We've had a nice long summer at our cottage in Point Roberts. I came across these old photos and thought it might be fun to compare the then and now. Our beach house was built by my grandfather in the early 1960s, and it was given to us in 2001, right before our oldest child was born. Every summer we work away at it, making updates and repairs as best we can with what we can afford. Here it is with the original exterior paint colour:
and now (so far...)
more renos to come...
It has been a productive summer of various projects, especially at our beach house in Pt. Roberts. 
Among those activities, we took down a dead tree in our backyard, which was chopped into some much-needed firewood.
Mark also took out a window that looked out onto our back patio and replaced it with french doors that now lead right to the porch. We picked up the doors second-hand and I refinished them by using a heat gun to remove the old paint. Then I sanded and repainted them.
So here is the before...
and the after:
Mark and I might not have been the only ones with a few projects up our sleeves this summer!
We've been away for a couple of weeks, enjoying what we love most about summer...
Have you ever wanted to stop those weeds from creeping in or had an area of your yard that you would like to transform into a garden? Or do you simply want to clear an section of your woody yard from bushes and weeds? Consider using cardboard as a base instead of yard cloth. It is free and easy to come by and it will decompose throughout the year, leaving the ground clear of weeds and unwanted growth. We started using this "cardboard" technique at our beach house where we are starting to add gardens to what used to be over-grown areas. We put cardboard around this bush that we planted in the fall. This was an area that was normally full of weed, including that nasty morning glory vine that winds around all the plants and their branches.
By Spring the cardboard had desintigrated and we were able to start creating this new garden space. Recently, we built some garden boxes to grow vegetables, and cut back a lot of blackberry bush and other shrubs that grew right behind.
I recently put down cardboard over the places that we cleared and added some ground cover on top, as well as some old bark. We may add more bark mulch soon.
I also put down cardboard to stop weeds and blackberry from growing between the garden boxes and plan to add mulch over top of that as well. We were excited about the idea of using cardboard as an alternative to yard cloth, and hope that you will find it useful as well!
This year we headed to the Ship to Shore festival in Steveston for Canada Day and enjoyed the annual parade and fireworks in Point Roberts for July 4th!
Garry Point, Steveston
This year there was a bit of a "show-down" between the firefighters and the kids on the road! Water balloons, water guns and hoses!
Hope you are enjoying your summer so far!
We were so thankful for sunny, warm weather for the long weekend after a forcast for rain all three days.
:: car trunk sale and book sale at the community center/library, beach combing on Saturday and the kids were in the water on Sunday, yard projects, chopping wood, campfires and gardening. Pt. Roberts style.
Happy Victoria Day to our Canadian friends!!
So nice to have some days off to spend with family, to enjoy spring and do a little garden and spring cleaning too. So happy that the weather was clearer than forecasted!
Daytrip to Pt. Roberts on Good Friday, and then our traditional Easter Egg hunt (the kids never get tired of it) and Easter dinner on Sunday. Hope you had a Happy Easter too!
I have a bit of a hobby collecting shells and making shell mobiles while we are staying at the beach house.
I got the idea for this mobile from a photo in House and Home magazine.
I thought I could make more of a Westcoast version of that style of mobile. I collected larger oyster shells, crab shells, sand dollars and driftwood. Starfish could be used as well and purchased from Micheals. I also used a foam, rope-covered ball that I'm pretty sure I purchased at Michaels. I used a thick cone shaped grinder bit on the drill and carefully drilled a hole in the center of each item. I had a couple of the shells crack on me and the driftwood even started to smoke, as I was drilling with the grinding bit, so I quickly switched to a regular drill bit for the wood. Apart from that I managed to finish the drilling quite quickly and easily.
All that is left to do is tie a knot in the rope and string all of the items on.
And then something beachy to hang and enjoy!
A beach house is really all about the front porch,
and ours needed a bit of a facelift.
I finished it off by painting the door yellow, adding to projects from past summers.
We'd always used the porch quite practically,
but I wanted to give it a bit more character and spark.
Now I smile every time we come into the driveway,
and we don't hesitate to take a seat and relax.
I just love summer in town or out of town:
Blueberry picking near our house in Port Coquitlam,
Megan had her own table to sell toys at the Pt. Roberts Art & Music festival,
getting henna done at the festival,
warm summer evenings for soccer, baseball,
biking,
and walking on the beach, with that glorious evening light,
ocean water,
fresh water,
and one of my favourites: flowers. Can't help it, I'm a summer girl!
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