Sandy Claws NC

06/21/2024

We inform all our guests about the dangers of not airing down and the strain it can put on an engine. Add in high summer temps and running the AC… and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

Air down to a minimum of 20 PSI. If your vehicle is struggling or gets stuck, air down to 10 psi, push the loose sand away from your tires, and ease out. If you’ve got floor mats in your car, they can be removed and placed under your tires, grippy side with plastic peaks turned toward the sky, for your tires to have enough traction to ease out.

Don’t brake hard when you need to stop, ease off the gas and tap brakes until you slow to a stop. Stopping hard digs your car in deep. So does spinning your tires looking for traction after you’re stuck.

Watch your engine gauges on heat — if it creeps high, turn off your AC and roll down your windows.

No one wants a trip to the beach to end this way. Pictures from Carova Beach 4x4 group, June 21 2024.

03/05/2024

Enjoy a peaceful and unique vacation experience amid the wild horses and shifting dunes of the northern Outer Banks, accessible with a 4WD vehicle.

03/05/2024

Howdy friends! Summer is right around the corner and we’ve got a deal for you. The ENTIRE summer season has been booked since January… but now:

Cancellation alert! We just had a guest cancel a two week July vacation due to upcoming surgery in June. Their loss is your gain!

Come relax with the wild horses in the Outer Banks’ northern beaches.

🚙 House is 3 miles up the 4WD beach on Corolla’s Seagull Beach (five miles closer than Carova)
🐴 see horses daily in yard
🛌 sleeps 10, 4BR w/3.5 baths
** All linens and beach towels included **
♿️ elevator to first floor, which is ADA compliant
🌅 semi oceanfront with unobstructed views of ocean on both levels
🛀 seven person hot tub
🌊 less than 100 yards from beach!

No pool, no pets.

Sandy Claws is a Friday to Friday book direct rental, managed by us, the owners.

**We offer 10% discounts military/first responders/teachers/ essential workers.**

Available Summer weeks:

July 5-12 Weekly rate $4900 + taxes
July 12-19 Weekly rate $4900 + taxes

**No hidden fees, EVERYTHING included**

Enjoy a peaceful and unique vacation experience amid the wild horses and shifting dunes of the northern Outer Banks, accessible with a 4WD vehicle.

02/05/2024

We’re upping our craft/art options for 2024 and these storage boxes with front opening access doors will work great in the kitchen pantry under the existing shelves.

This one contains nine adult coloring books (beach and ocean themed), 60 gel pens, 24 acrylic paints (for shell and ornament decorating), and two painting caddies (brush cleaner, pallet, paint storage). There are more new crafting supplies at the house already, and the two extra storage boxes will come in handy when organizing everything before the season starts.

We’re also gifting kids under 8 with coloring books and crayons in their goodie bags.

We love to do crafts on vacation, even though the kids are adults now, so our hope is guests will love what’s on site for their use too!

2024 season is almost completely booked! It’s going to be a fabulous summer.

What are your family vacation plans this year?

12/17/2023

We’re filling up fast for the 2024 season!

Holiday cards went out on Friday to all our past guests, inviting them back for a week with a 20% discount. We’re offering a 15% discount* to new guests who book direct using our website (www.SandyClawsNC.com) or Houfy.com/61951.

Ask us for an emailed quote today!

*Discount valid until Jan 31, 2024, not to be combined with other discounts offered.

05/21/2023

Our 2023 holiday ornaments for guests! These are plastic and round, but flattened and not a globe.

I hand lettered the front and back, filled sand directly from the yard, and then inserted tiny shells on top.

What do you think? Hoping guests like them! They’ll be able to fill them on their own with supplies here at the house.

05/19/2023

We’re back at the beach and are getting the house ready for the season!

It’s lightly raining today with wind. Pics below are my view: the beach while I work on reorganizing the supply closet (basically taking to-be-done projects out, and reorganizing what’s there) and unpack everything we brought.

Saw a couple of horses across the fields in neighbor’s yards, but they were too far away for pics.

More updates and pics to follow!

02/18/2023

We’re back in Corolla doing updates this winter, getting ready for the summer season!

First, our brand new king mattress from last summer didn’t last the season without getting body divets on each side, leaving a feeling you were rolling uphill when moving toward the center of the bed.

This year we’re going with a highly rated multi-layered foam mattress to hopefully avoid the same issue this season. It’s also encased in a waterproof bedbug cover and has a cotton mattress pad on top.

Next, I organized and filled all the kid goodie bags (bubbles, ocean animal sq**rt toys, candy, and a temporary beach tattoo), the starter suppy welcome package, and the adult goodie bags (sheet face mask, lotion, nail file). Still have a few items to add to the starter supply packages.

Between the bouts of rain yesterday, Pete replaced the plastic lattice privacy screening around the hot tub with wood slats (they match the surround he made for the AC units last year). The hope is the wood will cut down on the sand blown into covered the hot tub, as the lattice didn’t help much (and one sheet was torn in half from wind this winter).

Today I took some new staged pics of the living room (removed a piece of furniture, and the last pics were on a cloudy day), and Pete is building the new twin over full bunk bed for Twin Dune bedroom. We’ll be replacing the ceiling fan in there too, to an enclosed one safe for bunk beds.

We’re also adding a twin cot to King Beach, one with a 6” thick mattress, as the fold out ottoman was reported to be not comfortable for littke kids.

More pics to follow!

Who’s planning an OBX beach trip this year? If you’re still looking, we have weeks available!

www.SandyClawsNC.com

10/27/2022

Huzzah! We’ve just opened up our calendar on Houfy.com for the 2023 season.

Originally we’d planned to have a deck addition and a pool installed over the winter, but finding available contractors has proved to be more of a challenge than we expected. We have no timeframe to offer on if or when these projects will be completed, so we opted to keep rates mostly the same for next season.

We’re offering a 10% early bird discount for trips booked six months in advance. No code needed, it’s automatically applied at checkout.

Winter improvements will include a ceiling system under the second floor deck, which will allow for use of the first floor deck during rain. Two ceiling fans will be installed on the new ceiling as well. We’re also replacing the fridge in the kitchen, as the ice maker was slow and spotty at best.

Further improvements will be posted here as we decide on them. Thanks for your continued interest in Sandy Claws NC, and we would sincerely love to host your family next year!

Check out house pics and rates at these locations:

www.Houfy.com/61951

www.SandyClawsNC.com

Where are you going next summer? Even if it’s not the Outer Banks, we wish you a fabulous time!

Oct 27, 2022 - 2568 Views. Enjoy a peaceful and unique vacation experience amid the wild horses and shifting dunes of the northern Outer Banks, accessible with a 4WD vehicle.

09/03/2022

Ms Pac-Man and Asteroids join the Sandy Claws game wall!

05/05/2022

Days 45-49 of Renovation:

I haven’t written an update in a while, mostly because we had our oldest kid with us this weekend and I wanted to spend time with him. Believe it or not, most writers can’t churn out a long social media post with lots of detail without proof reading it several times and editing it for content — which can take me a while if I write long.

To fill you all in on details from our last visit that I never accounted online:

We had Atlantic Elevator, who originally installed our device, come out to service and inspect the machine. Pete didn’t ruin anything when we has servicing it himself (YAY!!) and all it needs is new brake pads. We were thrilled when the owner, Joey, said our brand is built like a tank and it should last us FOREVER with basic maintenance. Double yay!! Seriously, our first guests of the season have a wheelchair user in their party and we had been so stressed the darn thing was in need of replacement.

Next, the issues the kids reported in March regarding the upstairs AC not working well turned out to be spot on. The six year old units were rusted out so badly that one leaked all of its coolant and wasn’t working at all. That’s when we heard that most HVAC systems last about five years on the ocean due to the harsh weather with corrosive salt air.

We’ve got the new units on order (we figured it was smart to replace both at the same time, rather than have the second one go this summer with guests on site) and they should be installed within a week.

Fast forward to this visit:

To further combat/delay the inevitable corrosion, Pete built a fence surround around the ACs, hoping it could extend the life of the new units a little longer. We’ll only know if it works over time.

While he built the fence surround and new privacy screening for the hot tub, Addison spent three days painting a huge 46” Jack Skellington face with the house name and location for the fence.

It came out fabulous! The extra time to complete was due to applying FOUR coats of glow in the dark paint over the face and lettering. Of course, after we hung it Tuesday morning, the sky clouded up and we weren’t sure if the paint was fully “charged” when we took pics in the dark later that night. Hopefully we’ll get a bright sunny day before we leave and can check it out that night.

Pete also added more boards to the garbage caddy surround, to give it a sturdier, more finished appearance. Then he added boards between the house pilings under the water pump room (it’s raised off the ground and leaves three and a half to four feet of distance between it and the sand) so I could use it as an area to organize all the beach gear left for guest use.

“Organize” seems to be the best word to describe what I’ve been doing the past five days — that and all the odds and ends no one else wants to do. LOL!

I set up the tether ball game out in the yard, and Pete dug a concrete block down in the yard to secure the charcoal grill (to ensure guests don’t break NC law and move it closer to the house). He also salvaged old 6x6s from the neighbor’s construction project (with permission) and cut them down to make posts to close off access over our septic field. He strung rope between them as well, but took into account the horses and made the rope very slack and almost touching the ground, so they could walk over it easily.

I also installed hooks and set up all the folding beach chairs, umbrellas, umbrella stands, plastic Adirondack chairs, sand toys, shell buckets, drink holders mad for the sand, and wagon under the water room for guest use. Pete set up an outside shower that hooks to the hose in the yard. It’s a pretty cool design with a thick long black PVC body that holds water which is heated by the sun.

He also set up and filled the sand box. We put a tie down with hooks across the top and secured them under the base to keep the lid on and critters out of the clean sand. No families with kids under 3 this season yet, so the sand box might not get used this summer.

I set up new all-weather 2’x4’ corn hole boards under the house, in the shade, figuring guests could move it to the sunny area over the leach field if they wanted. Then I asked other OBX home owners if I needed to worry about all this expensive stuff left in the yard — meaning guests or a random drive by who decides to steal your amenities left for guests to use.

Most said to lock up anything you value, or is expensive to replace, while others suggested chaining hard to replace items in place. I hadn’t though I’d need to do that for yard games, but apparently if we want the heavy Polywood chairs and corn hole game to stay in the yard, yes, we do need to chain them somehow. I shopped for cable and locks yesterday to rig something up. I don’t want to have to secure items down, but I also want all the guests to be able to enjoy the listed amenities all season long.

It really is a struggle to determine if you’ve over-improved your home too much or if it’s just enough and guests will be thrilled. EVERYONE has prepared us for stuff to go missing. Small things I don’t care about, as they are a fact of renting. Broken dishes, missing glasses or silverware, broken small appliance, stained towels or sheets, scuffs on walls, doors dinged up, that’s what I consider normal wear and tear.

But to listen to owners who’ve done vacation rentals here for many years, well, it’s disheartening to say the least. My attitude has always been, if we provide nice things for the guests, they will appreciate it and treat the nice things like they would at their own home.

The reality is it’s a crap shoot. Some owners provide a lot of amenities for guests and don’t have issues, others provide the bare minimum their property managers require and still have issues with stealing and excessive damage.

Enough of my worries and let’s get back to the work done!

I’ve done so many small things over the last few days, along with two large and time consuming shopping trips. Seriously, the first one was 7 hours (last Friday), and the second one was yesterday, which was over 6 hours. Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “planning ahead.” No one wants to drive over an hour back to your house only to find you forgot a few small things. It’s seriously maddening.

We’ve become incredibly grateful of the nearby Ace Hardware store. If it’s not a highly specialized piece, they probably have what you need and are super friendly nice people to work with. They’ve saved me hours of time driving to get to the nearest HD or Lowes store. I’ve had to run into town to visit Ace twice so far, and I can make it there and back in under an hour.

I’ve worked on labeling the pantry with items in numbered locations, for the cleaner to inventory easier, hanging more hooks/drying racks for guests, labeling and organizing outdoor toys, installing the flag pole & mount (the flag looks awesome!!), built a wagon, hung curtains — only to then realize I must take them down and iron them and the other eight sets I have to hang (tomorrow’s joys).

In between projects I was calling contractors (elevator, HVAC, house cleaner) or stores (HD, Lowes, Ace) to get things scheduled or ordered. Oh, and called the local mattress store, because yup, this king bed has got to go. It’s not supportive at all.

It’s been a lot to juggle. Every time I think we’re coming down here fully prepared. Then the job and house tell us differently. And since I left a few sheets of laminated numbered labels at my house, I will be using my label maker and white card stock to finish labels throughout the house. Not the polished vibe I was going for, but it’ll do in a pinch.

So many, many guests responded to my inquiries on what was needed and what was too much, regarding organization in a beach rental. Hands down, they all wanted labels and organization. And the overall consensus regarding guests who might not like labels: I heard from commenters that those guests who don’t like them can ignore them.

Living in the house for a while, I can agree. Once I get to know where things go in the kitchen, I don’t have to read the labels, and therefore I don’t “see” them anymore, you know?

But for the light switches? Damn, I’ll still walk into the kitchen with its large and intimidating five-switch face plate and pause. That’s when I need the labels—so someone else will, too. Also, we’ve discovered three switches on the first floor with no apparent function/attachment. Hence, no labels on those buggers. I still don’t know what they do.

Which reminds me, there’s outlets and switches under the house that I don’t know well at all, so those will need labels for guests. Like I said — still so many small things to do!

The highlight of the last five days has been seeing the horses. Almost daily at the house. Twice when I drove into town, once for Ace, and yesterday for HD, I saw four horse harems (families) on the beach. One special grouping was a mare, her stallion, and their newborn foal. I did not stop to take a picture, but I did drive slowly by from far away, marveling at seeing the foal nuzzle under his mother’s midsection to nurse.

Big and small, I saw twenty different horses yesterday, that’s 1/5 of the whole herd, and each of them were simply breathtaking.

For all of you visiting the 4x4 area of Corolla NC anytime soon: when the winds come from the sound side of the island and brings the biting flies (even the small ones bite), the horses escape to the ocean side to avoid the flies. It’s a great time for driving slowly past from at least a fifty foot distance to see the relaxing horses. One even laid down while I was taking pics, just enjoying the wet sand.

I’m sure I missed stuff. Hopefully the pics cover everything worth seeing. I’ll share more pics as the week wears on and update on projects when I can.

04/13/2022

Day 44 of Sandy Claws NC Renovation:

Yesterday was full of small projects for me, and an unfortunate realization from Pete. He decided to take the housing apart to really get inside the elevator workings and see what’s what, and what his grease injection affected.

Well… he discovered why the elevator was slipping downward: the added lubricant spilled beyond the squeaky area that needed it, to coat the brake pads. No wonder why it wasn’t stopping as it should!

He tried several fixes, but nothing worked, including a suggestion I didn’t agree with, which was pouring in cornstarch to soak up the excess oil. I get that it can absorb grease, but it‘ll gunk up the works if it cant be removed by hand, so I’d have thought a degreaser or removing the brake pads to clean them would have been a better bet.

Today I’ll be calling Atlantic elevator again, because despite them telling us they won’t work on this brand, Pete found the service maintenance chart and they were the last to service the elevator back in 2015.

I worked on little things that weren’t glamorous but needed to be done:
— organized the pantry and added labels (still need to number and name them all)
— installed wire racks on the pantry door and the supply closet door
—organized the half bath where we were storing excess wood
—installed the last towel holder in the half bath to hold the beach blankets provided for guest use
—hung spice racks near the stove, loaded with existing spices and stored excess in supply closet.
— labeled all the folding drying racks with instructions on how to open, and hung rubber coated clothes clips at each one for guest use.
—swapped out the wall mounted touch-less soap dispensers in all bathrooms with the counter top model (as the wall one doesn’t work as well).
— Installed a plink-o type “game” for removing bottle caps in the kitchen.

Oh — and before Pete tackled the elevator again, he installed the new keyless door lock on the front door. Now I have to access it online and learn how to program it for unique codes for all the upcoming guests.

But the highlight of my day was our after dinner walk on the beach, which turned into a sea shell gathering trip. A local friend mentioned a house she was visiting that had all these hand painted shells outside, grouped around the base of the house. Each one was painted and dated with names of the people who vacationed in the home. I’d love to start the same type of tradition at Sandy Claws, so gathering large shells was the first step.

I plan to place them in a wooden bushel bucket on the deck with paint pens nearby for guests to decorate their own. Hopefully they’ll like the idea enough to add their family’s names and the date of their stay to the shell-scape in our yard.

We stopped and chatted with the guests staying at Ocean’s 8 next door, and with a family staying further up the beach who had fishing lines in the water. It was nice to make small talk and wish people a great stay here. One pre-teen girl asked what I was collecting, as she saw my hands full of shells (because of course I didn’t think to bring a bucket with me), and while we chatted with her dad and granddad, she ran around and gathered some for me in the colors I was seeking. Such a sweet kid!

Afterwards we grabbed drinks and had the first ever fire in the fire pit down in the yard. We really needed the time to just be. To enjoy the beauty that is all around us. It was so peaceful and relaxing, watching the fire and hearing the ocean roaring nearby.

Lots of pretty sky pics today to share. If you want a copy for a screen saver on your computer or phone, just comment on the pic you want and I’ll send it to you via FB PM.

Wishing you all a fantastic day! I’ve got more small projects today to get started on.

04/12/2022

Day 43 of Sandy Claws NC Renovation:

Today I was able to get some extra sleep as the sky clouded over soon after sunrise and I didn’t have the sun flaring in through the closed blinds. Which of course, has now prompted me to think about black out curtains for the south side of the house, or else the occupants of King Beach and Queen Dune bedrooms will wake up with the sun all summer long.

Yesterday I took things a little slower. My body was not happy with me on Sunday and paid me back with stiffness and pain Monday morning. So I stretched and then sat down to write the long ass post recapping Day 42, then responded to many many people regarding access to the Sandy Claws House Manual/Welcome Guide, and granted them access to the file for them to copy and edit for their own homes.

And did more laundry, which is still sitting in the washer and dryer, so I can’t say I’ve accomplished that task yet. A little before noon, I started prepping the install of the Crab sea glass piece over the cooktop. I measured and marked where it would go, then started painting with accents of white and lots of two shades of blue labeled as “color shift” paint. I’d describe it as an iridescent-like finish within the paint color.

I stepped back, viewed my work, and realized the damn thing was off center by 1 inch. I held the Crab piece up to it, and realized the wave I’d painted would crest under the crab and wouldn’t be seen. So I got out the wall paint, painted the areas I needed to fix, and marked the design limit better, and re-did the wave.

I really thought mounting the picture to the studs in the wall was going to be an easy task, as I’d already done it the same way in the dining room the last time we were here. But nope. I didn’t drill the pilot holes deep enough and the damn star-headed screws for decking wouldn’t budge. Taking four partially embedded screws back out of recessed holes in a thin frame was not easy.

I had to call in Pete from the back deck to help (literally me yelling “please come HELP me” because the nearby sliding door was shut and I needed my voice to carry), as the last screw was sunk deep into the cheap MDF painted frame, and if I pulled too hard to remove the sunken screw from the wall, I risked destroying it.

Pete was able to slowly back out the screw while I held the frame from falling. So I try again, same sized drill bit, pressing that damn thing to the drywall this time, hoping the pilot hole was now deep enough. I go through the whole process again, balancing the entire art piece on a 1x2 so it’ll be level when screwed into the studs. And it still doesn’t go in far enough! The screws stop with ¼ still extended from the frame.

Now cursing these stupid 2.5” star headed deck screws, I repeat the entire process, except this time I have to call for help on a different screw that’s stuck (and I was smart enough to have him within hearing distance this time.) I grab a much longer drill bit, determined to get this freaking thing up TODAY, but also laughing at myself for choosing too narrow of sized drill bit for a pilot hole.

My rationale was the pilot holes should be only as large as necessary, so the screw driving in can dig in deep on all sides for a strong bond. Now the pilot holes needed to be wider to be longer, and I feared my mucking it up twice would mean the screws wouldn’t have anything to grab.

Thankfully, I was wrong and my previous mistakes made the third time the charm. LOL It finally went up smoothly and without a hitch!! To say I was relieved would be an understatement. Oh — and each time I unscrewed the mostly sunk screws, it pulled out wood dust and dry wall into the glass and sparkles in the picture!

I had to clean it out with a dry brush every time I took it off the damn wall. I was frustrated, but I knew if I skipped a step and saw dust in there later I’d want to hit something.

I’m beyond thrilled to report my other two sea glass art pieces went up much much smoother! A tape measure, a drill, eyelets and picture wire, and I had both the Wave piece and the Sandy Claws one hung in less than an hour. First try on both, no simple mistakes. Yay!

I had originally planned to hang the Sandy Claws one on the wall area over the downward staircase from the second floor to the first floor (opposite the fish and map pics on the stair landing.) But once I hung the Wave up, still standing on the ladder, I looked back toward the stairs and saw the smaller window over the animated crab light, and knew it would fit.

It came out fabulous! So glad I hung it there instead of on a wall. The light pours through it at sunset, making it glow.

While I was busy doing all this, Pete decided to vacuum and scrape the remaining two slider door tracks, adjusted the roller wheels on the heavy doors, and installed the last two screen doors. He was able to find the reset switch on the elevator, and was very pleased to report the elevator is now working smoothly and silently, like a charm… except once you get off it starts to slowly descend to the first floor! LOL!!

We’re speculating the he was a little overzealous with the l**e *haha* and it’s blocking a sensor or engagement piece to hold the elevator in place. But, in his exploring of the inner mechanical workings, he did discover who makes it, and it’s not the out of business company we thought, but one that’s been around for a long time, Thyseen Crupp, so we’re hopeful we can get a service manual or find someone who can service it.

The long day came to a peaceful conclusion with frozen pizza for dinner and a long relaxing soak in the hot tub, listening to the waves crash nearby (which were amazing when you turned the jets off).

Oh, and we saw lots of horses. Or more like the same horses over and over through out the day. I’ve included lots of pics.

Let me know what you think of the art pieces. When I showed my kids last night via a FaceTime chat, Jack commented with something like, “I don’t get it, you painted the wall behind the crab?”

Uh, yeah. LOL

04/06/2022

Last night I printed a copy of the house manual/welcome guide for Sandy Claws NC, made a cover using the cover page, and bound the book using duo-coil wire binding.

The colors turned out bold and bright, it looks really good! There’s still some info I need to add when we get to the house — like the pantry contents and local numbers for towing service, and I’ll tweak the layout a bit too.

Think I’ll decrease the size of the red header across the top and will lower the page numbers and house icon in each lower corner. Plus, adjust the margins on each page as I’m seeing inconsistencies with where each page starts.

Total is 44 pages! 😳

Overall, I’m really pleased with how it’s coming together. Can’t wait to share the finished PDF with our upcoming guests!

What do you think? I’m hoping the house copy doesn’t wander off, but I plan to make extra copies in the supply closet, just in case.

03/31/2022

Woohoo! Here's a finished view of the Sea Glass art I created for Sandy Claws NC. The glue is still drying under some of the large pieces and it's been over a month since they were completed.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite?

03/25/2022

Finally finished! Sandy Claws ornaments for this season’s guests.

Still tying ribbon hangers for the rest, and will need to touch up the red around some of the lettering. The white paint pens made the job go fast! But they also had a tendency to catch on the wood and fling paint.

I’m glad I gave hand lettering a try over buying stickers. The paint will last longer, I think. I was worried the decal might pull away from the rough wood surface.

I put the year on about twenty of them so far, in anticipation of the families already reserved to stay this summer.

On our next trip down I’ll start assembling the welcome baskets, spa baggies for adults, and goodie bags for the younger kids. Yay! So nice to see a plan come together.

What do you think of them? I’m still annoyed about the red paint showing through under the sandy areas.

02/08/2022

Check out our new toddler tub for young children!

We were very aware of parent’s need for an easy way to bathe young children in a house with no bathtubs (only showers), so I found this beauty on AliExpress and patiently waited the four months it took for delivery.

What do you think? I like the support legs for just in case they’re needed. This lovely tub folds flat and will be hung in King Beach’s bathroom for easy access.