Musical Rooms

We don't really have designated rooms at the lake house.  We've barely stayed there alone with just our family and when we have we've had a plan to paint the bunk room or work in a different room at night while the girls sleep.  We've literally been playing musical rooms at the cottage.  Rod and I haven't even slept in the master bedroom yet.  It's the room with the screen door out to the Juliette balcony, it has the biggest bed, but it also has a captured bedroom off of it.  You have to walk through the master to get to the 4th bedroom.  Perfect for families or for a big group of kids to share the two rooms.  We decided the first time that we visited that we wouldn't really have designated rooms.  We would be flexible with where we slept depending on who was visiting.  If we were there alone we could each have our own room.  Since we are renting we aren't really moving in our own stuff.  We have an owners closet for extra towels, bedding, sunscreen, bug spray, and other items that we want available to us at the house but do not want accessible to renters.  But for now we are not claiming any of the rooms for our personal belongings.  We can move easily from room to room.

We were talking about themes for the rooms and wondering if we could name them.  When we moved in we called them the white, pink,  master and captured bedrooms.  We decided that unbeknownst to us we had inadvertently created themes through artwork that follow our history as a couple and a family.   The white room represents where we grew up and met in Bolton and Stow.  It has a picture hanging over the bed of a sheep farm right down the road from the house I grew up in that was a gift from my dad.  It has a bureau and bedside table that we have since painted in Annie Sloan's chalk paint that spent the majority of their lives in Rod's family home in Bolton.  The lamp on the bedside table was a wedding gift from our dear friends who married after also growing up in Stow.  It is small and cozy like the towns we grew up in and it is actually one of our favorite rooms.

The captured bedroom has a picture of Boulder where we met again after college.  It was a wedding present from one of our best friends who lived in Boulder with us at the time.  Within a month of dating each other in Boulder we already knew we would get married.  We each gave the other candy rings that Christmas as a little inside joke..neither knew the other had done the same.   We added the headboard from my husband's parents master bedroom and a quilt from my step mom.  It is cottage cute with the paddle curtain rod and the window seat we added to enjoy the pretty view of the lake.  A great place to read or play hand clapping games with your daughter or sister.

We have since found a bench cushion for it shown above.
The cozy quilt for the window seat was a handmade wedding present from one of my besties.

The pink room is the now the bunk room.  It has art work that we bought at Decordova art museum in Lincoln MA the day Rod asked me to marry him.  It is one of our favorite places to go for a date day or family picnic.  We spent some rainy days and hot nights in there painting the walls (& ceiling) from bubble gum pink to vanilla.  Our eldest daughter loved the pink but our younger two and the two of us were not big fans.   Ah!  So much pink!  It looks 100 times better!  We have a lot of friends and family with boys so knew that we wanted that room to feel welcoming to the boy contingency as well.  We also thought the more neutral color would be more appealing to renters who don't necessarily have girls and know that some boys might have an issue with staying in a very very very pink room (it had pink walls, a pink ceiling, a pink curtain into the room and pink sheets).

We also moved the ottoman from the living room up here to create another window seat.  The girls found it was their favorite spot to read on rainy days.

The master room doesn't really have any art theme.  It doesn't need it.  The view from the bed out the screen door provides the best view possible.   The lake view.  It is our present.  Our dreams of a second home.   Our dreams of waking up with this view.  Our dreams of drinking our morning coffee with a view.  We included the beautiful rocking chair the girl's grandparents gave us when their first grandchild was born.  A lot of hours were spent rocking and nursing our babies in that chair.  We are so glad to finally find the perfect home for it!  The headboard is one of the doors from our antique house.  It never found a spot at home but with some Annie Sloan chalk paint it makes a great headboard.

The house has already begun telling our family's story.  It is fun to think about what the future will bring in this home. And how the cottage will change with us!