Harold's Renovation Blog: #85: What We Got Wrong In Our Beach House Kitchen

This week I’m fessing up to a design choice that I insisted we make in our beach house kitchen, but now realize was – shall we say – misguided? Thankfully it’s not too hard to undo, so we’re explaining our change of heart, and what we’re doing to fix it. There’s also a polarizing design “trend” that we’ve been asked to weigh in on, so we’re sharing our take – and why we think it gets people so worked up (this trend literally can make people get rage-y). We’re also sharing some secrets for recreating that super cozy, uber luxurious bed you see in the pages of magazines… and why there are some bed-making tricks that are best left to the pros. Also, does Young House Love have a board game?

You can download this episode from Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and Spotify – or listen to it below! Then use this page to check out any links, notes, or photos we referenced. Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the post to see the player.

What’s New

The photo above shows how close the mini fridge was to the pantry, which houses the full-size fridge.
You can hear more about the original beach house fridge debate and why we landed on that two-fridge solution in Episode #74.
This post about buying our appliances also shows some of our thought process for nixing a full-sized fridge in the main kitchen (and deciding to turn the breakfast nook into a walk-in pantry).
But we actually were able to make the fridge/cabinet switcheroo this weekend! So now that space is looking a little more like this (still need to add hardware and finish some baseboard stuff):

You can also read how we built the pantry shelves that surround our full-size fridge, pictured below:

fridge / white bins / similar woven baskets / similar pendant light

And if you want to actually “walk through” the pantry/kitchen layout for yourself, here’s a post with a video tour that’ll help you picture how it all fits together.

Can We Just Talk About

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Here’s the impassioned article from Elle Decor about why they aren’t fans of backward books (like the ones pictured above).
And below is an example of one of the other “trendy” bookcase choices, the rainbow bookshelf.

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And finally, here’s what we landed on for the bookshelves in our home: general color groupings, but not in a rainbow order (and not totally perfect).

living room chairs / similar wood dresser / similar rug / kitchen pendants

Here’s a shot of the other side, taken around Christmastime (hence the miniature ceramic Mr. & Mrs. Clause who are showing their affection for each other in front of a ceramic succulent).

Listener Question

Let’s first look at some examples of those extra comfy looking beds that we talked about. Here are some images we’ve come across in some recent catalogs. Above is a shot from West Elm, and below is Pottery Barn. Both of them sport that “lived in” bed look. Don’t you just wanna be that dog?

There are also some more tailored looking beds, like the one below from Ballard Designs. They still utilize overlapping layers to create lots of volume on their beds, theirs just looks a bit more formal.

And here’s an even more neatly made bed from a recent Annie Selke catalog – still rocking that extra layered bedding theme, along with an oversized tufted headboard.

We won’t ever pretend our beds can live up to the immaculate styling of those professional photos, but here’s where you can see the “formula” that works for us in real life.
On this queen-sized bed we have: a king-sized duvet & insert, two king-sized pillows with shams in front of our two sleep pillows, and one accent pillow in the middle. Extra credit: a king-sized blanket folded at the foot of the bed. That’s it! Note: There’s more on why we size up the duvet, insert, and blanket in this podcast – along with some other tips for mixing and matching, choosing headboards, etc.

duvet / blue pillow / white blanket / art / headboard / sconce / night stands / sound machine

I’m realizing I don’t have a lot of straight on “bed shots” from the beach house (can you tell we avoid taking them at all costs!?) but these give you a glimpse of the mix. And you can see how we split the striped duvet set across two beds – the bed above got the duvet itself, and the one below got the pillow shams:

headboard / rug / blue blanket / side table / lamp / curtain rods / curtains / sound machine

Here’s the tutorial for making your own upholstered headboard too. The one pictured below is the same one in the tutorial, we just recovered it with more neutral fabric a year or two ago.

lamp / duvet (we flipped it over) / similar night stand / gold frames / similar mobile

If you’re looking for all of the paint colors and other sources from our beach house, we created a page with all of that info for you. And we’re working on a Before & After page, which is ridiculously exciting after over a year and a half of renovating this thing. That’ll be up soon I hope!
And we’ll wrap up this section with that Taco Bell parody Sherry mentioned from Saturday Night Life (an oldie, but a goodie!)

We’re Digging

If you want to see all of the board game excitement that ensued on Instagram, Sherry archived that “InstaStory” on our profile so it won’t disappear. Just visit our profile page on your mobile IG app and scroll through the little circles (see above) until you come to the one that says “YHL Game?” If you click that, you can watch all of the fun board-game-related hijinks thanks to that fateful MermaidFitJess dream.
And if you want to check out the games we recommended, here’s Exploding Kittens (and the Imploding Kittens expansion pack) as well as Bears Vs. Babies. We’re also open to more game suggestions if you guys have others that you love!
Also, good news for people who want to expand their nasal horizons like Sherry: the basil hand soap she recently fell for also comes in a dishwashing liquid. And the “special edition” Mrs. Meyer’s Iowa Pine scent is still available on Amazon (here’s a sampler pack or a 6-pack of hand soap).

If you’re looking for something we’ve dug in a past episode but don’t remember which show notes to click into, here’s a master list of everything we’ve been digging from all of our past episodes.

And lastly, a big thank you to Agility Bed for sponsoring this episode. You can get $150 off your order of any Agility Bed mattress by visiting AgilityBed.com and entering the code YHL150.