From Industrial Warehouse to Coastal Bungalow

In my last blog post, I shared our backyard transformation, so today I’m sharing some of the interior home updates we’ve been working on since January. When we bought this house, the concrete floors, metal fan, and large exposed metal AC duct gave it an industrial feel. But since industrial isn’t my style and we’re located within a five minute walk to the beach, I’ve been slowly transforming it into a little coastal bungalow. Here are some before and after pictures of our progress.

1. Living Room 

Below is the “before” picture of the living room. Since, this house was originally an Airbnb, it came with all the furnishings you see in the picture (except for the large piece of art). I spent a considerable amount of time selling and getting rid of everything to make room for our own belongings.

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I loved the shiplapped walls and ceilings, but I didn’t love the whitewash finish. So before we moved in, I painted all the walls, ceilings, and the big metal AC duct white. We also switched out the metal fan to a wooden one and replaced the gray window shades with our favorite Bonaire Flaxen Woven Wood Shades from Blinds.com. I also incorporated warm wood tones, a large jute area rug, bowls of seashells, bright green palm clippings from our yard, and shades of blue to make this home feel more like a beach house.

Here’s what the living room looks like now:

If you look at the picture below, you can see that there is a fireplace in the wall to the right of the tv, As hard as we tried, we couldn’t find a furniture arrangement that we liked that didn’t block the fireplace. So Tim and I ended up removing the glass and patching the hole in the wall as best we could.

I love a good gallery wall and wanted one over the couch, but the process of creating one felt intimidating to me. There were so many decisions to make, like which pictures to print, how big I should print them, what color frames to choose, how best to arrange everything, and finally actually hanging each item up on the wall. It took me some time to work through each step of the process, but eventually we got it done and I’m very happy with how it turned out. I didn’t want to put a bunch of holes in the shiplap walls, so we used these command strips to hang everything. If you look closely in the next picture, you can still see the outline of our patchwork, but the gallery wall helps to hide it a bit better.

2. White Oak Hardwood Floors

When we bought the house, we thought we wouldn’t mind the concrete floors, but we realized very quickly that we didn’t like them. For one thing, they weren’t polished or finished correctly and there were stains, sticky spots, uneven areas, and cracks throughout the house. No matter how much I cleaned them, they always felt dirty under our feet. They also made our house feel darker, cold, and unfinished; kind of like living in a garage.

Before:

We hoped to get hardwood floors laid right away, but then we realized that there were other projects that needed to get done first (which I will get to in a minute). In June we were finally able to get the hardwood floors put down. We chose Azur Grande white oak floors in Altari finish. We’ve been so happy with them. They changed the entire feel of our home, making it feel brighter, relaxed, warm, and inviting.

3. Laundry Room turned Storage Space

Originally the washer, dryer, and hot water heater were located in a small hallway off the garage. In the picture below, the door across from the dryer is the door to the garage, so this is a main entry and exit point in our house. There was barely enough room to open the dryer door, and even less room to stand there and do laundry. Not to mention, if someone was trying to walk through at the same time. So before we could put down the hardwood floors, we needed to relocate the washer, dryer, and water heater. We hired a plumber to jackhammer up the concrete and move the plumbing across the hall to a pantry/closet area where we could create a small laundry room. We also had the gas company add a gas line to the house and install a gas tankless water heater outside. By moving everything to new locations, this space was completely empty and free to use in a more efficient way.

We used Ikea Billy Bookcases to create an entire wall of extra storage space that didn’t cramp the pathway. I added the wicker Hogadal doors onto the bookcases to hide all the unsightly clutter that we store in them. Then we were able to use the extra space at the end of the hall to make a home office for Tim.

3. Master Bedroom

Originally, the tiny master bedroom was kind of a sad and boring room. In the picture below, you can see how bad the concrete floors looked. The room just felt so dark and dingy to me that I didn’t even want to spend time in it.

I wanted to brighten it up, make it feel happy and cozy, and add some beach house character without getting into a big expensive project. I decided to create the look of board and batten by hanging 1×2’s around the room. This was a pretty simple project and I was even able to do it on my own while Tim was away on a trip. Afterwards, I caulked everything and gave the room a fresh coat of white paint.

4. The Kitchen

Before:

At this point, we haven’t done any major renovations in the kitchen, but I’ve painted the ceilings, shelves, and walls, replaced the blinds and lights, switched out the stove to a Zline Gas Range (because cooking on gas is so much better!), changed the leaky faucet, switched to satin brass knobs, and upgraded the dishwasher.

5. Bedroom Closets

All the bedrooms are small in this house and they don’t have much space for dressers. So we needed to make the bedroom closets highly functional, efficient, and able to hold all of our clothes.

The master closet before:

We chose Ikea Pax Wardrobes because we could design each one specifically to hold what we needed. By removing the part of the wall above the original closet and expanding the opening to fit the PAX wardrobe, we were able to make better use of all the available closet space. Here is a peak at the inside of the closets before we put the Gullaberg doors on. This was also a project that we needed to finish before we could have the hardwood floors installed.

Here is the After:

I love adding little details like rattan door handles.

6. The Entryway

Before:

I gave the ceiling and walls a fresh coat of white paint, painted the wood door SW Sea Salt, and hung up some of my favorite beach items on the wall.

_{Floppy Hat}

A nearby corner

_{Beach Rides Book}

7. Entry to Laundry/Storage/Office

Before:

After:

I recently decided that all the doors in the house should be painted SW Sea Salt. I’m still in the process of painting them, but here is a peak below at the door to the laundry/office etc. I think Sea Salt doors throughout the house will add a little unexpected fun and color to the house. I feel like a coastal bungalow should be a laid-back and happy place, don’t you?!

We still have both bathrooms to renovate and a laundry room to finish, but I love the way this house is coming along so far!