Lake House Garden Shed/Love Shack | Megan Opel Interiors

My parents are adding on a little garden shed to the back of their lake house in Wisconsin to host extra guests during busy seasons, which my siblings and I affectionately refer to as the “love shack,” and I’ve been working with my parents, their contractor, landscape architect, electrician, and painter to make the place picture perfect.

For the exterior, I wanted to build two x-style barn doors with petite windows up top, like these:

After a quick sketch on a piece of paper (which I completely forgot to take a picture of), the building company came up with this:

The exterior will be painted in the same scheme as the house for continuity, the colors of which I’m forgetting at the moment but will add in later if I find them. I ordered three of these sconces for the exterior, which are slightly different than the outdoor lantern sconces on the main house but in the same lake-y spirit. Plus, I just adored them.

For the interior, my mom pinned this roomΒ as her inspiration, which I loved.

Drawing from her inspiration, I specified the use of thick square-edge shiplap walls, and our contractor sourced these tongue and groove boards:

We are having the walls, ceiling, and beams painted in Benjamin Moore’s Super White, a true bright white. I ordered two of these pendants because they are just so, so gorgeous and aligned with her inspiration.

For the floors, we originally wanted to do a reclaimed wood floor, but after realizing how expensive it would be to do and figuring we were going to cover most of the floor with a huge rug anyway, we decided to use a pretty vinyl plank flooring that looks eerily close to wood. My mom picked out this flooring and I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw how great it looked with the walls!

For the landscaping, we are going to use Trex decking in Vintage Lantern on the landing areas in front of the doors, and I’m hoping our landscape designer comes up with a beautiful plan for some greenery and florals around the house.

Here’s a sneak peek at some of the progress made so far!

As you can tell, the overall mood is cool, simple, a little industrial, a little Provencal, and super cozy, with a neutral palette of white, gray, beige, pops of black, bronze, and antique nickel. Though the final product I’m sure will be a little different, I made this mood board to help guide our purchases. We’re also hoping to find the perfect vintage armoire and nightstands, and maybe some cool yet safe pedestal fan. Excited to see how it all comes together!