamy white is better for the new room. Can you guess which one is plastic? I didn't even know it until I started painting it. These aren't all finished yet, I'll do a little antiquing on them before they make their debut.
Scrollies and bunnies...all yardsale finds too. I'm getting a little tired of the scrollie things, but I think they'll work fine in a new color. I do like their classic shapes.

And how pretty they look now in Heirloom White. Spray painting would have been faster, but I already had this can around, so I resorted to the brush. And it really doesn't take long. I wanted to leave a little gold in the crevices anyway. Again, I'll age these a little too.
More finds from long ago, these sconces also got in on the action.
With a fresh coat of satin black, they will be stunning and work together as a pair (a non-matching pair). I have some important plans for them.
This little $5 yardsale side table got a coat of stain earlier this year, but it was time once again for a really big change.
And Blue Ocean Breeze from Walmart did the trick.

Bet you know which room all of this will go in, don't you?!

We are headed to the beach for a few days this week and it's time for a giveaway. Stop back by on Monday for the giveaway post. Contest ends at 6:00 pm (Central) on Thursday the 30th and the winner will be posted on Friday. See you then! There's a Bloggy Carnival going on next week too, so check out lots more giveaways.

Crawfordville

Excuse me while I live my real life and share it with all of you!

Here we are in Crawfordville, the booming metropolis town that is next to Spring Creek, where my daddy grew up. He went to school in Crawfordville and walked all over the place. His daddy never had a car, nor a driver's license, so they rode on horses and mules and walked. First stop in Crawfordville was his elementary school, which he has vivid memories of. This little limestone rock building is still intact and now houses the School Board of Education offices.
I love that it is still here and instead of tearing it down, they added on to it. He says he also had vivid memories of the old jail in town and wasn't sure why until his older sister told him a story in later years of when he was 6 years old. He had wet his pants at school and she was in charge of him so instead of walking the 5 or 6 miles back to their house (they did have a school bus to ride back & forth), she took him to the jailhouse where coincidentally one of his older brothers was housed at the time (why, I do not know).
So, she left him at the jail with his older brother until she could collect him at the end of the day to take him home.

The old jail is about to be turned into the Wakulla County Historical Society museum and they are working on it now. We met up with the former President, Ms. Betty, after my niece called her to tell her we were in town looking around at my dad's old hometown. There's a monthly magazine that is published every month and we found Ms. Betty's phone number in there, so she met us at the old jail on Sunday afternoon.
She was such a sweet lady and has lived in Wakulla County since she was in high school. She's just turned over the historical society to some younger members to handle, but I know she has done a great job with it all these years. She has done her best to document the history of Wakulla county. My dad sent in an article this year for a book that is going to be published about the history of the county very soon.
Ms. Betty was a wealth of information about the county and the people in it. She knows and remembers a lot of our kinfolk from the past. She mentioned some Vickers that we do not know, but they have to be relatives of ours.
Wakulla County Historical Society. The older I get, the more I see a need for history lessons.
She took us upstairs where the old jail cells were located and mentioned that this old jail was a lot like the Mayberry jail on the Andy Griffith show. It seems that the jailer and his wife lived here in the jailhouse full time and she cooked so well that many folks would act up and get put in jail just to eat her cooking!

My family...I think I'll have some of this pic framed for all of us. Isn't that a great backdrop?
Ms. Betty continued her tour and information. My dad had fun remembering all the businesses and where the old stores used to be that he remembered fondly as a child. He told us that the kids used to go to one store near here to buy suckers for a penny, but a penny was really scarce to him in those days, so he went home one day and sneaked an egg from his mama's hens and took it to the store to trade for a sucker. I love that story!
This is the old courthouse that was built in the mid-1800's. They moved it from the main street to across the street from the old jail. I would have loved to have gone inside this building, but it was closed while we were there.

The Chamber of Commerce resides here now.
It's a stately old building.
We even managed to find a cute beach shop to browse in.


The Funky Fiddler

I bought one of these pretty white shells for my collection and to remember our trip. One of my readers who lives in this area mentioned the hot dog stand on the highway and we had no trouble finding it. We had just eaten though and weren't hungry yet. My sister did ask about take-out, but he didn't have any takeout containers. Oh well, we didn't go hungry at all.
We saw this little shack at one stop beside a market we went to. I have a feeling this is similar to the house my dad was born and raised in. Hard to imagine in this day and time, but it did happen back then.

It sure makes me a LOT more thankful for what I have and how easy my life has been, relatively speaking. If you have never gone back to visit your roots, I would encourage you to do it. It's a real eye opener and a huge blessing.

Thanks for tagging along with me as we went on this wonderful once-in-a-lifetime trip. Hope you enjoyed it too. Back to decorating projects real soon. We are going to the beach next week for a few days, so I'll share that with you too.