Pacific NW Lemolo Beach Remodel - Part 1

My friends, Cathy and Brian, bought their Poulsbo family home in 1985, and after many years of fun beach and waterfront living for their entire family, they decided to take the remodeling plunge. Now that the kids are launched, and off on their own big adventures, they felt like it was time to give their beach view home a modern, coastal face-lift that fit their passions of Pacific Northwest living!

The remodel turned out fabulous! Every room is oriented to the views over Liberty Bay and the Olympic Mountains, and their newly revealed home totally reflects Brian and Cathy's adventure filled lives on the water.

 Lucky me, I get to share the pics with you!

This is part 1 - Downstairs:

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Q. What was the inspiration for your remodel? 

A. Inspiration- beach house of course!  But specifically, Pacific Northwest beach house, with a few tropical beach shells from our vacations past!  Always love looking at coastal home magazines and books, but a majority show very tropical homes.  The Pacific Northwest isn't anywhere close to tropical.  The beaches here are more rugged...less fancy...kind of like our lifestyle out here😊!!!  

Decorating in a beach style keeps us hopeful and sane during the long winter months as well. (totally agree with that statement! - C)

Kitchen:

Way cool Pendant Lighting! While they were out of town one weekend, Cathy and Brian's son and soon-to-be daughter in law, surprised them by turning her idea of stacking driftwood pieces onto her kitchen lighting into reality!

Q.  Awesome driftwood wall - how did you do that? 

A. Driftwood walls - LOVE!!!!  Very warm feeling. Brian and I were aiming for a very neutral color palette on our walls. The driftwood walls just added a great texture, as well as giving us a great neutral backdrop. The driftwood also makes colors pop - whether with our turquoise beach sign or black and white canvas photos! 

Our builder introduced us to a great eco-friendly product that we picked up at Home Depot for just a few dollars.  It's used in Canada to protect all the picnic tables in their parks.  This product comes in a powder. It's mixed with a gallon of water. Then painted onto cedar fencing.  Within minutes, the color of the wood changes from red to a beachy driftwood color. Our builder then lightly added a white wash over it. An entire wall costing roughly $100.00👍. 

Q. Is your kitchen counter cement? Or just made to look like cement? Love that look – so perfect for the Pacific Northwest!

A. Our Kitchen counter is inspired by the cement look, but we veered - we were told cement can easily crack! We need to look back at our receipts, but our counter tops are either Silestone or Caesar Stone (not sure if there's even a difference)?  We were advised to go with a polished surface; much easier to clean than with a rough surface.  Not sure if you noticed, but we went with an irregular shaped island, kinda shaped like an island. We thought that irregular shape matched the flooring in our attached family room, which was is also shaped to match the beach tideline.

Dining Room: 

Love the natural rattan textures and "driftwood" neutral colors - blends perfectly with the driftwood wall in the kitchen. Personally, I think a round table encourages fun parties, long conversations and lingering after dinner with friends... Perfect space for watching sunsets and storms, while enjoying a Pacific Northwest seafood feast! (hint, hint, hint... we will bring the salmon!)

 Check out Cathy's rope-wrapped chandelier - love the glass shades, almost like a vintage electrical insulator covers (more about that later!) 

Living Room:

Q. Anything special in your bowl of shells that you want to mention? Japanese fishing floats?

A.  Bowl of shells - the Japanese glass floats are a coveted treasure.  A friend of mine is an Alaskan fisherman and actually found them in the water while fishing!  The shells ALWAYS come home in my suitcase when we escape for tropical vacations. 

Q.  What inspired the cool beach rock look on your floor? Did you gather the rocks and do the application? Or did it come in a kit? 

A. The tile floors (heated...very wonderful, especially on winter mornings) butt up to rocks made to look like the edge of a beach.  The carpeting was chosen to match our Golden Retriever;.the carpet samples were placed across his back. The rocks were purchased right along with the tile. It was then cut in an irregular shape...just like a beach! 

Q. Love the large whale!   Did you make that, or discover it in some cool store?

A. The Whale was purchased at my favorite vintage/up-cycled shop in downtown Poulsbo, WA.  "Red Plantation".

Q. Tell me about your awesome driftwood wreath!

A. Driftwood wreath -  My good friend, Kathy and I formed a small business combining our love for beach combing & craftiness.  Every wreath is unique and just fun to look at!  Both of us have garages spilling over with beach finds. Some of our wreaths have shells, beach glass, etc.. on them, and some are just driftwood.  Very natural, but elegant and such a perfect reflection of our Pacific Northwest beach lifestyle!

Downstairs Shell Bathroom:

Cathy created the mirror from her stash of gathered tropical shells from vacations to Mexico, and beyond.  Love how she used white rope to rim the inside of the mirror, as it gives it a complete finished look and ties together her rope light sconces beautifully!  Make sure to check out the beach rocks that make up her back splash.....

Q. How did you come up with the fun idea for the oars and the toilet paper roll?  So adorable!

A. The oars in my bathroom were found at a rummage sale on Bainbridge Island.  Loved the old, warped look. I knew I wanted them used as a decoration in our guest bathroom, but wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them. I had them leaned against the wall in bathroom one day. When I came home from work, our builder had come up with the idea of using the oar locks to hold toilet paper. We loved this!

(note - there is a copper tube joining the oar locks to form the "roll" apparatus)

Family Room:

Dreamy white built-in bookshelves are filled with Brian and Cathy's gathered treasures from vacations and local artists. Keeping with a nautical theme, they've added simple red, white and blue pillows to the couch and a wonderfully thick textured sea grass rug (almost like rope!)  plus side tables that mirror the look of the concrete counter top in the kitchen.

Don't even get me started on their gorgeous rock fireplace! I think think it would be so easy to simply sink into her cushy couch in front of the fire and enjoy the view!  Such an inviting room - beach house casual, but still very elegant and ready for company to stop by.....

 Cathy is a collector of Lisa Sterritt's art - just like me!  (see the story here)

Q. Remind me of the story behind your favorite found “brick” on your bookshelf (I don’t want to quote you wrong!)

A. SNOWBALL brick - one year, a business venture had our cash flow extra tight. We were hemming and hawing about purchasing upcoming years ski seasons passes at Crystal Mountain.  I went for a walk on beach to think about thru our dilemma.  As I was walking along our beach, (Liberty Bay - Poulsbo) I came across this washed up brick covered in barnacles, with the word SNOWBALL on it -  

Needless to say, we felt it was a sign and we bought our seasons passes. It's one of my favorite beach finds! 

Did I mention how lucky I am to have such wonderful friends? Brian and Cathy's home is absolutely perfect for them, and is incredibly warm and welcoming!

Next week - The Bedrooms!

The Perfect Ending to a Pacific Northwest Day

Two scoops of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream,  and a walk along the Kirkland Waterfront...

Not a bad way to end a summer Monday night in the Pacific Northwest!

Girl's Lunch at Maggie's on Miller Bay...

So... I should be working on a newsletter for the Caron's Beach House site, but am having a lot of trouble getting motivated. (Gosh, was it the late night red wine and gumbo?)  I have a backlog of beachy blog stories to write, so I am opting for sitting here with my cup of tea, and gooey brownie.

By the way, don't you just love my new "under the sea" coffee cup? It was a present from my daughter and can be found at Starbucks if you would like one of your own.

Want to tell you all about my lunch at Maggie's beach house on Miller Bay outside of Poulsbo. Maggie is the talented designer behind Burning at Both Ends, she creates all kinds of neat accessories; wine charms, zipper pull charms, goblet charms, flip-flop charms - so many cool ideas!  I love carrying her coastal themed wine charms on the website, and she was so gracious to come up with some charms and bead colors just for us. Pretty cool, since she has some very big clients, like the "Made in Washington Store", and "Exclusively Washington".


This is her collection of antique oars and shells that greet visitors on her front porch.  Maggie's vintage painted oars are very special, and come from a treasured uncle's house in Michigan. I like how she wrapped shells and old fishing  floats with rope and tied everything all together.

Maggie can't help being creative, her dad is an incredibly talented artist and is still enjoying presenting his art at local Northwest galleries at nearly 90.  Here's just one example of the beach scenes covering her walls throughout the house, forgot to ask what beach this might be, but it kind of looks like Dungeness Spit in Sequim (?)

This is one of the coolest ideas that I have ever seen: a moon snail shell mortared into their fireplace for a safe keeping spot for matches! If I ever have another house, I am definitely copying this idea. (you all know I already have the shells)  Love all of the barnacles covering this shell, confirms that it actually washed up on Maggie's beach! Could not help it, I had to put the "Rosario" and "Latitude 47" matches in the photo - Northwest favorites.

 Enjoy the collections that are on her mantel too; shells collections, special rocks, beach washed birdhouses...

Miller Bay is a little inlet on the Kitsap Peninsula between Poulsbo and Kingston.  Living nearly all of my life in Kitsap County, I never even knew that this little bay existed until I knew Maggie. The day that we had lunch, it was more of a mud flat surrounded by beautiful homes, and some beached boats!  (P.S. this is Maggie's front yard - sort of!)

Our girl's lunch table on Maggie's stone patio right above the beach, so pretty surrounded by spring flowers, and natural beach grass.  We had the perfect day to enjoy sitting outside in the sun, definitely sometimes a rarity in the Pacific Northwest for the month of May.

Now, for the lunch menu: It was so good that I had second helpings! Maggie made us "Swimming Angel" - a Thai Chicken, peanut sauce, spinach and  brown rice concoction that looked so yummy piled in a charming pasta sea shell pasta bowl by Mud Pie. Accompanied by a sparkling pink pomegranate wine from World Market, and little ginger cookies with vanilla icing.  And yes, I do like to eat - invite me over ANY time!

I used to sell the Mud Pie dinnerware  in my Poulsbo store, so fun and soooo beachy! Managed to keep only one of the dinner plates that I now use for serving appetizers for our cocktail hour on the lanai. She is so lucky to have all of the matching pieces, including serving pieces and the cool napkin holders.

Check out our fun place settings for our girls' beach lunch -


Thank you so much for inviting me over and for introducing me to another beach girl - Sherry Eckert. So happy to always make new friends, especially when we are kind of living the same path.. Check out Sherry's Moondrops Yoga Blog, in her words "Yoga and the beach, the two things in my life that fill me up and keep me sane!!" Check out her blog for musings on yoga, life and doing lots of beach walking... (my kind of new friend!)  You have got to see her jewelry, absolutely beautiful, one of a kind art pieces..

One more final picture before I run off to finish that darn newsletter - here's a close up photo of the rusty kids' shovel with Maggie's ever growing shell collection on her front porch that I had to take.  Loved it, and such a perfect reminder of why I can't ever be too far away from the coast.

Come see our selection of Burning At Both Ends Wine Charms on the Caron's Site!

Nautical Wine Charms

Pirates! 

Tropical Designs!

See you at the Beach! Headed to Aptos and Santa Cruz tomorrow...

The Fountain Park on the Bremerton Boardwalk

Discovered this little park on the waterfront in Bremerton completely by accident last summer.  Alex and I ran over to try a Coldstone Creamery ice cream treat, then went for a walk to find this little hidden jewel right beside the ferry dock. Have to confess that even though I live here, I don't always read the local paper so I didn't realize that The Fountain Park was even built.

The park features 5 copper ringed fountains, built by a company that also designed the famous fountains at the Bellagio in Vegas. The fountains represents many things, not only about Bremerton's proud heritage of the Naval presence here in the Northwest, but also  represents the ever present reminders of being surrounded by our volcanic geology in the Olympic and Cascade Mountain ranges. Can you maybe also see spouting whales?

For me, the fountains clearly remind me of submarine "sails"  (conning towers) headed out of the Puget Sound. Living here, this is a common scene that we take for granted.  We probably shouldn't... if you ever get a chance to see a glimpse of a big Trident submarine, it is really something amazing! Better yet, watching the aircraft carriers come in, completely dwarfing the Washington State Ferries, and taking up Rich Passage and Sinclair Inlet entirely!

During the summer the fountains are full of water dancing with their own special synchronization to music.  Kids have a ball running in and out of the water spray.  Believe me, I was tempted, but Alex was embarrassed by his silly mom! Gorgeous landscaping, and sculpted granite pieces complete this great space. Lots of opportunities to photograph the  four seasons!

Heard a rumor from a friend that gray whales had been spotted near here, so I jumped in the car yesterday afternoon to see if I could find any.  No such luck, it appears that they might have been chasing the smelt run into Sinclair Inlet and then left.  As it started to get dark, I noticed that the lights in the park were slowly coming on. With frozen fingers,  I did manage to get a few pictures to share.

If you are in the Puget Sound area, this is really a great place to visit! Take a walk along the boardwalk, have a little something to eat at Anthony's Homeport while watching the ferries come in and out from Seattle, then wander over and enjoy The Fountain Park.

Here's a little bit more info for you!  The City of Bremerton - Harborside Distict

Merry Christmas to all of my readers!