Welcome to our home! It’s relaxed and ready for a virtual coastal style summer home tour. Please come in and look around.
A huge hello and welcome to our casual, coastal style summer home tour! In case you’re new here, I’m Shannon and I’m so glad you’re here. Truly. I believe that anyone can learn to decorate their home and my goal is to help our blog readers and subscribers to create the well-decorated home they want through this blog – and through our decorating book called Cozy & Beautiful too. If you’re not new and you’ve been around awhile – hello, old friend. Of course, I’m so glad you’re here too. In this post I’m sharing our most complete home tour to date. Almost our entire house is present in these photos. Here’s our casual coastal style summer home tour.
A Quick Word Before We Tour
I tidied up just for you, but truthfully camera angles can hide a lot of mess. So please don’t be discouraged or think our house is always as pulled together as it seems online. Quite honestly the kitchen sink is full of dishes you just can’t see in the pictures and the front entry closet is stuffed with shoes and two seasons worth of coats and outdoor gear. That’s why they make closet doors, right? I also didn’t retake photos of the kids’ rooms, cause they’re rather disastrous at the moment. And the entryway desperately needs a new coat of paint – the kids deliver papers and the fingerprints are brutal! Instead I’m showing you the pics from when these rooms were first finished a few months ago. Well, honest to goodness truth? Our son’s room in the basement still isn’t finished yet – he’s been living with raw drywall and no door for several months. We will get to it, but we just haven’t had the time yet. Sigh. Real life, right?
So, new pics for the living room, dining room, kitchen and bathroom. Previously viewed pics for the entryway, bedrooms and outside. Nothing has changed in the bedrooms or outside, except they’re all perpetually messy and I’d rather not share quite that much.
Make sense?
Good.
Okay, on with the tour.
Our Casual Coastal Style Summer Home Tour
Front Porch
Our 1350 sq. ft. house is a backsplit that looks a little like a rancher from the road. It’s about forty years old and while a lot sturdier than our last house, has needed a fair amount of cosmetic work since we bought it. The front porch being no exception. We’ve removed old wrought iron railings that were literally rusting off the porch. We’ve painted everything across the front that isn’t brick. And we’ve done a LOT of yard clean up and gardening.
I don’t really have much of a green thumb, but my sister is married to a genius in that department and he’s helped quite a bit. Now if only I could keep the neighborhood rabbits from eating everything in sight!
Entryway
Our entryway looked nothing like this when we moved in. It was dark and rather ugly. We’ve since added the vertical paneling, replaced the floor, light and closet doors and added hooks to make the space more beautiful and functional.
Dining Room
The current dining room is actually located where the living room was intended to be. We swapped them over the Holidays to make more room for a Christmas tree and have loved the switch ever since.
We’ve gone through a few table and chair combinations and I think this one is finally good. But I do reserve the right to change my mind!
I am finding the room a bit too busy though with all the decorations and open shelves and as such we have plans to move the shelves down to the basement. Then we’ll shiplap the walls and paint them white, which should help to tone down the busy-ness and relax the space a lot.
The dining room also serves as my office, which means this desk and settee do great double duty. The closet was added in the corner recently to house all sorts of office paraphernalia.
Because this was originally the living room, there was no ceiling light fixture. We recently had electricians come and install this beautiful chandelier from Birch Lane.
Living Room
And the living room of course is now where the dining room was intended to be. We love how cozy the space is with the new sectional. Although I do believe I broke the washing machine (and stained the slipcovers) when I washed them for the first time. Which is rather sad. To solve the issue we are doing two things: the first is to buy a second slip cover set from Ikea in grey to limit the amount of washing that needs to be done and the second is to have the slipcovers dry cleaned (at least until we need to buy a new oversized washer). Live and learn, right?
Kitchen
This kitchen was the reason we almost didn’t even look at this house originally. The real estate listing only showed the part from the fridge and stove to the window wall, which made the room seem far too small to work for a family of five. However the part that now houses the breakfast bar we added makes up for much of the perceived size limitations.
One day we’ll completely overhaul the kitchen but for now a few coats of paint on the cabinets, new stainless steel counters (which I ADORE because they take a beating) and some new appliances are enough to make it prettier and more functional.
Side Patio
Our terribly uneven side patio could use a full overhaul too one day. But for now we make good use of it with a hand me down conversation set and a few little accessories to go with our giant bbq (not shown).
Son’s Room
Our son is the oldest of our three kids and he recently moved down to the basement. He has patiently waited for us to finish his walls and give him a door. In the meantime he has enjoyed his own space that’s right next to the family room – and all the gaming equipment a teenage boy could want!
Bathroom
This bathroom was another reason we almost didn’t look at this house. Until very recently this room was embarrassing, to say the least!
We had tried to give it a bit of a makeover a couple of years ago with some paint and stick on floor tiles. But the green bath tub and cheap finishes just didn’t make it a room we wanted to spend much time in.
Finally we were able to have Bath Fitter fix up the tub and surround area and we replaced all the cabinets, toilet and fixtures as well as adding an exhaust fan (hallelujah!) and planked walls. Now our only bathroom is much more relaxing. Not to mention, easier to clean (concealed trapway toilets are a genius invention).
The bathroom window (and all the other windows in the house too) are scheduled to be replaced within the next few weeks. I can hardly wait!
Daughter #1’s Bedroom
When our son moved to the basement the girls were each able to get their own room for the first time ever. Daughter #1 chose pink (as always) for her accent color, which I tried to tone down a little with neutral accents. Lol. This was the compromise.
The little aqua cart and her dresser top are currently stuffed and covered with all her teenage girl stuff. I pretend not to see how messy it is most of the time.
Daughter #2’s Bedroom
While these photos show Daughter #2’s room when it was still shared by both girls, not much has changed. Save for the removal of one wall letter and the addition of a hamster cage. And she’d really like to change out the colors to suit just her, but well, life. Time is at a premium when one has three kids!
Master Bedroom
Our bedroom was one of the first rooms we worked on after moving to this house. However it’s not truly finished – as it still has the original parquet floors! The new wider plank, hand-scraped flooring is sitting downstairs waiting to be installed. You know, when we have a spare moment!
Other than the unfinished basement laundry room, family room and garage, that’s our house!
Thank you again so much for visiting our home today. Virtual coffee and hugs to you – and please do sign up to get our emails. Our subscribers get all the decorating secrets they need to decorate their whole house one room at a time. Plus our ‘5 Steps to Discover Your Personal Style’ guide for free when they sign up. We’d love to have you join us!
xo,
Shannon
