[seagulls squawking]
This kid. We're never gonna get him out of the water now.
This is what I miss, being a kid.
[girl] Right?
[woman]I love those little moments where the kids are laughing.
Where one kid opens up
because we're all together and shares something they wouldn't have
if we had just been...
going about our normal day.
That's what I want this house to be.
A place where we're together.
It's the moments that you have,
like hanging out together,
telling stories, playing a game.
That are the things I remember the most.
And I hope our kids do, too.
[waves splashing]
I met my husband, Jeff, in Georgia.
We actually went to high school together.
I kind of thought I would stay in Georgia forever.
But when he took this job, he-he called me.
He was like, "Yeah, we're going to LA."
And I was like, "We're going to Louisiana?"
He was like, "No. Los Angeles." He was like, "Come on, Kim."
California just became home.
We bought a house in Santa Clarita.
We would go on the weekends
out to Carpinteria or Ventura
'cause it was the closest beach.
So we were always packing up.
And that's kind of how we discovered Hollywood Beach.
We were constantly looking for houses up and down the beach.
This was the cheapest house.
When you looked up the entire coast of California,
this was the cheapest house.
We just kind of knew,
"Okay, this is where we're going to retire together."
The Shug Shack...
is our home away from home.
I've got three kids.
Ella, Harry, who is away at college right now, and Hollis.
And the reason we named it the Shug Shack
is after my late husband, Jeff.
His mother is a true Southern belle,
and she would call him Jeffrey Sugar.
It's kind of evolved from Jeffrey Sugar to Shug.
Like, I always called him Shug.
The minute we walked in,
we were, like, already imagining what we were gonna do to it.
[Jeff speaking]
[Kim] We were like, "Man, this really is small."
I mean, we knew it was only 900 square feet,
but then when you see 900 square feet, you're like,
"Man, it really is 900 square feet. It's so tiny."
Then we realized how much we loved that.
We called it "forced family fun."
The kids had to hang out with us,
and we actually became closer as a family.
After losing Jeff,
it was hard renovating,
but my heart was, "Okay, I cannot let this dream die."
This little patio area
is really unique for our house
because most of the homes around here are a little bigger,
if people have redone them.
So they're-- They don't have this outdoor space.
Even though our house is smaller,
I love that we have this outdoor space
'cause it gives us more of an area to hang out outside.
You enter the living room.
To your left is the kitchen.
Down the hallway on your left is the guest bathroom.
And bedroom.
And on the right is the primary bedroom
with the primary bathroom.
We wanted the house to be calm.
When we first walked in here,
the first thing I remember
is that it was dark. So dark.
Everything was brown.
One of the things I knew I had to do
was put in new windows and doors.
It let some sunlight in there.
Now I feel like it just brightened everything up.
The kitchen was this little bit of space
that just blew my mind.
I was like, "This cannot be right."
This could be so much better.
So by getting rid of the door,
closing that up,
it really opened the kitchen up.
Jeff loved to cook.
We called him Chef Jeff.
If our friends were over here,
he would be at the stove.
And everyone was always gathered around,
at the bar.
That was, like, the greatest night ever.
If I could, like, do one of those nights over,
I would give any amount of money up for that.
And now he's passed it down to Ella.
[Ella] And try to make a sauce out of the avocado.
We'll improvise. We'll-we'll figure it out.
[Kim]Jeff had been a little sick.
He had been having some stomach pains.
The doctors told us he had cancer.
It was, like, super fast.
The whole time, he was like,
"Now there's just gonna be a little blip in the road."
The cancer spread, and when it did,
that was like, "Okay, we gotta face this."
And selfishly, I was, like, having a really bad day
'cause I couldn't stand the thought of losing him.
He just looked at me and he was like,
"You know what, Kim? We're the lucky ones."
We found each other. We had a great life,
and we love our kids.
He was like, "This is pretty amazing.
If I could not have cancer and have a different life,"
he was like, "There's no way I would change it."
A light bulb went off in my head,
and instead of being so sad at what I was losing,
I started becoming more thankful.
I think it's what's kept me going.
It's what made me come to this house
and redo it. Like, I just was like,
"I'm not giving up on this dream.
I'm not throwing in the towel
just because things have taken a turn."
Like, this can still be beautiful.
The man loved to relax at the beach.
Like, he did. Like, when we come here,
we all feel it.
It's funny. We all look around at each other and we know.
We're all thinking about him.
The thing that reminds me of Jeff more than anything else
is, honestly, the bathrooms.
Jeff always said, "When we have our forever home,
love those plaster bathrooms,
and I want that Spanish feel."
So this, I just designed on my own.
I saw stuff online.
I had no idea what I was doing, redoing this house.
It was hard renovating
to not try to make things be perfect.
But one thing that I found after losing Jeff is...
perfect is way overrated.
Okay, This is the guest bedroom.
This is the smallest of the rooms.
We went with a custom built bed in here,
and the reason I chose to do it
is because all three of my kids can come here.
It kind of makes it fun because everyone just bunks in there together.
So this is the primary bedroom.
Jeff and I, on Sundays,
used to walk around the swap meet,
and this was my first piece
that I bought when I was in California.
I mean, I think I probably paid $5 for it,
but it's just special.
I got into antique furniture,
something of which I've always loved.
You can tell when you walk through the house, like, I love old stuff.
I love antiques.
And Jeff encouraged me to start my own business.
You buy what you love and you kind of hold onto it
and it'll find a special spot.
This bathroom was not even here.
This was actually the living room.
I really wanted to add that second bathroom,
so I knocked down
the wall in the living room
and we pulled it up a little.
If it had just been me, I would have just done something regular
because I knew it was gonna be a pain with the plaster.
But that was his favorite thing,
and that's why I had to make that happen.
So the doors, we added in.
We kind of just keep the doors open all the time, and that's,
like one of the great things about living at the beach.
We come out here and eat a lot.
This is where we'll have dinner
and listen to the ocean while you eat.
-[bicycle bell rings] -And there he goes.
[laughing]
If Jeff hadn't have wanted this so much,
I wouldn't be sitting here right now.
I do it because he loved this.
He loved coming to the beach.
He loved coming to the beach with the kids and me.
We always say this was, like, his happy place.
I always feel him when I'm here.
And I can't be out near the ocean
and near all this without thinking of him.
Yeah?
[Hollis speaking]
-[Kim] Yeah? -[Hollis speaking]
[Kim] I want a place
that creates moments for me and for my kids
because at the end of the day,
that's all you have.
I care about us coming in here
and hanging out,
and having these memories
'cause it's really all you take with you to the end.