Lake House Tour: Pine Cabin Before and After

As I have mentioned before, my husband and I own a vacation home rental business on Texas' beautiful 

Lake Whitney.

While we own a couple of the homes we rent out, most are owned by others and we manage the maintenance and renting of them for vacationers.

We recently began renting one of our homeowners homes from him so that we could continue renting it out for vacation purposes.

Since it's a rental we are limited to mainly cosmetic changes to make it our own.

I posted a little about our updating progress on that home here and here.

In addition to that limitation we also have to keep in mind that the home will undergo constant wear and tear by guests who spray soda on the ceilings and explode food in the microwave and then let it dry in there, children who touch doorknobs and everything else with sticky candy fingers and drunk people who can't remember if the lovely wool plaid blanket was already here or if they suddenly grew some taste and brought that from home.

It happens.

We also used a lot of the existing furnishings because we were lucky enough to have the homeowner rent it to us fully furnished (since he had already been renting it out through us as a vacation rental.)  

It's a really large home and having to buy all new furniture would have been very costly.
 I also like using what I already have as much as possible because it's environmentally efficient, too!

So, keep in mind...

This is NOT Thom Filicia's lakehouse!

Our lake house is located in a country town smaller than my daughter's high school where many of residents no longer possess all of their own teeth.

It's a simple country lake house with simple country lake house decor.

With some cool vintage items tossed in along with way too much Ikea to make it a bit more fresh and modern.

But, it's a lot of fun to hang out here with the fam and play Scrabble, and tetherball and drink wine and practice twerking at the end of a long day of working at the other lake houses!

Sean T and me at Pine Cabin

Scrabble and wine (and some duck face)

Early morning tetherball

Without further delay, I give you the BEFORE and AFTER photos of our new lake house, 

the Pine Cabin.

We didn't change any of the front yet but I might add some native, drought and deer resistant plants and a small bistro set to the tiny porch that is to left of the front door.

Kitchen BEFORE

Kitchen AFTER - Amazing, right?  Yeah, so, nothing really changed because you can't do much in here if you can't paint the bananas out of those wood cabinets.  So, naturally, I just added a couple of rag rugs.

Living Room BEFORE - That's a lot of blue and beige!

Living Room AFTER - I really wanted most of the seating and accent tables to be easily moved so that large families staying here could put them where they would be most convenient to whatever activity they were enjoying.

Living Room AFTER - Still on the look out for a pair of matching chairs for this room and some artwork

Bathroom BEFORE (and a great photo of my mom looking horror struck!) - Post about this room with details here

Bathroom AFTER

Bedroom 1 BEFORE

Bedroom 1 AFTER

Bedroom 2 BEFORE

Bedroom 2 AFTER - Obviously another side table is needed and better lamps

Bedroom 3 BEFORE

Bedroom 3 AFTER - Still have some plans for this room including a shelf and some artwork above the bed

Bedroom 4 BEFORE (and a shameless yet unintentional plug for our business)

Bedroom 4 AFTER - My FAVORITE room in the house!

Bedroom 5 BEFORE

Bedroom 5 AFTER - It's hard to tell form this photo how cute this room is but when it's finished I'll try to get some better angles!

2nd Living Room BEFORE

2nd Living Room AFTER

2nd Living Room AFTER

2nd Living Room AFTER

2nd Living Room AFTER - Yeah, this is a big, L-shaped room so you needed to see all the different angles to really get a feel for it.

Dining Room - No changes here but I may add a rug and/or some artwork down the road

Deck Overlooking Backyard - We only added the patio umbrella but I would love to add some potted plants that require no care whatsoever - do those exist???

The Backyard - We added Adirondack chairs around the fire pit and recently added a cushioned hammock, tetherball and horseshoes.  It's like a backyard bonanza for old people!

Even though this isn't necessarily intended to be a post about using what you have or working with a rental home, I still hope this post will help inspire readers who are either renters themselves or who have less than ideal furnishings to explore ideas on how to brighten and freshen what you already have without spending a fortune.

À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney