Turning A Classic Cottage Into An Open Plan Retreat | Sarah's Summer Rental | Abode

paper was light gold in medieval times i want tobacco sugar [Music] that everything we thought we knew about the world might turn out to be completely wrong what do you think 5 star glamour it's no star glamour it's beautiful though really pretty we have a lot to do and a short time to do it so come and come in whoa he's not saying anything ever dream of buying and renting your own piece of paradise well i'm doing just that with this outdated cottage it's got great bones and a location that can't be beat stick with me i'll show you how to spruce up a cottage classic and make money too [Music] it's no secret that i love cottage living and i tackled the reno of our own cottage seven years ago so you like the colors not the off-white naturals not a big fan of the white since we love cottage living so much we figured others might want to give it a try without the commitment of buying so my husband alex have a thought why not buy an island with an old cottage as an investment fix it up and rent it out for a profit you think we should buy a cottage we have a cottage i know we do but i think this is a great opportunity and here's how it started we went for a boat ride and saw a for sale sign on a charming island with great acreage and an incredible view oh my god it's so pretty from the front huh yeah it really is nicely situated it keeps going look how big this island is what i'm worried about is buying an island is an expensive endeavor and then fixing it up to get it ready to rent the island itself is a good sound investment because let's face it they don't make any more of them and then we took a look inside because the other thing you know is that i love to look at real estate and it is so vintage but look at it i mean the wood's really nice i love the teal ceiling you don't see that often and the fireplace is amazing the space is great okay don't take this the wrong way i i'm glad you love the teal ceiling but i think you should take a good look at it now because i'm not sure that it's going to stay but it's the character of the place we could whitewash on top of the teal i find it really dark i feel some white paint coming on walking through today with alex it's clear we have a few differences of opinion i think it's perfect as is this is a cottage kitchen like for me this is the cottage kitchen that i dream about this is not the cottage kitchen that i dream about i wouldn't do a thing you're doing dishes but you can't see the lake you can't see anybody in the living room see the lake that way you gotta focus on the dishes like if i'm watching the people in the living room the dishes are gonna be pretty dirty [Music] let's look at this in hotel terms this is a basic a two-star hotel rents for one price it's a car i know but i'm trying to film i'm trying to make you think about it from a rental perspective right the better it is the more you get oh bathing beauty kind of like being in an airplane and no no thank you what is that that's sort of the back scratcher back scrubber it's good is that somebody else's back scrubber oh they're nice people not there and the shoes just share this is what everybody's really going to want in a rental somebody else's bathroom product there's a way to make an entrance i love it it's a tree house this is awesome is it just me or does this seem kind of treacherous just inside the front door no that's what you call a ship's ladder that's very cool i'm gonna sidestep it wow this stair has a one drink maximum i think we need some light on this situation here what's going on oh that's nice i think it's kind of awesome that there's this many beds you can put a whole family in here all right let's see what's going on in here sarah you gotta check this out this is a big room floor's even painted white for you it's ready to go that is not white darling looks pretty white to me here we go with the white discussion again that is not white that is a dirty shade of gray but anyway my question is do we need this much storage well i think you could actually i mean there's so much room in here you could probably put up a wall somewhere in fact there's even two sinks over here you could make a bedroom bedroom gets the one sink forward and the uh workshop gets the back sink it's beautiful there's a lot of stuff that needs to be tweaked updated fixed i think as a rental it's gonna work really well because it's i mean surprisingly it's fully equipped already like we don't need a thing summer is a short rental season you think for the cost of carrying the property and fixing it up we could rent it out and still not lose money how many rentals have you seen in our area zero i'm thinking this could be a phenomenal rental okay just let the record show this was your idea wanna do the honors i think you should okay looks like yours truly sold is about to add landlord to her resume [Music] but i can't do this alone i'm gonna need some backup nice to meet you i'm tommy nice to meet you tommy how far away is this place by boat how many minutes we've got a 30 minute boat right ahead of us have you got a usb cable so i can plug this thing in no sorry i don't you won't see the cottage from here it's on the other side of the island wish me luck you're on your own hello hello [Music] hello sarah oh hi what do you think five star glamour it's no star glamour it's beautiful though really pretty we have a lot to do and a short time to do it so come and come in starting with fixing the door yeah we're gonna fix the screen whoa what do you think too much wood too much wood but guess what it's not so long no of course not i know you you're gonna paint it all white for sure why is there so much stuff here this is sold with content it's like there was an evacuation like the zombie apocalypse happened and these people just left and walked out the door and never came back yeah but if you sell your cottage you don't need it anymore right if you sell a cottage and you're not moving to another cottage right do you need a loon decoy right what about all these built-ins do we keep them do we rework them i love the built-ins do you love the building i think they're pretty great this actually comes right out to make a bed yep it is nuts try this though do you know what old dust smells like actually i do new cushions i also happen to know better than to put my nose right on a skanky cushion [Music] what a day absolutely stunning you know i think the place has so much potential all right then we need some way to cut through this mishmash of color i feel like you want a more seamless indoor outdoor experience in the cottage right now you're looking out at the views the views are amazing and the cottage is dark i think the retro elements really work retro so i love this notion of the period the style the era of the building i'm feeling i want to see gorgeous green yeah i'm seeing it right now gray i'm seeing that right now too gray white beautiful blue colors derived directly from the landscape 100 we wanted to feel as bright as it has just become during our conversation before tommy and i tackle the cottage interior we've got to do a little bit of clearing stuff we're keeping let's put in the boxes stuff we're getting rid of let's put on the peninsula counter okay got it this is the bar definitely keep you know what it's a rainy day it's unexpected you need a good cottage read right these books are so old though like there is no sex in these books okay here's something i know we're gonna get rid of oh it looks better oh already these are heavy just like that what do we want to do about this table we're trying to open things up a bit it takes up a lot of real estate it's kind of a big table if we're gonna have a place that's easily to sleep 10 or even 12. you can't really have a table that's designed for six what if we make it a peninsula [Music] i still think it's not this table and it's creating a traffic issue with the bedroom well hopefully there's not a stampede to the bedroom depends on who you're renting to here's the challenge we are part way through the summer this needs to be finished by the end of the season which means we are on a really condensed time frame here we have less than six weeks from today to being finished all done and essentially closing for the season hey sarah hey guys what do you think nice place i want to get the demo going inside we need to get a material list going outside so we can get lumber and everything ordered ready to get started let's go because if we're not ready to rent this until partway through next season then we're just leaving money on the table we can't afford to carry this through the winter and not be ready to roll the second the summer weather hits hi girls remember ken we've got lots of windows i can't afford to replace them all right we have to choose judiciously what gets replaced what needs to be replaced and what we can live with for a few more years so what i'm wondering is you have a solution for that a new door that would let some light in right it could be nice with all these windows you'd think we'd have a five-star lake view but i know someone with a saw and the vision to make it better we've got a mix of nice trees and scrabbly trees yep so we want to do things like keep this nice tall cedar with the moss on it it's very pretty yeah and then behind it cut down so the scrabbly stuff so that we're opening up windows and the idea is when we're done it doesn't look like it's been a big chainsaw fiesta of course working in a forest does come with its perks fresh wild blueberries union break you know when you buy a place you think it has some really great features and then once you get into it you start thinking maybe that's not such a great feature after all okay what are you ripping out now if this wasn't here yeah would this be better to pull the dining room over to this side of the room banquette here you could still have a table you'd have room for the chairs and then you'd still have room for lounge chairs in front of the fireplace i think that's a fantastic idea i mean what we could do is we don't have to take this out completely yeah what we could do is we could just chop it off down here [Music] oh look we actually have boards on the back this is pretty comfy so we just have to trim these verticals clad it with new board on top and then we can just trim down the existing doors and we'd still have some storage for all the games and stuff let's do it we'll save a few bucks repurposing the storage but those savings are earmarked for a fix we haven't told you about yet these are the steps that come in from the back dock you see that deck rocks the deck rocks i don't weigh that much and i think we need to have more than an occupancy of one all three of these beams are rotten so we need three new six by six beams and well the whole deck above it you might as well replace two then because it's not going to come apart pretty you know there's three words that homeowners hate more money no that's two words might as well there's no way to save those top boards you can't just put in new beams underneath we can try and jack it up and see if we can get new ones under it and then if we find more rot then we just have to deal with it as we go there's always hope as leo gets to it we're figuring out how to make the interior appealing to as many renters as possible when you first saw the cottage your instant reaction was it's all about the leafy foliage 100 so i've pulled fabrics in the green range the fabric that i am absolutely insanely crazy about is that far fabric it feels mid-century it feels period for the structure and it feels exuberant and fun and leafy green it's got the orange of the lichen it's got the color of the granite boulders that it grows on the green is the color of the bright bright bright moss that is definitely our jumping off do we do something geometric like this i love that the color's not a perfect match but i think we're gonna say cottage rules are it doesn't have to match perfectly no cottage rules are close enough so then we need a bit of an accent maybe we need a solid i like to bring in the solids for sure i think the floor needs to have an accent of color so what if we did the floor in this kind of green i admire your courage i had thought you were gonna paint the floors white not in a rental because they'll just look filthy and dirty and if you're only there for a week or two weeks you don't want to spend all your time cleaning so let's talk colors this is for the walls okay okay we have this accent color here very pretty and then we have our floor color [Music] and he's not saying anything it's still freaks me out a little bit you know what at this point i've bought two gallons it's here i've already invested in it i feel like we go the distance and we try it we got rid of the rickety furniture and now we've got to replace it you see any icebergs from up there secondhand or vintage gets you cheap unique well-built bargains oh chairs i see a bonanza of chairs do we want wicker chairs no i feel like wicker is just too front porch southern belle for the style of architecture that we're dealing with here how do you feel about a captain they're too overtly nautical themed i think look at this cool funky modern table that is great i think that this detail is so nice the way it sort of references the tongue and groove i don't know if i've had two glasses of wine i don't know if i can put my wine down on there you're not putting your wine down yeah that's true i rarely do [Music] i wish this was my age [Laughter] can i ask you something yeah what is an uncle tour now that seems a little weird these are fantastic these are a hundred percent right for the building right for the building but the colors are 100 wrong right oh i wasn't i was looking past the colors i figured you were going to want to paint these 225 for four chairs do the math that's pretty good i can't do the math but i know that that's cheap maybe you can do some on-screen math for us 225 divided by four 225 divided by four so 100 divided by 4 is 25. 56.25 each six that's what i said when was the last time you saw a chair for 56.25 i bet the last time i used that telephone right sold alex really wants the original charming character in the cottage kept so i thought since he thought the teal sealing was so great maybe we could try whitewashing over top of it so i've had the painters try one section and it absolutely does not work and that means we're gonna say goodbye to teal and hello to a new shade of light i totally thought you were wrecking this place by painting it like i mean wrecking it this is unbelievable like you completely converted me like i honestly the brightness the crispness everything about it i wouldn't go back to wood in a heartbeat but thank you thank you so mad about the ceiling sad about the floor just at the point when i am excited that it looks like we're making progress and what do we find out the floors have been painted with the wrong paint the last time around that's peeling off because somebody painted latex over an oil-painted floor water-based paint does not stick on top of oil-based paint so what do we do it is friday of the long weekend and the furniture arrives on wednesday it's time to stand the floors and see if we can get a durable bond for our new fresh coat of paint to go down this is looking like progress so exciting now it's up to ken's team to take out the old window and add in the new and then we'll be just about ready to show you how this part of the cottage fix has turned out if you're considering a rental property i'd always recommend that you start with a property that has a great location i think this cottage is proof positive that if you start with the structure that's interesting to begin with a few easy fixes can transform it into something utterly fantastic the transformation of the living room dining room is dramatic and yet not all at the same time because i kept almost all of the existing elements but yet it feels totally different it feels modern we very consciously did not remove those really brilliantly designed built-in sofa beds they got a fresh coat of paint they got new mattresses and they got beautiful pillow story if it ain't broke don't fix it alex never wants me to paint the wood when i first walked into the living room it was all beautiful wood i was a bit mortified when she said she's gonna paint it white however once it has been changed and once we've moved ahead you know he's gonna love it it's phenomenal i mean i wanna stay there who wouldn't wanna stay there flexibility is key for rental property and that's what the banquette delivers we actually have seven feet so you can cram in as many people as you want and allow a looser more casual approach to cottage dining tommy and i debated about the floor tommy was a no on the floor and i was a yes i never said i thought it was a bad idea i just expressed concern that the floor may not appeal to a wide audience i hope the renters will like it so far everybody who has seen the floor has commented and likes it how can you not like green it's the color of the trees if the views were good before now the views are spectacular no we did not clear-cut the property we did not take out all the trees we simply opened them up and when i say we i really mean alex now you have this beautiful view of one of the most exceptional places in the world you can actually watch the sun go down when you're in the living room amazing building code back in 1950 was a little they say fair so the stairs were a bit wobbly the deck was pretty cantilevered so we took steps to reinforce that whole area so it's super solid and it's going to last another 50 years i think renters want to be wowed they want a place that feels hospitable they want a place that feels welcoming and that feels like it has i don't want to say luxury this is not about luxury accommodation but it is pretty it is welcoming and i hope it will encourage people to want to come back year after year because of the simple changes we've made get these bugs away there's a nice wing there should be no bugs today this is bad advertising for my rental okay there are no bugs normally you

Channel: Abode

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Keywords: home and garden, Abode, Abode channel, home renovation, renovation, home and garden channel, home and garden tv shows, home design ideas, garden design ideas, Sarah Richardson Renovates a Vintage Cottage, renovates a vintage cottage, renovating a vintage cottage, renovating an old cottage, sarah richardson, interior design ideas 2021, home renovation before and after, Renting a cottage, summer rental property, sarah richardson shows

Id: pIBf-RcXo6k

Length: 21min 7sec (1267 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 04 2021