Inspirations

Before & After: A Low-Cost Summer Guest Room Makeover, Cape Cod Edition

This week we’re combing through the Remodelista archives for some of our all-time favorite summer stories. Here’s one:

A few summers back, Julie realized she had to do something about the neglected guest bedroom in her Wellfleet, Massachusetts, summerhouse if she wanted repeat visitors. Formerly used as a study, the room had seen better days: The shelves were lined with dusty academic tomes, the baby blue walls and ceiling were peeling, and the closet interior and ancient iron radiator hadn’t been painted in decades (if not a century).

For advice on achieving the perfect summery seaside palette, using Behr paints from the Home Depot,  Julie called in Remodelista contributing editor and Cape Cod neighbor Justine Hand for a consultation (Justine’s pitch-perfect cottage in Orleans, Massachusetts, is featured in our first book, Remodelista: A Manual for the Considered Home). Justine is a genius with color, so the two pored over the Behr palette (which includes hundreds of options) and chose a watery pale blue/green Behr River Mist for the walls, an all-purpose, can’t-go-wrong Behr Linen White for the ceiling and trim, and a cheery, sunny Behr Bicycle Yellow for the closet interior.

Photography by Justine Hand for Remodelista.

Join us for a tour.

After

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Above: Justine dreamed up a summery palette for the guest bedroom; the walls are painted in Behr’s River Mist, a blue/green shade that subtly references the shimmery Cape Cod coastline.

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Above: For the closet, Justine recommended Behr’s Bicycle Yellow to pick up on the yellow accents in the bedroom and to give the interior a cheerful feel.

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Above: “The palette gives the room a luminous, glowy feel,” Julie says.” The quilt and patterned pillow cover are from Les Indiennes and the mustard linen throw pillow is from Hawkins NY.
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Above: Julie and Justine “shopped” the rest of the house and created a mini gallery wall over the bed using framed pieces.
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Above: It’s an old Cape Cod trick: Go beachcombing for a sculptural seashell to create an instant light pull.

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Above: Julie’s cat JoJo approves.

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Above: “We pruned the library, keeping only a few volumes, and added items collected from the rest of the house,” Julie says. “The landscape study is by my daughter, who took a plein air painting class a couple of summers ago with my favorite artist, Rob DuToit.”

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