Michael Lake House-The Big Room, Part 2

So our little Lake House is about 1,100 square feet with three small bedroom.  It has a lovely large room that is surrounded with large windows, exactly what you'd want living on Lake Erie.  But I'll admit it needed work!

We hired a friend who is a wonderful contractor to renovate for us.  The first order of business was to remove the carpet and strip the paint from the wood floors.  The wood floors extended to the entire great room and the two bedrooms that were off of the room on the right hand side in this picture.  The walls (and floors) were also full of holes and cracks and other wierd things, so our contractor also re surfaced all of the walls in the big room. 

This is his progress and what it looked like after he worked his magic

We also wanted to work through a couple of the room oddities, like the weird fireplace wall and the mirror that was embedded in the wall on the right. It would be a matter of replacing the whole wall to remove it, so we decided to work with it.  Our contractor found old reclaimed barn wood and built a fireplace feature over the odd chimney.  He also found old wood in the garage of the house and trimmed out the mirror.  Both of these things work really well with the style and era of the home! We also decided to white wash the fireplace to brighten up and update the room.

After he finished the floors, walls, and replacing oodles and oodles of trim, Conrad and I came in and painted.  It tooks us a LOT of time to prime and paint this large room.  I choose a light gray, as I was trying to keep the house a light color since the walls and ceiling were dark.  I also wanted the colors of the rooms to reflect sand and sea.  I refinished an old dining set and coffee table I found on craigslist, scoured thrift stores for accent pieces and rummaged through our own house to finish the room.  I was happy with the outcome!

 These chairs were the only big items we bought new for the house.  And after searching and searching for the just the right thing, these from Walmart actually, did the trick.  I choose burlap fabrics and wood accents to use throughout the house, and feel like it really worked! 

We have done even more since these pictures were taken, like mounted a big screen TV over the fireplace, installed a nice electric fireplace, and restuffed the saggy pull out sofa, which came from our home, and endless other small details!

Couch Before and After

Bad picture of TV and fireplace..

Old table and lamp refurbished.

Here are some side by side before and after's

 Thanks for stopping by.  Stay tuned for the master bedroom makeover!