So back to VACATION!! After a week at Nana's house, we headed over the Bourne Bridge for a week Capeside! We landed the deal of the century off of Homeaway.com and stayed in old Captain's house in Monument Beach, which is a part of Bourne on Buzzards Bay.
The upper cape is close enough to our family and friends and the outer edge on Buzzards Bay is some of the calmest, warmest water you will find on Cape Cod. Perfect for the kiddos!
The house was AMAZING!! Totally Cape Cod - OLD Cape Cod, and with so many nooks and crannies that you hardly noticed we had up to 40 visitors at a time. It was the perfect combinaiton of everything we needed. It was well maintained and had the amenities we needed, yet also boasted the character and charm I was craving after a year in a midwest McMansion.
But enough words, how about a house tour?!
Meet "Look-Off Cottage"
as she looked long ago
And here she is in 2011...
The front porch was a dream come true, with it's beamed ceilings and view of the harbor.
The front door is there, but it's been stuck shut for half a century, so to enter we used the back door via the back porch. Again with the painted beadboard ceiling. LOVE!
The back porch leads in to the sunroom, which we mainly used for dumping beach gear and shoes
(40 people= a lot of flip flops!)
(40 people= a lot of flip flops!)
(Ceiling. Again. Love!)
One step up from the sunroom was the door to the kitchen, which was huge and pretty modern, and which housed the kids' favorite part of the entire house...the electric piano!!
There was a breakfast bar for two, an eat-in table for six, and a back stairway leading upstairs (that's what I'm standing on - a hundred years ago this would have been the servant's stairs)
Up the stairs you'll find yourself facing Jack's bedroom.
It was so charming with it's painted antique furniture and quilts aplenty that I wished I could have taken it home with me! The lady of this house is CRAFTY let me tell you. That giant bolster that Teddy is sitting on is a total DIY job, and yes, that is a starfish sewn to the end. What detail!
Jack picked this room because it had the only upstairs TV and the IMac. He's no dummy! It also had a trundle bed for cousins!
Diagonally across from Jack's room was the laundry room, and thank goodness for that because we must have gone through 30 towels a day!
The owner had antique washboards hung on the walls - clearly she is a collector of vintage treasures.
Keep walking down the hall and it takes a sharp right turn.
That's a window into the master bathroom on the left. When you take the corner, you'll find the door.
There were vintage finds and pillows every where you turned!
Now on to the spa-tastic master bath...
I did manage a relaxing bath or two, but mostly the soaking tub was used to hose children off two at a time, from all the sand they brought back from the beach!
Next to the master was Ben's room. It was the turret you see in the facade pictures of the house. His favorite part was that the closet was chock full of the owner's grown son's old toys. And he was a GI Joe and Star Wars fantatic. Score!
Across the hall from Ben's room was Molly's room. Pinkalicious is the key word here.
Crackle-painted bed from heaven, plus a rug I would have rolled up and taken home with me if I didn't think they'd notice. Is that the perfect shade of pink or what?! And the bed had a trundle, so she could have sleepovers with her cousins like she always wished for.
At the end of the hallway you come to the front stairs...
With a full bath on the landing. It reminded me of the Greek Isles with its crisp blue and white.
At the bottom of the stairs, the front door is in front of you and on the right is a bank of window seats overlooking the porch and wrapping around to the kitchen and a full bath.
On the left is the living room
Full of slipcovers and pillows and books, books, BOOKS!!
Walk through the living room and you are led to the dining room
That french door leads back to the kitchen, and on your right is a door leading to the TV room.
Which had it's own full bath.
I'm exhausted from all this touring!!! But we must push on, because amazingly, there is still MORE. In the tour upstairs I forgot to mention that just to the right of Molly's bedroom is a door that leads to the third floor. And it's not just any attic mind you.
This is looking down from the top, over a banister that has not one single balluster the same. Somebody back in time was a woodworker with creativity!
While Ben and Molly play a game on my iPhone, take a look above them at the telltale golden spines of five DECADES of National Geographic.
Talk about rainy day HEAVEN!!
Here are some of the pages from the oldest ones...
Can you stand it!!?
If you look beyond the other side of the stairwell, you'll find even more to love.
Two attic bedrooms...
The first one has yet another full bath attached, with a cute mini tub and mini pedestal sink.
On the other side of those stained glass windows is the attic living room
With a loveseat, hide-a-bed and a view that is second to none! Well except maybe for the last room on our house tour....the telescope room!!! Because of course, no self-respecting sea captain could be without a telescope room!
Tomorrow, I'll show you what he's looking at, but for today, here are a few of the details we grew to love during our stay...
Look-Off Cottage was amazing with all her charms - everyone who crossed her threshold fell in love.
And amazingly, with all those beds and all those baths, there were a few nights when we broke capacity and had to sleep guests on couches.
Except for maybe adding a few days of R&R at the end to recover from all the fun,
I don't think we'd change a thing!
And amazingly, with all those beds and all those baths, there were a few nights when we broke capacity and had to sleep guests on couches.
Except for maybe adding a few days of R&R at the end to recover from all the fun,
I don't think we'd change a thing!
