Beach Cottage Renovation

Six years ago, our parents began looking for a vacation home in Florida. Our family had spent some time at our aunt and uncle’s home in Fort Myers Beach, and our parents loved the idea of having a place nearby. They looked at all different types of properties across SW Florida, but fell in love with a charming beach cottage just a mile down the road. Like many of the remaining old beach cottages, ours needed some serious updates. Our parents felt strongly about renovating the 1940s cottage rather than tearing it down, and thus began our renovation journey. We started by ripping out the floor to expose the original pine, upgrading the appliances and swapping out the kitchen countertops. We then renovated the bathrooms, added sliding glass doors to the sun room and expanded the deck. We upgraded light fixtures, swapped out furniture and baaaaasically painted everything white. The house was cute and quirky, and we loved everything… except for the kitchen.

Fast forward to now and we’ve finally completed the next phase of renovations. What started as a kitchen remodel, turned into slightly more than that. We are so excited to share more with you, and we will continue to update this page as each room comes together! Stay tuned <3

Kitchen

Key Kitchen Updates:

• We removed a staircase behind the stove which gave us an extra 18 inches, other than that we didn’t expand or add additional square footage
• Vaulted the ceilings which made everything feel much more open
• Removed the peninsula for a more open feel
• Opened up two small walls between the living room and kitchen
• Added a coffee/wine bar where the washer and dryer used to be and moved our new stacked washer/dryer to a new closet
• Removed the former “dining room” and added an extra long island with plenty of seating
• Added larger windows and sliding glass doors that open up to the deck
• Added a built in bench for additional seating & storage

Living Room

There were really only 2 updates to the living room area. First, we removed a hall closet that required we re-do the bookcases. Second, we removed the partial walls that used to separate the living room from the kitchen & dining room.

Bedroom #1 (Twin Room)

We removed a door from the twin bedroom (that led into the hall bath) and just freshened everything up! New doors, trim, and obviously a whole lot of paint.

Bedroom #2 (King)

We didn’t change the layout of this room at all, but as you can see there were plenty of cosmetic changes! Our fave part? The new wall treatment! 🙂

Bedroom #3 (Queen)

The queen bedroom had the most drastic transformation. When we removed the back staircase, we added about 18 inches to this bedroom. We vaulted the ceiling, reconfigured the bedroom and bathroom entrances and of course freshened up the walls! Don’t mind the fact that we took most of these photos without realizing the euro pillows were missing from the bed… oops!

Bedroom #4 (Master)

Our parents had some work done on the master shortly after moving in. When they added on to the deck, they also added french doors off of their bedroom. This added a lot more natural light and better views of the gulf. Some fun wallpaper and freshening up the floors, doors & trim made all the difference in this space.

Florida Room

Finally, the Florida Room and our favorite room of the house. When we expanded the deck, we replaced a lot of the windows with a full wall of glass sliders. We also replaced some of the other windows, and added french doors. We re-tiled the floor and added a fresh coat of paint (plus recessed lighting, which was done everywhere). We can’t believe how different this room looks!

Thank you for reading!

xoxo

Anna, Hillary, Greta & Ellie