You’ve found the perfect spot for your holiday cottage. The endless white beach stretches before you—and it’s right at your doorstep. Your little wooden cottage stands before you, fully paid for. Now you start planning how to renovate it.
Will you add the outdoor blinds Melbourne residents love to create the perfect seaside feel? Will you paint your cottage white with cobalt blue shutters like the Greek islands?
Photo by Matt Artz, Unsplash
If you’d really like to create that dream cottage, read on for a few tips.
Seaside Aesthetics
With a seaside cottage, you want to make sure that your little home blends into the environment, and doesn’t ruin the look of the landscape in a garish way. Decorating the outside of your home in a manner that harmonises with the seascape enables you to be creative and eco-friendly at the same time. So, by all means paint the cottage white and blue and then use this for inspiration:
- Add an old ship’s wheel to the outside of the house, instead of buying new trendy decor.
- Place stranded starfish and sun-clocks all over.
- Use pebbles for the pathway, or pieces of driftwood.
- Add pretty pink plants as contrasting highlights.
Inner Decoration
Now, it’s time for the interior. Ensure you have lots of light from the windows, and an easy exit onto a wooden terrace or veranda. This will ensure continuity with the sea, bringing the outside inside.
You can be eclectic with a seaside cottage and you don’t need to keep to one style. Add lace in one room, a splash of colour in another and elsewhere, keep to whites. However, keep the theme of natural, simple fabrics and textures consistent throughout. This will bring harmony.
You can also continue with the sea and nature motif. Bring sisal, jute, starfish, and wooden decorations into all areas of the house. Very often, natural blues, greens and pinks complement such a house, with whites and creams predominating.
Blinds and Shutters
Another popular feature is that of outer blinds and shutters. You can select some custom outdoor blinds to show off those beautiful windows. Or you could add shutters either for décor or function. Blue, yellow, grey or green go well with little cottages, and add quaintness and whimsy to your style.
Furniture
The kind of furniture that you want in a holiday cottage is ‘comfortable’. Formal styles are out, and soft, cushioned styles are in. Have large couches, padded porch swings, solid woods and painted pieces in your mix.
You don’t want fancy frill in the furniture. Rather keep the look simple and clean, which also makes for easy maintenance while on holiday.
Plants
Bring the outdoors in, and let nature become one with your home. Brighten every room with one or two plants, and allow the natural greens to add a sense of peace. Bathrooms can actually be filled with flora of various kinds to give you a feel of being transported into a seaside forest.
Lights
You can have such fun with lighting!
- Bring in a lighthouse-lantern, or a heavy, iron-cast lantern to hang from the ceiling.
- Small tealights can illuminate cosy nooks.
- Brass lights can hang on walls. You can have them in the shape of a ship’s wheel or add them to navigation instruments.
Your imagination is the only limit.
Floors and Ceilings
It’s best to have wooden floors with removable rugs, because wall-to-wall carpets would hold too much sand. You can keep the wood warm or dark, depending on which style you wish to emulate.
Match that with a ceiling with wooden beams, or a white ceiling to accentuate the light.
Kitchen
The kitchen is an ideal place to have a cosy breakfast nook, and an open-plan dining and cooking area. It’s the heart of the home, so add a crackling fireplace, and it’ll soon become the favourite spot in the home.
Bathroom
The bathroom is a great place to decorate with seamen’s accessorie:
- Lifebuoys
- Instrumentation
- Small boats in bottles
- Sea creatures and plants are ideal in this environment—just watch for mould—sometimes it can form because the organism hasn’t been sufficiently dried
What’s more, your shower should be chunky and old-fashioned, and your bath ideally stand on legs to keep the look slightly vintage.
Bedrooms
It’s a great idea to have bedrooms with large windows that look out onto the sea. French windows are even better, or sliding doors, because you can then allow the sound of the sea to come right inside simply by opening a window.
If you’re worried about security, add a security gate. That way, you can have your door or window wide open without worrying about unwelcome guests.
In Summary
Building or owning a cottage by the sea is the dream of many a person, and you can create a space that is one with nature by simply adding natural elements. Add some nautical items and the picture is complete. You now have an ideal holiday cottage—a dream come true.