Waterside Tour of Homes
I am that person that you may know that gets very excited when driving along a road and sees a body of water.
I just want to stop and sit on its banks. I am the one who walks to the end of a pier to get a better water view, I am also the person who you will see hanging over a ferry’s railing just so I can get a closer view of the water.
I borrowed these words from the author of the book, Beach House Happy. I could not have stated my love of the water any better…they describe me perfectly.
I feel a sense of happiness and serenity every time a body of water comes into view…there it is, like I have never seen it before.
Being around water is where I feel my best and where I have always wanted to live. My astrological sign is Cancer – a water sign…it makes total sense to me.
Six months ago, my waterside living dream came true when my husband and I moved to live in a house along the shores of Lake Murray, SC.
It is a big lake that is 41 miles long x 14 miles wide with over 600 miles of shoreline. It is a man-made lake that came to life in 1930.
There are very developed areas of the lake and very rural. My house is right in between. It takes 10 minutes to get into town where I do most of my errands and a few good places to eat.
It takes 25 minutes to get to major shopping, movie theaters, and many more restaurants.
Living in a house along the lake feels so right, as if it is where I was meant to be. We bought a boat with the money we were going to use to redo the kitchen, but it is well worth it.
We use it all the time, even to go out to dinner. It is fun to pull up at a lakeside restaurant’s dock and then go in and eat.
It is sometimes much faster to get to places around the lake on the boat then it is to drive. I recently kayaked to get to the place where I get my hair cut.
Sometimes when I go outside with the sun shining and there is a gentle breeze blowing, it takes me back to simpler time in my life. It feels absolutely DELICIOUS!
The house we bought is an older house that needs lots of updating in the way of decor. You can see the BEFORE, here.
In the past 6 months we have made many improvements to start making the house truly ours. The biggest so far was making over a brick wall and fireplace to a stone fireplace and mantel that I made using the top of a china cabinet hutch that we no longer needed.
Another bigger project was removing a wall between the kitchen and dining room. It was where the arrow is pointing in the photo.
This opened up the space and doubled our water views from both rooms. We still are working on getting the patch on the floor completed.
I find the fresh clean aesthetic of coastal decor inspiring, or how my favorite colors, combined with lots of white, can make me feel more cheerful, energetic, and refreshed.
I love the light, the ease, the airiness. I want it to feel like I am living on a vacation.
Since moving, my decorating style has not changed much. I have always gravitated to light, bright, and airy…
… and that is exactly how I am decorating this house. I don’t want any clutter around, even in my studioffice.
I like to accent my love of white, by using blues, greens, and pinks in the decor.
I also like to see a touch of black in every room, just a little to help accent the pops of color I love to add all around.
Even though a lot of our time has been spent updating the house and making it our own we have had plenty of time to enjoy the lake and outdoors, especially now that summer is here.
I bought two of these rockers, so that I can use them outside…
… as well as inside.
I find I like to sit outside to watch the sunsets..
…and during the day, I have been bringing my laptop outside to work and love watching how the sun makes the lake sparkle like diamonds.
I use my favorite colors outside, too. I planted pink verbena in planters that line the deck.
Out in the gazebo that is over the water, I bring items from the house to make it more comfy.
It is the perfect place to entertain and we have a few gatherings for family and friends planned for the summer.
We still have quite a lot of updates to make to the house. Over the summer I will be finishing the staircase makeover, gutting the powder room, and banishing all the brown cabinets and trim in the kitchen.
See how the staircase turned out in this post: Staircase Makeover
To see more home improvement updates since I posted this post: Check out my posts filed under LAKE HOUSE
Even while I am doing all of these projects, I plan to take time to enjoy the water as much as I possibly can.
Water has such a magnetic power over me, it feels wonderful to be able to be living by it every single day. :-)
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