At The Beach With Kris, Beach Investment, Flipping, Remodeling

A Beach House Kitchen

April 6, 2012 By Kris Moran

I ordered the beach house kitchen last week – this is likely the largest expense for the Beach House (formerly known as the Short Sale Project) and I had knots in my stomach when I signed the contract. I am always afraid I’ve missed something or could have done something different/better. I’m going to show you the CAD drawings – we did make a few changes to these drawings so they aren’t exact, but they will give you a good visual of the new kitchen.

The old kitchen was hideous. It had the weirdest cabinetry I have ever seen. It was painted bright red and each cabinet had its own size and shape. The hardware was naked people (seriously) and the layout was terrible. They added a fridge to what once was a linen closet in the hall behind. It was rigged up for the fridge and icemaker in a crazy way that made our plumber laugh and then we have had to do some serious untangling. The cabinetry around the fridge had an almost Southwest theme and it was the.ugliest.kitchen.ever. I can’t believe HGTV hasn’t called. Maybe they are calling about the landscaping instead? Fingers crossed! If anyone wants to call in a favor to John Gidding, I would not complain.

We removed that window on the left so we could extend the cabinetry and add a breakfast bar. In the CAD drawings you will see some open shelving. I actually ordered some brackets and am going to have some open shelves that will look something like this:

I ordered this farmhouse sink from Overstock and I am mildly upset that the Beach House will have a nicer sink than my house:

This kitchen from my Pinterest kitchen board shows you the sea blue cabinetry color we chose with a simple Shaker front door – we will be using the $12 faucet I snagged at a Tuesday Morning clearance sale:

And here she is – the beautiful new kitchen that will be installed in 4 long weeks:

~Kris

Filed Under: Decorating and Design, Short Sale Project, The Beach House 2 Comments

A “constant state of relaxation” in the Bahamas

March 29, 2012 By Kris Moran

We took the kids (and 34 of our closest friend came too!) on a cruise to the Bahamas for spring break! Yes, we are living the life of Riley over here. Back when I was a kid, we got 2 days off for spring break – we prayed it wouldn’t blizzard – and we drove to the state high school hockey tournaments for the weekend. Pretty much the same thing, right? Yep, the kids are spoiled. But jeez – 2nd and 4th grade are NO joke. Their homework rivals a lot of what I did in high school. 4th grade math scares me. I am NOT smarter than a 5th grader – at least not a 2012 5th grader! So the kids really deserved a break. And I deserved a break. Nothing like all-you-can-eat food 24 hours a day for 5 days – I just wanted a break from packing lunches and cooking dinner. I mean really…do these kids need to eat 3 times a day EVERY day? We returned home with the kids in full detox of 24-hour “free” ice cream. And don’t get me started on the warm chocolate melting cake. That alone is worth the price of the cruise.

We stopped in 2 ports – Freeport and Nassau. When you live somewhere as beautiful as I do – who really needs to take a vacation? The Bahamas is beautiful, but their beaches were not as pretty as ours. We are spoiled by our sugar white sand and emerald green Gulf waters. We were in Nassau for a full 24 hours – so it was nice to not have to feel pressured to get back to the boat – I have an irrational fear of being stranded in a port waving goodbye to my ship. We did all the usual tourist things – we bought rum cakes, drank rum drinks, sent the kids on a banana boat ride, snorkeled (those brave enough to enter that cold water) and relaxed on the beach (with above mentioned rum drinks.)

In Nassau we saw this yacht. Pretty nice. We guessed it belongs to Michael Jordan, based on the “air” written on the side. Notice the helicopter and pad at the rear of the ship. (Our friends who went snorkeling said their boat captain pointed out mansions saying they belonged to Oprah, Tiger, MJ, etc…)

I don’t think I would enjoy a cruise as much with just with our little family – definitely more fun with a group. And if your group is 38 people – well, the more the merrier! Everyone got along great and all of the kids rated our trip a 10 and asked to book again for next year! If you asked my kids the highlight of their trip, they would most likely tell you the ”towel animals”. If you haven’t cruised before – your porter makes a towel animal each night when they turn down your bed and the kids get SO excited to see what animal is waiting.

All six of us girls/moms got massages one night on the ship. Our attendants told us to “remain in a constant state of relaxation”. Pretty funny/ironic thing to say to a mom, right? Ah ma’am, can you please tell our husbands about this constant state of relaxation? And of course tell the kids too. Yes, definitely tell the kids.

Two of my favorite/funny cruise memories:

1. If you’ve been on a cruise you know they have a staff of photogs trying to take some cheesy backdrop photos of you to later sell you a 4×6 for 20 bucks. One night at dinner, I let daughter go to the bathroom with 2 of her friends. They returned without her. She came back and said “mom, everyone wants to take my photo!!!” Her 8 year old friend said in all seriousness “well she does have the face of a model.” Note to self….praise daughter less for beauty and more for brains – and a refresher course on stranger danger.

2. Daughter and her friends are forever putting on shows for us. It usually involves some bad dancing and confusion and even requests for money before these performances. Well daughter’s friend walked up to her mother during dinner to let her know the girls had a show ready and to please alert the Captain so he could make an announcement their show was after dinner! Note to self…always remember your children’s innocence before it gets mucked up by the world.

We got back home with enough time to suffer from the “sways” and attempt to do 18 loads of laundry and then pack again because son had a travel baseball tournament in Alabama the next day! So back on the road we went. And wouldn’t you know those boys kept winning and went all the way to the Championship game and ended up in 2nd place for the tournament! We were shocked. Not that our boys aren’t great – but sports are very serious in the South. We play full-pads tackle football in Kindergarten. Some of these 8U travel balls teams have kids from 3 states – only the best of the best. I would say most of our boys are average to above-average in size…. UNTIL you compare them to these other teams. I would like to find these kids wandering around the concession stand and ask them how old they are. There is almost no way they are 7 or 8 years old! These kids practically have facial hair and look like they are in middle school. So 2nd place was great – better than great! I almost felt bad sending my kids back to school Monday morning after not getting back until late Sunday night. Son played catcher for almost 5 games this weekend – I can’t imagine how sore his little legs were after being in catcher position for so long. I would need a wheelchair for at least a week. My husband mentioned to his real estate coach something about the tournament and his coach said ” the thing about kids this age – the only thing they care about is parental recognition and a snack.” Point taken.

Can my little ball player be any cuter? He is a sweet chunk of boy…I want to eat his dimples with a spoon. He is an old soul, smart as a whip, fiercely competitive, a perfectionist in many ways (except when it comes to keeping his white basbeall pants clean)…and he is the sweetest, most loving boy a mom could ask for. He falls asleep at night after telling me I’m the best mom in the world. I tell him he’s the best son in the world and he says “NO, you are the best momma”. Swoon…

Now lets get back back to that state of constant relaxation… I highly recommend it…

~Kris

Filed Under: About Me, Daughter, Family, Kids, Son, Sports, Travel 2 Comments

Spring

March 12, 2012 By Kris Moran

Last week was crazy – on Thursday my maching machine overflowed – all over the floor…sadface. On Friday, my fairly new SUV stalled in elementary school car-line…big sadface. This has always been pretty much my worst nightmare – you do not want to stall in car-line. You do not want to make those carpool moms mad at you. You also do not want to be wearing your pj’s when you stall in car-line! So now I’m driving a crappy rental car and I miss everything about my car, especially my music and my ballpark seat cushions. And then to top off my “pigpen” weekend, daughter’s pierced ears became so infected that we ended up in the Emergency Room over the weekend. Those sweet little ears are too close to that sweet little brain and those antibiotics cannot work fast enough. Bless her heart, all this work on pierced ears and now she has to let them close….another sadface. And while driving to the ER, husband took the time to call me and tell me he locked his keys in his car at the kids’ Little League Opening Day Parade and exhibition games…that daughter and I were missing. How was your weekend?!?!

But, on to happier things! Spring is my favorite time of year – even though winter pretty much forgot to come to northern Florida, I am still looking forward to sunny, warm days! Here are a few things I’m slightly obsessed with so far this spring.

1. My new fuschia Tom’s – these are the cutest Tom’s yet – and mesh for spring so they will breathe and the bright fuschia color is just what the doctor ordered! (The look red in this photo, but trust me, they are fuschia!) I wear mine with skinny denim capris and a big bunch of mixed color beaded bracelets.

2. I love this Loreal Collagen face cream - it is so rich and thick and seems like it should cost triple its $10 price tag! I’ve tried about every face cream on the market and this one is my fav.

3. Versa Spray Tan - the older I get, the more I want to protect my skin from the sun. Last summer I started spray tanning. I loved it, but it had a slight tint of orange (my friends called me Snookie!) and it was very drying on my skin. The tan sort of settled in and made fine lines more pronounced and my skin was so dry. Yesterday I tried the Versa and it is awesome! Pay the extra for the moisturizing treatment. I got the “medium” colored spray – no orange, it smelled better that the Mystic tan and my skin feels great!

4. The top knot – I pretty much did not cut my hair for a year and now its long enough to actually try all the fun hairstyles I have pinned on Pinterest! My favorite is the top knot. One of these days I’ll take some photos of the process to show you how I do it. Most tutorials are for really long hair and mine is more shoulder length. Its all in the “tease” to get a nice, full top knot.

5. I’m loving two new shows on TV. You HAVE to catch up on “Smash” if you aren’t watching it on Monday nights on NBC - its sort of like “Glee” for adults. The casting is terrif and I love Kat McPhee! This is my new dvr addiction. I also love the new show, also on NBC, called “Awake” on Thursday nights.

6. I love me some Jeff and Jenni! This Wendesday is the debut of “Interior Therapy with Jeff Lewis” – I’m not sure if I love to hate, or hate to love Jeff but you know this show will be good with lots of Jeff induced tension so set your dvrs!

7. I love to read and I love my Nook. I’m excited to start this book after I finish my current read. If you haven’t heard of these books, you can start with book #1 and discover a great new author that borders along mystery and comedy. The author is Lisa Lutz and the first book is the Spellman Files. Hi-larious!

What are you loving for spring?

~Kris

Filed Under: About Me, Daughter, Fashion/Beauty, My Style Leave a Comment

Just a Swingin’

March 7, 2012 By Kris Moran

The kids are growing like weeds. I was a 5th percentile kind of kid – always the shortest, smallest and skinniest. So my vertically challenged self wanted TALL kids and therefore, I semi-jokingly had a six-foot dating requirement! Well, husband is very tall and little ol’ me ended up with 100th percentile kids. Be careful what you wish for! Actually daughter has almost never even been on the growth chart and son is usually in the 85th or higher percentile. She is now, at 9 years old, wearing the same size clothing that I wore in 9th grade and in 3rd grade her shoe size surpassed mine. They grew out of their carrier car seats before 3 months. They grew out of toddler sized clothes and into “big kid” sizes before they turned 3 years old. So it is no surprise that our backyard swingset is too small. But daughter still plays on it every single day – her long legs bunched up under her while trying to swing.

So I had an idea – lets tear that little kid sized swingset down and build one for tall kids! Just 3 or 4 swings on this structure – no slides or playforts. At 9 years old, daughter is already well over 5 feet tall and wears a ladies size 9 shoe – we definitely need a swing set with some leg room!

I’m meeting with a builder later today and pulled together some photos I found of some great swing sets:

And because I can never take on one project without expanding it, why not make this DIY outdoor chalkboard? So cute! Hours of fun or minutes? This one was made with a4x8 plywood sheet and then outdoor paint mixed with sanded grout in a color that looks like a chalkboard.

Swinging is good for the soul. There have been scientific studies. And husband, if you are reading this, I might need this more than the kids do!!!

All images via Pinterest.

~Kris

Filed Under: Daughter, Family, Kids, Son 2 Comments

Picking the Perfect Paint Color

March 5, 2012 By Kris Moran

I have made plenty of paint color mistakes in my life. I finally saw the light when a decorator I had hired for the sole purpose of picking out paint colors about 2 houses ago explained paint to me. All I was looking at was the swatch of the color. I learned you have to look at the entire swatch – that way you see the undertones of the color you are picking. I told the decorator my house looked like a big brown blob with light brown cabinets – she showed me that the beige color I had selected had very pink undertones and did not match the tones of the wood in my cabinetry. We ended up going bold – TANSY GREEN from Sherwin Williams bold – and I promise you, I have never had so many compliments on a paint color in my life. Tansy Green is the perfect apple green – and actually a very neutral color. You don’t get sick of it. My cabinets popped, my ceiling and trim popped and the room was decorator perfect!

Because the Beach House (aka the Short Sale Project) will be a rental, we need to paint the walls neutral. We selected blue cabinets for the kitchen (gorg!!!) but the walls and floors will be very neutral. Picking the perfect netural white or cream can be very, very tricky. So I’m sharing with you the contenders – the tried and true whites. White can read very yellow or pink once you get it on the wall. I’m looking for the perfect balance of white and cream with no yellows or pinks, please!

First up – Candice Olson’s reportedly favorite whites – Niveous OC-36 and Cloud White OC-130 by Benjamin Moore. I haven’t personally used these colors and I think they will read more gray than I am looking for, but Candice Olson is definitely more experienced than I and if these are her favorite, they must be great…

Next up is one of my personal faves – Dover White SW6385 by Sherwin Williams. This is the perfect creamy white. I have always used this on the trim in all of my houses and recommend it to our Seller’s when they have to re-paint to sell. I don’t have a paint swatch for this one, just a photo of a room painted Dover White…

Benjamin Moore White Dove OC-17 is a universal white – and also great on trim…

Farrow and Ball Lime White is the perfect off-white…

Benjamin Moore Atrium White…

Pale Oak OC-20 by Benjamin Moore – a great “greige” neutral…

Benjamin Moore Swiss Coffee 1812 is lovely…

Now moving right along to my favorite paint color – Blue! I will have to incorporate some blue somewhere – this is a beach house after all. Benjamin Moore Palladian Blue is always a favorite – it really is the perfect blue…

And Benjamine Moore Wythe Blue is equally lovely and soothing…

And last but not least, Farrow and Ball Blue Powder…

As for the Short Sale Project – the kitchen has been demo’d, the 3rd bedroom has been drywalled and the living room walls are being prepared for the paneling we are installing. We’ve had a few bumps in the road – on the first day of demo, I got a voicemail from the Contractor telling me there were sparks and fire at the meter! I immediately called the power company and they repaired it before we burned the entire house down! We had to replace the front door – turns out we also have termites!

Here is a sneak peek of our kitchen cabinetry – it is maple and the color is called “Lagoon” – the color is much more muted in real life:

Here is the new front door and hardware:

The door is by Jeld-Wen and the hardware is Schlage.

And last but not least – the kitchen after the demo!

~Kris

Filed Under: Decorating and Design, Short Sale Project, The Beach House 3 Comments

Beach House Love

February 28, 2012 By Kris Moran

I sold a house yesterday. Anyone who thinks my job is easy – well, they should have been me yesterday. Buying and selling can be fraught with emotions from both buyer and seller, especially when selling someone’s personal residence. Now with a few extra gray hairs and a stomach that is slowly starting to unclench, I wanted to share some photos of this special home with you. Located just steps to the beach, yet still on a large lot, this was a rare find indeed. It had a $400,000 renovation by the prior owner and no detail was missed, no expense spared. I have shared a few photos of this one in the past, but here is a tour of the entire home…

This custom driveway was poured over a slab on a custom built mold with a drip line spinkler system underneath.
The owner really wanted mondo grass in between the concrete, but the hot Florida sun had other ideas.

Here is what the home looked like “before”:

They added this beautiful pool

The backyard has a koi pond, fountain and a covered summer kitchen with grill, sink and even a keg! The landscaping includes a lemon tree, grapefruit tree, lots of wonderful smelling vines and lots of flowering shrubs. This photo was taken in December so you can imagine what it will look like in May!

The front entry

Now moving indoors – the living room. (In all fairness, I didn’t photograph this for the blog, but to help my customers remember their short list of houses. I wish I had taken more!) This room also has a fireplace and it totally wired for surround sound, infared and even had a baby grand piano!

The kitchen – this Wolf stove has 2 ovens, 4 gas burners, a griddle and a grill – the vent hood has warming lights so you can put your food on the wire shelf and keep it warm. I think I’d cook at lot more if I had this! The fridge is on left – it is a Sub Zero hidden behind cabinetry. It has two refrigerated drawers beneath.

The breakfast nook used to be the screened-in porch. The nook is flanked by pantry storage on either side.

The other side of the kitchen has the “beverage fridge” and 2 dishwasher drawers that can be run separately or together.

The Master Bedroom is the third floor – it has a balcony that opens to the Gulf, his/her closets and a decadent Master Bath.

The Master Bath features beautiful cabinetry, sparkling knobs, vessel sinks, travertine and marble and every light and sconce is on a dimmer.

This seamless piece of granite was carried up three flights of narrow stairs and cut on site! The $3,500 bathtub has air jets instead of water - so you don’t get all that yucky mold and gunk in the jets. The tv/dvd player on a swivel arm is a nice touch, eh?