Lake House Outdoor Space

It is finally the reveal day for the One Room Challenge where I created a new outdoor space at our lake house.

What is the One Room Challenge?

The One Room Challenge or the ORC is a challenge where participants get to show how they transform a space in a few weeks. Apartment Therapy is the media partner for the ORC. It is a bi-yearly challenge that will last 8 weeks. This will be my 3rd time participating in this challenge. You can see Week One with all of the before pictures and my inspiration for the space. I have chosen to do a space at our lake house which makes it a little harder since it is 40 minutes from our home.

 

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 You can catch up on the previous weeks here.

Week 1 |  Week 2 | Week 3 |Week 4|Week 5  |Week 6 |Week 7 

The Lake House Outdoor Space Before

Summer 2020

We purchased our fixer-upper 9 years ago but had not remodeled the outdoor space. We had been saving up for the outdoor porch because it is a big project.

Lake House Before The One Room Challenge

We wanted to start building the porch when the One Room Challenge started but with the economy and the price of materials rising, we went ahead and hired a contractor in the fall of last year. Our contractor at Lakeside Boathouse built our boathouse 7 years ago. We had him add a new roof, and beams, and extend the concrete out 6 feet.

Before

After

After

You would think that creating an outdoor space would be easy but that is incorrect. We worked harder physically on this challenge than any other challenge.

The first thing that you want to do is clean, paint, and do repairs to the space. I ended up cleaning, painting, and repairing the entire exterior of the house. While I had the tools and ladder out, I might as well do it all and I am so glad that I did. It feels so good to be done.

The outdoor living set is Better Homes and Gardens from Walmart but it is almost always out of stock. I lucked up and found one set at a local Walmart. I did find an outdoor set on Amazon that is made by Better Homes and Gardens and $600 cheaper.

Sitting outside after dark is my favorite.

DIY Faux Concrete Coffee Table

The outdoor set I purchased came with a coffee table but it was not what I wanted. I have always wanted a round concrete outdoor table. These tables usually cost hundreds of dollars and I did not want to overspend on one. I made a faux concrete coffee table with a table I found at a thrift store.

Visit my blog post to see how I made this thrifted table with spray paint.

I can never find outdoor pillows that I like so I purchase or make pillows that I like. Since my outdoor space is well covered I use regular pillows. These pillows were found at HomeGoods and I think that they are perfect. I did make the 2nd pillow from the left with an old pillow sham.

DIY Outdoor Kitchen

Before

Using much of the materials we already had, we built an outdoor kitchen by ourselves and we did it for under $200. We already had the grill so we designed the kitchen around it.

After

The granite would have cost us a lot but we used the old granite from our kitchen remodel. We are shocked and excited that it turned out beautifully. I will have a blog post this week showing how we did it.

I love growing fresh herbs right on the counter because it makes outdoor cooking so easy.

DIY Outdoor Solar Pendant Light

Since I will be using the outdoor kitchen at night, I needed a fairly bright light. We do not have an electrical circuit that could handle more electrical load so we decided a solar light would work perfectly. I paid $12 for the basket and $35 for the solar light. This project only took minutes to make and install. You can visit the DIY Outdoor Basket Light for the tutorial and pictures.

Entertaining while cooking on the grill brings me so much happiness. Having a place for people to sit and snack while I cook makes cooking so much more fun. The bar table was purchased at a Salvage Store for way less than if purchased new and the center of the table is a fire pit. You just remove the cover. The barstools are thrifted.

Outdoor Dining

This pendant light is also a DIY project made with a basket from HomeGoods. I think it looks like Serena & Lily.

This was the hardest One Room Challenge that I have participated in but this is definitely my favorite challenge. Actually, this space turned out better than I imagined it could be and I could not love this space more.