Airbnb Lakehouse Makeover: Week #2
Hi friend, Welcome to Postbox Designs, Interior E-Design! If this is your first time here, I’m in the middle of sharing something special/crazy/exciting/stressful…It is Week #2 of my Airbnb Lakehouse rental! If you missed last week’s post I gave you the background story to our Lakehouse renovation. But I’ll catch you up in a few short sentences: my family purchased a small 1,100 SF lake front home about two years ago. The location and the size was perfect for our family of five, but let’s just say the finishes and furniture didn’t quite match our vision. In fact we nicknamed our cottage “The Burrow”. For any of your fellow Harry Pottery fans out there, this tiny cottage had at least four different additions to it, so we joked it reminded us of the rambling house of Harry’s BFF Ron Weasley. But this cottage oozed potential. Not only did we want our friends and family to enjoy it, but we also are making it into an Airbnb rental so we get to share our home with others.
But no worries, we have a Plan! In fact, I shared the Design Plan for our Living Room, Dining Room, and Breakfast rooms last week.
I’m also sharing this makeover as part of the amazing One Room Challenge! Twice a year hundreds of designers makeover the rooms of their choice-all during the same six weeks. It is a lot of fun, and a great way to cheer other people on as they embark on their own projects. That being said-the perfect excuse to share a whole house project.
You can check out the design plans for this space plus I’m sharing the Room Designs + Shopping List for all four of these rooms…FOR FREE. You can check it out, along with all of the other goodies from Week #1 right here:
Lakehouse Makeover Week #1: Get 4 Free Room Designs
Airbnb Lakehouse Rental Week #2: The Demo Begins
So last week I promised there would be some ripping down of walls and ceilings. And oh boy, were there. I have worked in the remodeling world for about 13 years and very rarely do I get to say this:
We had a pleasant surprise when we started ripping things down.
Usually you find a bigger mess than you expected, and there is almost always some “surprise” hidden in the walls. But we got lucky.
We tore down the wall between our Living Room and Sunroom because we wanted to open up the space and make it feel larger. Also, this wall blocked the best view…the lake. So now when you walk in the front door you are smacked with the beautiful view of that water. We didn’t really have a use for a Sunroom, but now with that wall gone, we made it into an open space Dining Room to seat six (plus there is still extra space for larger gatherings).
When we tore down the wall, we also decided to tear down the existing acoustical tile ceiling in the Sunroom. Not only were they ugly and industrial looking, but we were almost sure they hid something. And they did…
Something gorgeous and unexpected.
When we took down the ceiling we realized we were looking at the original side of the home with a tall, angled ceiling that gave our ceilings about an extra 8 feet of space! Without adding an inch, the room felt like it doubled in size. Instead of cramped low ceilings we now had a soaring ceiling that we could do something special with it. Okay, now these are ROUGH boards, so we will need to replace them, but I was thrilled to see this fun surprise.
Uncovering History with our Lakehouse Makeover
We also decided to tear down the stick up ceiling tile in the Living Room. And again, I was bracing myself for the worst…asbestos, water damage, something….
Instead, we revealed the very cool, rustic original ceiling of the cottage. Unfinished wood ceiling beams that helped reveal the history of this little Lakehouse. If you look closely you can see construction notes someone wrote. It was perfect. And we immediately agreed to keep it as is-we wouldn’t touch a thing about our newly uncovered ceiling. We even left the exposed nails (but bent them back for safety).
So while we are tearing down walls and ceilings downstairs, I still have a plan for the upstairs. Luckily no major construction work needs to happen up there: just paint and furnishings.
Lakehouse Room Makeover #4: Kid Hang Out Space
The Future Kid Hang-Out Space: The Existing
When you go upstairs, this is the first room you come to (and both upstairs bedrooms are right off this main room). When we bought our cottage, there was a set of bunkbeds in there. We kept these beds in here for the first year, but knew we eventually wanted to do something different. The previous homeowners had added this faux wood ceiling, so we will keep that, as well as the existing (new) carpet.
And as you can tell-this tiny room is a funky space to work with. There is the existing chimney, a slope ceiling, and three doorways to deal with. But with the two upstairs bedrooms were off this room, so we thought it would be the perfect second gathering space.
Lakehouse Kid Hang Out Area: The Room Design
So if you are like me, and want to fast forward through the construction over every HGTV show to see the last 5 minutes…I got your back. While it will be a few more weeks until the final reveal, I wanted to share another Design Plan…for this Kid Space that will also double as another sleeping option for guests. When we are done this small cottage will be able to sleep nine people.
This hang-out space is large enough for a sofa, TV, and coffee table. So we figured it would be a great place for the kids to watch a movie, play games, or be alone when they didn’t want to hang with the boring grown-ups. And since we are making this into an Airbnb rental, I wanted to use a pull-out sofa in here to get another bed.
Since this space was mostly going to be for our three school-age kids (and their buddies), I wanted this space to feel bright and fun.
And because I had to furnish an entire house in just a few short weeks I wanted to make sure I was using budget friendly finds. All of the artwork I used in this room was digital downloads from Etsy-the most I paid for any print was less than $8! Then I am using inexpensive white Target frames to create a simple coastal Gallery Wall.
Get the Free Room Design:
Lakehouse Kid Hang Out Space + Guest Bedroom Design
During this whole 6 Week Airbnb Lakehouse Makeover, I’m sharing the FREE Room Designs and Shopping Lists for each space! I have shared 4 Room Designs in these first two weeks (Living Room, Dining Room, Breakfast Room, and now our Kid’s Hang Out Space). You can grab them all in my FREE RESOURCE LIBRARY. When you sign up, you will get an email and password so you can access the entire Library 24/7. Not only are these Room Designs in there, but dozens of FREE Room Designs, Guides, Lists, and more-you can find room designs for just about every room of your home.
Grab the Free Room Designs:
Coming Up Next Week in the Airbnb Lakehouse Makeover
So what is coming up for Week #3 in this Makeover? Now that we have torn out walls and ceilings…it is time to start putting things back together again! Next week is all about drywall, insulation, flooring, and lighting.
Next week I will also share the final Room Design-our Kid’s Triple Bunkroom!
And if you want oodles of design ideas, you can check out the hundreds of room designs that are going on right now all over the country. It is part of the One Room Challenge!
Cheers,
Kristin
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