So, are you ready to see our tiny lake house? Or, at least, take a look at a couple of rooms? We are not completely finished, but, close enough! The complete tour would be too long for a blog post, so …
I’ll start with the most important room, and the reason we needed to build … the bathroom. The shower in the camping trailer just wasn’t cutting it for Saint. No elbow room.Now, he has plenty. The galvanized tin walls were my idea, well, mine and Pinterest, but they weren’t exactly like I planned. The vanity, however, turned out great.
We made this from an old desk I found on Craig’s List. I loved the original finish and hardware, so Saint just cut a hole for the galvanized bucket, which used to be new and shiny and didn’t look like it belonged before I found a way to age it by squirting toilet bowl cleaner on it and leaving in the sun all afternoon. I wanted to incorporate some family artifacts. The brick came from the chimney of an old log cabin on our farm. My great grandfather and his new bride moved into the log cabin in 1888. I don’t know how old it was then, but these bricks have been around a long time. A couple of the barn wood boards framing the mirror, a flea market find, came from that cabin, but Dad was pretty meticulous in keeping everything cleaned up around it (at Mom’s suggestion). I’ll bet if she had known what price those old barn wood boards are bringing now, she would have changed her tune.The old barn tin came from the Huffman farm bunkhouse. Other boards came from Saint’s brother’s farm, along with more of the old tin that we used on the walls. Saint was all ready to use his miter saw and 45 those beautiful boards until I told him I wanted a more rustic look. I do love the way it turned out. Here are other pictures of the spacious bathroom … well, for a tiny house! And do you see how we threw in the industrial look with the towel rod and toilet paper holder made from flanges and pipes?
In these last pictures, you can get a peek at the sliding barn door Saint made, and you can see the authentic hardware our dear friend gave us from an old barn. I left the rust because, well, who doesn’t like rust in rustic? You can also see the makeshift door (curtain) I made to hide the water heater.
Now, on to the kitchen. My mom always said if she built a house, she would leave the kitchen out. Well, we almost did. Knowing that most of the lake cooking would be done on the grill, I didn’t want to give much of our tiny space to a kitchen, but I wanted a fully functioning place to prep and clean. We continued the industrial rustic, using the same plumbing pipes to hold up open shelves. The cabinet is an old dresser I bought (Craig’s List, again) from a lady in Branson. It came with two mirrors, and I paid $80.00 for it. After cleaning and chalk painting a sparrow gray, we added a wooden counter top. The trick was finding a sink that the dresser-turned- cabinet would accommodate. I choose a dresser rather than an unfinished cabinet because I wanted a narrow piece to save space. Saint was able to work on the drawers to salvage most of them as he cut out the space for the sink and plumbing. We changed out the hardware and it’s good to go. By the way, I refinished both mirrors and could probably sell them for what I paid for the whole thing, but I may use one in the living room, later. And the brick … isn’t it amazing? Looks pretty authentic, right? Faux brick panels from Home Depot. The trick was whitewashing and blotting to get the antiqued look.
Equipped with a small refrigerator, microwave, coffee pot, two burner hot plate, toaster oven, and crock pot, we’re all set. The galvanized tin in back of the shower makes a nice back drop for pantry items, too. And the view from the kitchen window
makes even the tiniest kitchen picture perfect.
But, where do we eat, you ask? Mostly here.
on the porch overlooking the lake, but if we have to eat inside, we have this cute little drop leaf table with a (I know, who needs this) TV above it.
I still have some pieces to add and decorating to finish in the main area, and since this blog post is way longer than recommended, anyway, I’ll save the bed and living area, along with the details and how God has blessed this project for another day. Thanks for looking.