For those of you who don't know, we have a small lake cottage about an hour from our home that we totally enjoy in the summer. I have decorated it on the utmost cheap budget. Most of what is there was either left by the previous owners, found a thrift stores, resale shops, garage sales, clearance sales or given to us by family and friends. All of this scouring, finding, gathering and repurposing, has left us with a cozy little place to enjoy in the warm months (and sometimes even in the cold ones), where we can spend time with friends and family. Some of these things you may have seen on my blog before, but just wanted to share a few of my favorite things that have transformed our cottage into what it is today.
when we first bought the cottage
New outdoor colors...
Sorry for all the construction debris in the front yard of this one, but it was the only one I could find of the front right now...
We have 2 small attic type rooms upstairs that we use as the kids rooms. We transformed on of them from this...
... to this. Here is the girls room. Couldn't find the pics of my sons room right now, will show you those another time, but love how the girls room turned out. The bottom is a wide 3'+ border that I had the paint for the walls and ceiling color matched to. Added the clouds, and even some glow in the dark stars that show up at night.
An old windowpane and vintage post cards from the lake - most 1920-1930 that I aput on the back of the glass with clear scrapbook photo corners - this is one of my favorites because it has so much history!
My vintage enamelware pots - most I can and do use - others are too damaged, and just hand there as decoration.
This is one piece of a 3 piece set of vintage aluminum patio furniture I got at a flea market for $80 and included new cushions that I just recovered - they were butt ugly. The other 2 pieces include a rocker and a couch that folds down into a daybed. When the girls have friends at the lake they love to sleep on it in the screen porch!
The only before pics I had of this table were on my cellphone that died before I could download them. It was an ugly very dark 70's walnut type finish. I first painted the table all red (same color as the chair on the left) and the top white. It looked great in my mind, but the reality was completely different, so I had to go back to the home improvement store and rethink my strategy.
I sanded the top to remove some of the white paint, then added a royal blue stain to it and several coats of polyurethane.
I painted over the red legs and base with white, and then sanded it to distress it and reveal the red underneath. Then added several coats of polyurethane to it to keep it from distressing too much more with use and to keep the white paint white - it is a lake and lots of bare feet resting on the base if you know what I mean...
One of our biggest projects was the construction of the tree house.
There is a big long story about the tree house if you are interested you can read my blog post about it here...
I also couldn't find the pics of it finished - we painted all the railings and support pieces to match the house, and painted the whole inside white.
My cousin Lori painted the name of our lake on this old oar we found at a thrift store during one of our annual "junking" adventures!
There is so much more I could and will show on upcoming posts...
4 comments:
I love your lake house. The girls room is so cheerful and sweet. The table turned out fab. I love the rustic look of it.
I love that table and the red front door!
love that place...your pictures don't do it justice...it's so cozy and breezy and relaxing. thanks for sharing it with us! xo
I love your vintage pots. They look great on the wall as art.
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