My 6 Week Airbnb Lake House Coastal Makeover
Hi friends, welcome to Postbox Designs, Interior E-Design! If you are brand new here, my name is Kristin, I’m a Mama of 3, Rice Krispie addict, and lover of chai tea. Most days, you can find me in my uniform of skinny jeans, t-shirt, and barefoot a messy bun! I’m usually working on designs for my clients all over the country via Online Interior Design, with my Doodle Jasper by my side. While I’ve been an Interior Designer for about 13 years now, I started my company three years ago and have doing exclusively E-Design since. Why the switch? I personally had a crazy busy schedule trying to juggle work, kids, and “life”, and found it hard to fit in “extras” during my day, so I realized…I’m probably not alone. If you are a multi-tasking rock star you know the idea of trying to meet all over town with an Interior Design might be a stretch. So I created Postbox Designs so you can order your custom designed room in an hour…in your PJs over a cup of coffee. Yah, baby.
And for the next few weeks I’m going to mix it up a bit. Normally I’m sharing my client projects, but for the next six weeks I’m sharing a project of my own! Two years ago we purchased a small lake house near our home in Michigan and are renting it out via Airbnb as well. It needed a bit of TLC before it would look like the cottage I envisioned in my head. But oh how it oozed potential, plus it was directly on a peaceful lake with a private dock. So I’m choosing to do this makeover as part of this Spring’s One Room Challenge. This is a bi-annual event where designers all over the country makeover their own rooms during the same span of time.
If you want to follow along during the reno, I’ll share all of the Room Designs, Shopping Lists & more, all for FREE!
Lake House Makeover: The Plan
There are several rooms I want to tackle during this six week makeover, but for Week #1 I’m going to concentrate on the design plans for the two main rooms on the first floor: The Living Room and Dining Room. And every week I’ll show you the progress we are making, and I’ll continue to unveil the design plan for the Bedrooms, Den, and Breakfast Room of our lake house Airbnb rental.
Lake House Living Room Coastal Makeover
So let’s start with the first (and most important) room: the Living Room! Here is what we are starting with:
The Existing Living Room
The Good Things
PLUS: This Living Room overlooks our beautiful lake, so you can see the boats passing by, and we can watch our kids play in the sand right in front of the home
PLUS: I think it is a nice size: not too big and not too small. Whether we are using this room for our own family, or renting it out, I didn’t want a huge space to clean and take care of
The Bad Things
MINUS: I don’t love the idea of having carpet near the water-it has got to go
MINUS: The walls of this simple cottage are plywood…I think we can fancy it up
MINUS: We need to start over with all new furniture and light fixtures
MINUS: The acoustical ceiling tile has got to go
MINUS: There is a wall between the Living Room & Sunroom that cuts off the best view of the lake
Lake House Coastal Living Room Design Inspirations
So what’s the vision for our new lake house Living Room? I’m picturing pure white walls with board & batten wall treatments, and shiplap white ceilings. I’m also picturing more of a classic red, white, and blue casual coastal look for our Living Room. I also want furniture that is comfortable, durable, and easy to clean since we will also be using this as an Airbnb rental. Oh yeah….and we have three kids + water = it needs to hold up to wet swimsuits and sandy bottoms!
So here are some rooms that inspired me….
I loved this coastal Living Room makeover for it’s black metal lights, white shiplap, and navy & white stripe rug:
Image Source: Apartment Therapy
I loved this classic navy and white Living Room decor combo, and the slipcovered sofas (a must-have for me), with the pops of rustic wood:
Image Source: Style at Home
I have a major (slightly problematic) obsession with navy and white stripes, so I know that is going to be part of our coastal Living Room makeover, but I also love the white sofas and rattan of this family room:
Image Source: The Lilypad Cottage
And for this last coastal Living Room inspiration, I’m imagining a similar combo of white board and batten walls with a white shiplap ceiling. Plus, I thinking of a similar light colored sectional sofa for our own Lake House Living Room:
Image Source: The Lilypad Cottage
Our Airbnb Lake House Design Plan: A Coastal Living Room Design
Okay, so now I’ve shown you what we have to work with, and some of my dream coastal Living Room inspirations. So…what the heck am I going to do with my own Living Room? I have a plan!
Main Hang Out Area
I’m thinking of a large slipcovered sectional sofa (#2) that will seat a crowd, with lots of blue and white throw pillows (#10-13), a galvanized topped coffee table (#6) , and all new lighting (#4 & 5). This will be centered around a TV area when people are taking a break from the lake.
Fireplace Seating Area/Game Area
Also, we have a long skinny Living Room area, and an existing stone fireplace that seems a bit lost. So I wanted to break up our Living Room into two sections. The second section will be a smaller seating area with buffalo check armchairs (#16), and a large round table (#15) for game nights or playing cards. I’m going to center this area in front of the fireplace, and also found some items for our fireplace mantle, such as Item #17.
I wanted to put in a few coastal elements like the coral (#8), lobster pillow (#11) and canoe print (#17). But I also wanted to add in some more subtle coastal flair with textures such as the driftwood finishes (#6), nautical inspired lights (#5), and rattan pieces (#7 and #18).
Lakehouse “Breakfast Room” Makeover
On the other side of our Living Room is a small area that we are calling the “Breakfast Room”, we are going to keep a table in this area so we can have a lot of extra seating when we are hosting gatherings, or people rent our cottage. We will start over with the furniture and lighting. The plan is to remove the drop ceiling if we can, but keep the existing floors. They aren’t my favorite, but you have to stop somewhere with a renovation!
The existing Breakfast Room
Lake House Dining Room Coastal Makeover
And for the second Room Plan I’m showing today…is for a room that doesn’t even existing is our Lake House yet! Unfortunately there is a wall that cuts off most of the lake view running along the Living Room and a Sunroom. We didn’t have much need for a separate Sunroom, and we would much rather have a more open floor plan that allows for a Dining Room.
The Existing Sunroom:
Plans for the Sunroom-Turn-Dining Room Space
The plan is to remove these French doors and wall to open up the two areas. We will need to remove the drop ceiling, replace the floor in both rooms, and insulate this Sunroom area.
Coastal Dining Room Design Inspirations
Since the Dining Room will now to totally open to our Living Room, I want the areas to flow into each other. So we will paint all of the walls white, as well as add board and batten to BOTH rooms, so they will feel like one open space. New lighting and new furniture will also be part of the Dining Room makeover.
I love this black lantern style light fixture, white Windsor chairs, and white board and batten walls from this coastal Dining Room:
Image Source: The Lilypad Cottage
I love the combo of this rustic wood Dining Room table and black Windsor chairs:
Image Source: House & Home
And finally, I love this light and airy look of this coastal style Dining Room:
Image Source: Life on Virginia Street
Our Airbnb Lake House Design Plan: A Coastal Dining Room Design
The Mood Board below actually shows a combination of the furniture for our future Dining Room and also for our future Breakfast Room area. Cottage style furniture, woven shades, black chandelier, and pops of red, white, and blue will finish off both spaces. I really wanted to use these metal chairs (#8) for our main Dining Room as I think they will hold up great with wet swimsuits.
Grab the Shopping List for this Coastal Living Room & Dining Room
I’m putting ALL of the Design Plans for our Airbnb Lake House Makeover in my FREE RESOURCE LIBRARY. Inside you will find dozens of Free Room Designs, Guides, Shopping Lists for just about every room of your home, and more! When you sign up, you will get an email with the link and password so you can access this Design Library 24/7!
Click below to grab the Shopping Lists & Design Plans:
So What’s Next in our Airbnb Lake House Makeover?
This week I’m showing you the Design Plan for our Living Room & Dining Room. Next week I’m going to show you the Design Plans for the upstairs of our Lake House. While it is a small home, there are two small bedrooms and a hang-out space that we are going to make into a haven for our three kids.
I’ll also share all of the “During” photos as we work on our construction projects: removing the wall, new flooring, removing the ceilings, and adding board and batten everywhere…plus lots of painting to do!
One Room Challenge
And definitely check out the hundreds of other projects going on at the same time as part of the One Room Challenge: Spring 2019!
I’ll see you back here next week and I’ll show you the Design Plans I have for our Kid’s Triple Bunk Room and Hang Out Space!
P.S. If you want to know more about anything you saw today or have any questions about how Interior E-Design works, drop me a line at kristin@postboxdesigns.com and we can chat more!
Cheers,
Kristin
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