Crystal Cove, California

This is a little delayed, but I am finally getting around to posting about Crystal Cove!  This was probably my favorite part of our road trip, mostly for sentimental reasons. 

Here's a brief history of Crystal Cove:  In the early 1900s a bunch of people started building beach houses out of whatever they could find, mostly wood that drifted to shore after a cargo ship had wrecked out at sea.  The cottages are certainly not perfect, but they have oh so much charm.  My family got in on one of these cottages when I was a baby and we continued to visit until 2000 when the government finally kicked everyone out and boarded up the cottages.  Pretty depressing. 

For years we were terrified that they would all be torn down and replaced with some fancy resort, but in 2004 they began renovating cottages!  In the summer of 2006 the first few were finished and open. My sister and I got to stay in one that first summer.  It was definitely different than before (a lot more people) but still amazing.  Every year it gets harder and harder to reserve these cottages.  They have to be reserved six months in advance and thousands of people try every month so it feels like winning the lottery when you finally get one.  My family stayed again in the summer of 2007 but we haven't been able to reserve one since.  

Because Brady and I couldn't reserve a cottage for our trip we showed up early the morning of and by some miracle they had a cancelation and we got a cottage!  It was so fun showing him this little part of my childhood.  We ate smoked albacore and fresh bread from The Crab Cooker (tradition), walked to the little cave that for some reason we had to see every time we stayed there, played in the tide pools, and of course watched the sunset.  Our cottage had the most AMAZING little sun room that overlooked the ocean with a little twin bed that we squished together so we could hear the ocean while we went to sleep.  

I cannot wait until our beach house is finished and we can stay in it! I also hope one day you can stay there too and feel the amazingness you feel in this little hidden cove.  Oh and don't tell anyone about it or we'll never be able to reserve one!

My old beach house ^

Big Sur

After leaving San Francisco we headed south towards Big Sur.  The drive between Lake Tahoe and Big Sur was SO FUN.  I wanted to spend a week in every city we passed through.  Santa Cruz and Monterey were beautiful.  We stopped at a beach in Monterey and it was surreal.  The beach was surrounded by sand dunes covered in wild flowers, and the waves were so perfect and blue.

Carmel was a dream.  Someone actually lives in this perfect little bay with this perfect little swimming pool in this (not so little) house.  Maybe I'll be that lucky person one day!

 And all of in between cities was just as amazing.  Why can't all long car rides take place next to the ocean?

The reason we planned this whole trip was to go visit Brady's childhood friend Taylor who moved out there a couple of years ago.  We spent the our first day there on the north side.  We had dinner at the Big Sur Bakery Taylor and his girlfriend Camille and saw some things he had been working on.  Taylor wanted to take us on a "little walk" to watch the sun set, so we started out at Pfeiffer Beach.  By the way, the sand at this beach is PURPLE from abalone shells.  Can't beat that.  We started walking along the sand which slowly turned into little rocks which then turned into huge boulders with waves crashing on them.  

With the tide coming in and the sun setting, I was a little bit worried.  We made it to another beach and up the steepest mountain I've ever climbed and found what we were looking for!  THIS...

Some guy had made a nest for humans out of Eucalyptus trees!  It was huge inside too, you could definitely sleep in there.  It had two cute windows looking out over the ocean.  Perfect place to watch the sun set.  This "little walk" that was supposed to take 30 minutes was a little closer to 3 hours.  The hike back was in complete darkness tromping down the mountain through groves of Eucalyptus trees.  But we made it out alive!  The next day we went to see Pfeiffer Falls which was even better in person than any photo I've seen of it.  We also hiked up to Limekiln Falls.  It is so strange to be next to the ocean with sand and deserty plants all around you, then to turn a corner and you're surrounded by Redwood's with clovers and ferns covering the ground.  Big Sur is amazing.  

Next we went to Sand Dollar Beach and relaxed before going to dinner at Treebones, the resort Camille's parents own.  We had sushi and warmed up by the fireplace.  I don't think we could have possibly fit one more thing into that day.  We awoke early the next morning and headed south for Crystal Cove.

 

Lake Tahoe

A few weeks ago Brady and I decided to take a road trip along the California coast.  I have been wanting to do this FOREVER so what better time than now?  We started early early Monday morning for Lake Tahoe.  The Salt Flats were fun to see, but until we got to Reno, the drive was dreadful.  Eight and  half hours of Nevada desert is too much Nevada desert for me.  Donners Pass was an amazing breath of fresh air, and Tahoe.....even better.  We planned on camping in Tahoe, but due to the ridiculously tall trees everywhere, we couldn't see any camping spots.  We did however find the cutest little cabin to rent for the night.  It had a bed, a fridge and a bathroom, what else do you need?  We spent the day at a little beach across from our cabin and had dinner at a pizza place by Kings Beach.  I wish we could have spent more time here.  The town was adorable and the scenery was obviously amazing.  We took off early the next morning for Big Sur, but stopped in San Francisco and took touristy pictures next to the Golden Gate Bridge.  Brady doesn't do well in big cities so we didn't spend long here, but I would love to come back, San Francisco was such a pretty city!

 

Before and After Part 2

Sorry for the delay, here's part two to the house!

Sorry again for the weird before photos.

When we moved in the bathroom had carpet, so we refinished the wood underneath which took waaaay too long.

I also had a hard time choosing the color for this room so we painted it a couple of times.

Refinishing these floors burnt us out of fixing things so we still havent gotten around to putting trim back up where we had to tear it out.

Our kitchen is the only room that was not a part of the original house so it doesn't have awesome wood floors in it.  We have stuck with the linoleum for now....

Because the kitchen was an add on, both it and the bathroom are extra large.

I wasn't loving the natural oak finish on the cabinets so we painted, sanded and stained them.  We also scavenged for mismatched knobs at every antique store we could find.

I think this is the end of my house, thanks for reading!

Before and After Part 1

I've been looking high and low for the photos I had taken of our house before we moved in and guess what....I found them!

We bought our house in July of 2011 and moved in that September.  An old lady with lots of cats lived here before us so we had some work to do.

This is our Family Room/Front Room/Living Room.  When we moved in everything was painted white.  White walls, white doors, white hinges, white curtains, white everything!  Needless to say we wanted to add some color.  Now that white is the cool thing to do I'm wishing we hadn't painted everything, but I still love it.

We were oh so lucky to find these amazing hard wood floors under all the stinky carpet.  This is what sold me on the house.  The floor in this room was completely redone and beautiful.

This is our bedroom.  Sorry for the awkward before photos.

The bedroom floors were half way painted white so we just added a little extra white paint to finish them off.  

I've grown so attached to our little home, I'll be sad to leave it one day.

Happy Easter!

This Easter was a little different than the usual.  Both my family and Brady's were gone so we just hung out at home with our dogs and soaked in the sun.

We spent the weekend finding places for our dogs to swim.  Turns out they only like really muddy gross water.  Awesome.

I was pretty bummed about not going away this weekend, but it turned out to be perfect anyways!