Here’s our new beach house renovation befores
As I shared on my Instagram stories this weekend, we recently purchased a beach house!
It’s far from “turnkey” move in ready and we’ve got a lot of renovations to do (hopefully before the summer starts) but I’m super excited!
It’s up in Rhode Island, about two hours from us in Connecticut.
This means a lot of the work will be happening without us there to supervise it daily (which seems a little crazy) but fingers crossed it will be fine.
Yesterday we picked up our keys and met with our contractor for the first time. He seems great and very organized and we’re hoping to get the demo portion started this week.
As I mentioned on my stories, the house has great potential – it needs some updates and some love.
The photo above is the back of the house. The views and light are amazing – it’s really all about the back of this home.
what we’re planning to do
We’re hoping to capitalize on the beautiful light and scenic views by knocking down a whole lot of walls and giving the first floor an open floor plan.
Since we’ll be using this home as a beach/weekend house, there’s no need for a formal dining or living room.
I’ve got a lot of ideas and I”m excited to see them come to life!
For starters, this home (above) designed by Raquel Garcia and photographed by Alyssa Rosenheck is giving me all kinds of great ideas.
In particular all the white paint and these stairs!
I’m hoping to create something similar with our current stairs, which just like these are right when you walk into the house- (see below.)
Hoping to build up a wall on the right side, paint the stairs and add a glass side along with this lucite bannister.
We’ve got a lot of work cut out for us and not that much time.
So we’ve already picked out some flooring. We chose “Choice Oak” luxury vinyl plank flooring.
I’ve heard great things about this product, but have never used it before.
While there are wood floors in the home, there’s a lot of weird tiled floors too. Because we want to create an open floor plan, we’re hoping to have one continuous floor through out.
If you’ve ever used this type of flooring, I’d love to know your thoughts about it.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be ordering a custom lucite handrail for the stairs from this Etsy seller.
Other than that, I haven’t made a lot of important design decisions yet.
I’ve got to pick some paint colors and maybe some wallpaper pretty soon.
In the mean time, if you’re interested, I’ll be posting all my inspiration to this Pinterest board.
Hope to be back with a progress update and some good before and afters real soon!
*This post contains affiliate links. This means if you click a link and purchase something, I may get a small commission from it at no cost to you. For more info, please read my disclaimer. I only refer things that I truly love and hope you will too!
I love your stuff on Facebook and Instagram. I had to see the website!
Thanks! So glad you stopped by!!
Welcome to the neighborhood!
Congratulations! So awesome. Love Rhode Island. Why don’t you paint the floors white? Then if you replace the tile with new hardwood, it will all flow well. The vinyl reads a little “2015” to me — like you might regret going with such a “look”, you know?
Thanks for the feedback. I would paint the floors, love the look in a beach house…but there's too many mixed up floors to deal with – this vinyl might be the best solution as I'm pretty sure it goes right over the existing floors. All of them. Fingers crossed we don't regret it. Thanks again.
My husband’s Oral Surgery office has the vinyl plank flooring and it looks great!We also own a oceanfront beach house in North Carolina that has hardwood flooring.The vinyl will be a great choice for your house at the beach.I would have put it in our beach house if I had know about it when we built.Your house looks amazing!
Thank you so much!
So excited for you, and excited to follow along with the remodel and new design details!
Thanks Emily!
My Sister-n-law just did her lake house in luxury vinyl. They have several dogs and just wanted a wear easy floor. It is nice, but it does still have a vinyl feel to it. It will be perfect for the beach so no worries, which is what life is all about, right?
Thanks, hoping we don't regret the vinyl decision! Fingers crossed:)
Are you pulling out the woods and replacing with vinyl or just putting vinyl in where non-wood floors are? (I have woods downstairs and want to replace carpeting upstairs with vinyl due to two huge dogs. Is it a really bad idea to mix (i.e., wood downstairs and vinyl upstairs)?)
We’re putting it everywhere. Whole house. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to mix, especially on two separate floors!
Thanks so much!
Congratulations! I look forward to seeing what's in store. I love the lucite banner concept.
Thank you! 🙂
Thanks so much Jalon! 🙂
Oh congratulations! What an exciting new adventure. I love the Lucite banister – what a unique and fun element. I can't wait to see the progression.
Thank you for sharing
Have a beautiful Monday
Congratulations!!!! How fun! It will be wonderful to follow along the renovations!
Thanks!XX
Hi Sue. Greetings from California. Wow, that house looks great! Congratulations! Was that a birthday present? By the way, happy belated birthday.
Thanks so much!:)
You are going to LOVE renovating a beach house and it is going to be beautiful! I have ordered lucite drapery rods from luxholdups and they are wonderful – great quality! Can't wait to follow along!
Awesome!Thanks!:)
Congratulations Sue, I can't wait to follow along !
best, Karen
Thanks so much Karen!