A Cozy Family Retreat – Peek at a Project

A Cozy Family Retreat

For one of our clients, we did a whole home remodel in the Twin Cities. But anyone who lives in a major city knows that sometimes, the best part of living in the city is leaving it. Our clients bought a lake home in the Brainerd area, to enjoy a close-to-home getaway. They wanted to use the cozy family retreat as a place to connect and entertain their tween daughter's friends, and their own family friends.
They wanted to make the home more hangout-friendly by updating it. As a local design expert of 30+ years, I knew exactly how to give this family the lake home of their dreams. Keep reading to see how we helped them do it!

Cozy Family Retreat - Before

When working on this home for our clients, we came up with two lists. One of these was the problems with the home as it was when we started, and the other was a list of their goals for the house as it would be when we finished!
The home lacked a full kitchen, and the kitchen did have had carpet, which our clients wanted to address. Other problems included too much wood in the same tone, not enough seating, and dim lighting due to inadequate fixtures and porch preventing natural light from coming into the space. Also, the house wasn't very swimsuit friendly - a must for any lake house!
On the other hand, one of our client's specific goals for their cozy family retreat in Brainerd was to make the lower level of the cabin a better place to hang out after coming in from the lake. They needed the perfect spot to hangout and have snacks after a long day out on the water! They also wanted to make sure they implemented a walkout to the beach and one to their grilling area.

Cozy Family Retreat - Drawings

To address some of our client's concerns, we drew up these floor plans with custom solutions to make their dreams for their cozy family retreat a reality.
In these drawings, you can see that the furniture space plans include large sectionals with performance fabric, to let the kids and their friends pile onto. Performance fabrics don't mind getting wet after lake days, and they're easy to clean. This way, family and friends can eat popcorn on the sofa without worrying about stains. This creates a more carefree feeling in the lake house, so mom can enjoy spending time with everyone, instead of worrying about coasters and reminding people to be careful not to spill.
We also designed brand-new kitchen cabinetry with a clean-lined, fresh, but traditional aesthetic, as well as a new bar height table with stools for an eating area that is inside but still beach-adjacent.
We also added shaker doors in this lake home for a timeless look.

After

After lots of careful work, our client's cozy family retreat was finished!
In the after photos, you can see that we painted the cabinetry to add color and break up all the wood our clients didn't like. We also added a tile floor in the kitchen area, fixing one of the main problems with the house.
In addition, we added new lighting fixtures to increase the lighting in the space, and a lighter value, neutrally-colored wool carpet to change the level of contrast in the space.
The blue colors we focused on are a beautiful reference to lakeside colors. Wouldn't you want to get away for a weekend in this cozy lake house?