Lake House ReDO: Befores & Afters Part I

I've never professed to be a decorator, a designer,

or anything related to a home improvement guru.

But what I do know is, when faced

with a problem, I just dig in

and make a decision.

The house was built in the fifties.

It seemed like the former owner's

motto was "just add whatever,

after all, it's just a lake house."

Outlet covers didn't match,

the rug was in a bad shape,

the last time the kitchen was

updated was the late seventies.

Below are a few "before and after" shots

of the lake house we recently acquired.

So far, I'm pretty happy with the results!

Here is the kitchen.

I can't believe I am showing the mess

in there for the "before" but hey,

it is what it is!
We were in a mad dash to get as much done

as possible in the first visit.

We decided to go with the same cabinets,

use paint to save money, and just

replace the old hardware.

It turned out that this was not the first time

these cabinets had been reused! There were

old holes behind the holes of the hardware!

So, hubby had to fill in all of the old holes

before replacing the drawers and doors

with the new hardware.

A new counter top and voila!

A completely new look

while keeping within our budget.

Then there was the knotty pine debate.
Should I keep it or get rid of it?

We decided to slice it in half.

Paint the bottom and add dry

wall to the top portion.

Turned it into wainscoting and

I decided not to look back.

So happy that many of you on the blog

and in person have told me "you did the right thing!"

The couch was a craigslist find!

Hardly ever used in someone's guest room.

The lady was happy to hear

we were going to use it

in our lake house. 

The chair with the blue denim cushion

was found at Salvation Army during

one of their "fifty percent off"

furniture days.
We replaced the old gold velour cushion

with the blue denim and it fits

just perfectly there.

I wish I had taken a picture of the before!

The lesson we learned there...

While the chair itelf was cheap

the fabric and materials needed

to make the cushions proved to be

very expensive! We could have

saved money on the fabric but didn't

A lesson for another time!

Hope you enjoyed a peek into our

"behind the scenes" of a lake

house redo, on a budget...

Until next time,