Summer Lovin

Deborah Whitlaw Llewellyn

Photo by J.Savage Gibson

Lisa Romerein

Richard Leo Johnson

All images are via Coastal Living

Finally Melbourne has turned on the summer weather this weekend.  With the delicious warm weather comes fun times at the beach.  My husband's family has a beach house at Venus Bay in South Gippsland which we lovingly refer to as "VB" (those from Victoria will get the in joke!).  The weatherboard house was originally from East Bentleigh and we literally cut the house in half, loaded it on two trucks and moved it down to the beach.  We have spent the past year renovating it and although I would love it to look like one of the pictures shown here, the reality of our beach house reno was that it involved three families, a very limited budget (no one wanted to spend anything!) and lots of difference of opinion when it came to decorating.  Nevertheless, it's still our little retreat and I am definitely looking forward to spending the summer there.

I'm a bit of dreamer, so I still like to look at these pictures of beach house chic.  Even if you can't spend a fortune on a beach house (and let's be honest, to even have the luxury of a beach house is awesome in itself, whatever it looks like) then you can still steal some ideas from these pics.  I love the idea of a swing at a holiday home as it just asks you to slow down and relax, perhaps with a glass of wine and some cheese or with a coffee and a good book.  The cheeky "Nice Tan" lettering is fun and playful, although I'm ashamed to say, my signage would probably read "Nice Burns".

If you are fortunate enough to have sweeping ocean views, you can either use large picture windows or you can frame it with architectural detail as in the picture with the arched windows.  Beach house style can be super relaxed or more formal as in the last picture.  I love the idea of white and light colours at the beach, but with kids at a beach house, you don't want to be on edge all the time over things getting dirty.  I bought some white cushions for our beach house last year and over the past year the kids have successfully ruined them (lucky they were cheap).  We have washed them about four times and they are still hanging in there, but thank goodness our sofas and dining chairs are in darker colours!

Enjoy the nice weather and remember to slip slop slap.