10 Lake House Interior Design Ideas (With Pictures)

Lake houses are some of the most beautiful out there, but they tend to come in their own predefined styles that may not mesh with your ideal vision of a lakefront residence. Whether you live on the water or just need a getaway once in a while, it’s 100% worth the time, effort, and money to renovate your lake house with your own personal style. How to do so is a little less clear, but we’ve got you covered. Scroll down for some great tips on where to get started when updating your lake house.

The 10 Lake House Interior Design Ideas

1. Invest in Durable, Waterproof Furniture

Wicker and wooden furniture are favorites in lake houses for their durability, natural beauty, and relative resistance to moisture. That means you don’t have to fret about water stains if it gets a little wet after a post-swimming picnic. Colorful polyethylene beach chairs are a cheap, long-lasting option, and they don’t rust like metal furniture does.

2. Embrace Nautical Style

Craft a nautical-themed lake house that perfectly captures the timeless spirit of a waterfront life—add natural rope decor, get some of those little ships in bottles, and consider going with a light blue, navy blue, and white nautical color scheme. Nautical flags are another idea for filling up blank walls, and marine lanterns are right at home on your lakefront porch. This is the perfect chance to display all your coolest fishing and camping equipment too!

3. Focus on Transitional Spaces

Lake houses typically focus on connecting with nature, and emphasizing indoor-outdoor spaces and transitional spaces is perfect for enhancing that. Adding sliding glass doors, porches, and decks encourages spending time outside, and you can bring the sun inside by making your main living room a sunroom flooded with natural light. Bar-style open kitchens with sliding glass doors keep you fed and hydrated without hindering your access to the outdoors, but the crucial part is maintaining an effortless flow in the places that lead outside.

4. Stock Up on Seating & Sleeping Space

Lake houses are the perfect place to host weekend gatherings, but you’ll have to account for your visitors’ comfort. That means having enough beds and rooms, but you can save some space in smaller lake houses with dorm-style or bunk beds for your guest room(s). It’s a smart idea to stock up on clean linens, towels, and laundry soap while you’re at it. Chances are you’ll be spending most of your time outdoors anyway, but your guests should feel at ease during their visit too.

5. Show Off the View

What’s a lakefront house good for if not the stunning view of the water and surrounding landscape? Open up your view to the water with as many windows as you can stand, add sliding glass doors for two-in-one views and access outdoors, and ditch all your thick drapes.

If you must have something to dress your windows, consider thin, gauzy curtains that let in as much light as possible without obscuring your view. We’d suggest rearranging the furniture with your view as the focal point of the room, eschewing gaudy art centerpieces and letting nature speak for itself.

6. Outdoor Cooking Areas

It’s time to don your chef’s hat, spatula, and tongs; your lake house is the perfect spot to let your inner grill master take over. This is the best time to break out your fancy grill, but a hibachi works just as well! Wow your guests with a premium waterfront dining experience by setting up a dining area on a deck or putting together a smaller, more intimate gathering on a porch or open-air gazebo. Nobody likes bugs, so you can really go the extra mile here by installing bugproof mesh screens around your food prep and dining spaces. And of course, stock up on bug spray!

7. Add Some Little Personal Touches

Even if it’s just a vacation spot you use once or twice a year, your lake house deserves personal touches that make it feel more like a tranquil home away from home than a cold, impersonal rental. Take some group photos and hang them up, or bring all your favorite books, art, or posters from home—the limit is really just what you can spare to bring! If you’re crafty, make some lake house-themed throws, do family art projects, or DIY a beach chair of your own design to lounge the days away.

8. Go Rustic

You don’t have to own a log cabin to enjoy a rustic, outdoorsy lake house getaway. Prioritize natural materials for your furniture, seek out distressed wood counters, fashion scrap wood into quaint decor, and use cozy browns and greens to evoke a connection with nature. If you have a fireplace or fire pit, even better! If contemporary design isn’t to your tastes and you want something more woodsy, all you have to do is fill your space with as much wood as possible.

9. Create a Breezy Open Layout

Like beach houses, lake houses do best with an airy open layout that encourages inside-outside living without feeling too cramped. The space should flow without a thought, so take a look at if you can knock out a wall to create an open kitchen-living room space leading directly onto your lakefront deck. Try to cluster your furniture and decorations while leaving large spaces that help boost the open feel you’re going for. Light colors work best here.

10. Bring Nature Inside

If your lake house is missing something and you can’t quite pinpoint what it is, it’s probably plants. Adding green to any house is an age-old trick to instantly improve your mental health, but you don’t have to go crazy with flower beds if you’re not much of a gardener.

Just a few low-maintenance spider plants, aloes, or other succulents thrive in the humidity near lakes, but make sure you open a window so it can benefit from the fresh air and ambient moisture. Plants look great in any home, but they especially pop in lake houses with airy, open layouts.

Conclusion

Lake houses are meant to be revitalizing yet easy-going spaces where you can be at ease, but ironically, decorating them can be stressful. Just take a deep breath and get your creative juices flowing with some of our useful design ideas above. The lake house of your dreams is closer than you think.

Featured Image Credit: Artazum,Shutterstock