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Hello! I'm Suzannah, a serious DIYer and mom of two little ones. Follow along with my DIY fixer upper house renovations, sewing and crafty projects, real food recipes, and de-stressing goals.
I believe you can love your home just the way it is, AND have the power to design and make big changes to make it better.
I'm also the author of DIY Wardrobe Makeovers!

Imagine an incredible historic beach house renovated a la Fixer Upper - and you can stay there!

It's real!! We spent last weekend with 10 friends livin' it up at the Historic Reed House in Manzanita on the Oregon coast.  The house is 101 years old but was fully restored a few years ago with modern touches like marble tile and heated bathroom floors--and lots of shiplap.

Kim, the owner of The Houses on Manzanita Beach, is a reader of this blog and has been sewing and remodeling houses with her mom since she was a girl. She reached out to me about trying out one of her vacation houses to share with you!

Jason and I love to go to the coast for little weekend getaways but we usually go just the two of us. But this 7-bed, 5-bath house was just too incredible not to share with friends, so we invited a big group and had a relaxing weekend eating, drinking, working on a 3,000 piece puzzle, and walking on the beach together! This place sleeps 20 so would be great for a bunch of wedding guests, a family reunion, or a corporate retreat. Or a super fun weekend with friends like we did!

There is no question that my favorite thing about this house was the kitchen. It's massive, with drawers for storage everywhere, marble, two dishwashers, and a super cool vintage sink with two faucets which was so helpful when a few of us were cooking at once!

Also, this kitchen is STOCKED. Tons of cutting boards, knives, beautiful dishes, everything we needed. Even had huge stock pots (crabbing, anyone?) and a slow cooker.

My second favorite thing was probably the seating. Or the lighting. Or the tile.

The huge dining table seats 14 (how cute are those Windsor chairs??! They are throughout the house.) and was the perfect central gathering place for our puzzle attempts.

Every single piece of lighting in this house was cool, and carefully selected and placed. (And there are a TON of light fixtures to place.) I don't even know where to start on the lighting (sconces, floor lamps, flush mounts, chandeliers, exterior lighting... all fabulous) so just keep an eye out for it in all the photos.

As for the seating--I know how hard it is to decorate a whole house at once so I was SO impressed by all the seating areas and vignettes throughout the house, how each had a slightly different attitude but they all were comfortable and tied together. A great mix of vintage and new pieces!

I think this was my favorite of the four seating areas in the main living space. Great views of the ocean, too!

A lot of the original wall and ceiling construction was exposed and new wood walls added, giving this super cool, funky industrial vibe that also worked out to be really beachy.

Every single bathroom had beautiful tile work, This one at the top of the stairs shared a wall with an almost identical bathroom (but with marble shower instead of claw foot tub). So dramatic when you walk up the stairs!

The master bedroom on the main floor was just luxurious (Jason and I claimed that one!) and there was another king bed room on the main floor with I'm pretty sure this fabulous West Elm bed and some beautiful vintage furniture. But I loved the bedrooms upstairs, too, especially this double queen bunk room!! With an ocean view.

More cute seating upstairs. And vintage dressers! As someone who has been obsessively searching Craigslist for dressers for a couple of purposes for our reno, I really enjoyed looking at how Kim used hers.

We also hung out at the fire pit and recited parts of The Sandlot while roasting marshmallows. Oh! and we played pool and had a ping pong tournament on the ground level, while some of us hung out in yet another living space down there. There are also two bunk rooms in the basement that would be great for an even larger group!

What a cool house. Literally across the street from the beautiful beach.

The Houses on Manzanita Beach include three other houses, sleeping 4-10, so if you can't fill the Reed House with 20 check those out! We hadn't ever been to Manzanita before but just loved it. It's quiet and beachy, with just the right amount of little shops to visit, but also great for just hanging out in a swell beach house like this one!

Thank you so much to The Houses on Manzanita Beach for covering our stay! We had a great time!

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