Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Beach House Courtyard Concepts and a Curveball

Yesterday I spent part of the morning working on some courtyard concepts for the beach house remodel.  Partly because I am SOOOO ready for spring, and partly because the concept we decide to go with will impact the entry stairs which will impact the "man door" placement for the new garage.  So, after about an hour of CAD, I opened up SketchUp to play with some courtyard furniture placement ideas in 3-D, including an outdoor kitchen, and a fireplace.

Did you visit the Coastal Living Ultimate Beach House in Seabrook last year?


I loved that courtyard!  The fireplace, the seating area, the dining area -- it was perfection.


Now back to reality.

This is kind of what our courtyard looks like right now (minus the rotting decks... and the house is partially jacked up right now but I will share more on that next week).  As you can see, anything would be an improvement!


When my husband got up and saw the models I'd created, he felt I'd gotten everything ALL WRONG.  I was thinking of a quiet tranquil space, out of the wind, to retreat to with a glass of wine and a magazine.


The thing is, our daughter and son-in-law have recently informed us that life is throwing us a delightful curve ball.  Soooooo, my husband took one look at the concepts and said  "where is the swing set and what about a slide?"

Just for fun, I hodge-podged together a little play yard for him.


He even had this kind of cool idea to put in a tube slide from one of the decks!  I haven't put a model of that together, yet, but why not?  If I have time to whip one up, I'll post it on the House Revivals facebook page.

Of course, now when I look at the original idea for the courtyard, it seems a little dull and boring... as if something is missing....


Oh, there it is!


A sweet little tricycle just waiting to trip up an unsuspecting grandpa as he steps out the door with a platter of steaks.

Life is so good!


Edit:  We have some new progress on the beach house, that you can see here!

To see a concept for one of the guest rooms, click here, and to see more of the beach house and some concepts for the renovation, click here.

Be sure to hit "follow", in my side bar so you won't miss the upcoming posts on the house raising, and lots of cool pictures of our castle in the air.  Also, if you are on facebook, come check out our new page and click "like" for lots of mini-updates and links!  And for all my crafty peeps, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve, and some projects on my work desk :)


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