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We’ve been dreaming of a cabin in the woods for quite some time now. A place to go when we need a break from the hustle of the city. A place to make memories - outside - with Remy. A place to cozy up to a bonfire in the fall or run through a sprinkler in the summer. A place to put a grill! Can you tell we don’t have outdoor space in our current home? :) We also wanted a place to gather with family and friends. I pictured our nieces and nephews running around the yard. Hauling our gear to the beach with friends. And leaving our laptops behind - the simple life! So we started to really think about what this cabin would cost.

THE STRATEGY

Although we’ve been dreaming of this cabin, we’re also realists. We don’t need a vacation home by any means. So the best strategy for us is to use the cabin as a vacation rental 70% of the year and then spend the other 30% using the cabin as a family. I heavily researched the rental market in the area. I calculated costs associated with a vacation rental (cleaning services, maintenance, start-up costs to furnish the place, etc.) The numbers all worked out and we started the hunt.

THE LOCATION

Living in Chicago, the ideal place for a cabin getaway is upper Wisconsin or upper Michigan. But, considering we’d want to drive there for short weekends, we narrowed our radius to 2 - 2.5 hours away from the city. We also thought this would potentially attract more Chicago vacationers to rent the place! We ultimately started looking near St. Joseph, Benton Harbor, and New Buffalo in Michigan. The area is quaint, thrives in the summer, but still feels like a cozy getaway town in the winter. Finding a home that is near to the lake, on a wooded lot, not too close to the neighbors is hard. Top that off with wanting a cabin vibe, not a lake house vibe, and we thought we’d be looking forever….but then we found it!

THE CABIN

In January, we found an adorable cabin! Just north of New Buffalo, it took about an hour to get there with no traffic. My mom called it a cottage but it felt like a cabin to me. It was a few blocks from the lake on an awesome wooded lot. As soon as we pulled up to it, the tall trees made me feel like we were worlds away from the Midwest! This was the view when we pulled up…I was smitten!

THE PLANS

In the coming weeks, we toured the cabin twice and drove up to Michigan three times! We were really committed to exploring the neighborhood and getting to know the lot before we made an offer on the place. We also needed to be sure our plans would be a good return on our investment and be in demand for the vacation rental market! So I started dreaming up plans to fix up the cabin. The overall color scheme I was drawing on for interior and exterior were various tones of black, dark green, blue and white.

THE EXTERIOR

There was no doubt the house needed a face lift. It was lacking curb appeal, but yet, the trees were the real stunners here! I drew inspiration for the exterior from some of my favorite cabins. I really like the moody cabin look - dark paint, dark trim to match. I think it makes the trees and greenery pop. This is what I had in mind for inspiration.

We did look at paint colors and were torn between a few. Here is my amateur sketch of the dark exterior (do not judge, I sketched it on Instagram one evening just to see and went way out of the lines haha!) I always envisioned a black cabin, so I am fairly certain that’s what we would have done.

THE DECK & YARD

The back deck opened up from the kitchen, making it perfect for a grill and an outdoor dining set. We also discussed a hot tub nestled by the tree just off the deck. And maybe a hammock somewhere? The upstairs bedroom had this cool balcony feature, too. I planned to put a bistro set and some twinkle lights for early morning coffee or evening wine! On the balcony, it felt like you were in a tree house.

Here is the inspiration I was drawing on for the back yard and deck. Adding a fire pit is an inexpensive way to get the backyard feeling cozy. It also helps to extend the seasonality of the cabin. Fire pit + hot tub are fall / winter activities in a normally summer geared community.

THE INTERIOR

Once we saw the inside, I really started to envision family gatherings and folks renting the cabin for a birthday party, girls weekend, etc. The fireplace was the main focal point, as well as the bunk loft and wood beams, which you can see in a few photos.

The downstairs layout had the kitchen opening up to the dining room which opened to the main living room. Then one bedroom and bathroom were under the loft. The upstairs loft had two areas and would have been used as a bunk room / guest room.

The layout was not far off from this amazing cabin inspiration below. The fireplace is directly behind where I was standing to take this picture (opposite the loft).

I planned to pain the walls white throughout the cabin to really make the wood beams pop and brighten up the space during the day. The cabin had lots of natural light, which was great! I pictured some campy light fixtures, like these for the dining room. And maybe some mismatched dining chairs. I really wanted it to feel casual.

The bunk room was really fun to dream up! The ceilings were pretty low in the cabin, so we couldn’t stack the bunks. The current owners had 7 bunks lined up in the loft! We planned to follow suit and put as many bunks as we could fit, to increase our rental income. I pictured clean white sheets (easy to keep clean when turning out weekly renters) and plaid comforters or quilts. Super simple, maybe some pennants hanging above each bed.

The living room was lined with about 10 sliding glass doors (although I didn’t get any good photos, as we took a lot of videos instead). I pictured opening up the doors in the summer to let the breeze inside! We also discussed making this odd nook a third bedroom or putting a pool table here. One for rental income and the other would just be for the fun factor!

For the main living space, big comfy couches were necessary. And lots of plaid blankets to cozy up! I was planning to add a statement light fixture in the center of the room - probably a rustic chandelier. I also wanted to over-grout the fireplace, similar to the picture below. I saw Chris Loves Julia do this on her blog and it is a great way to tone down the browns and tans that were dominating the room. This is what the fireplace looked like.

The over-grouted fireplace look we were going for. I really like it!

On one of our last visits to go see the property, we were pulling away and saw two deer hanging out in the yard. I stopped and stared at them for a long time. We never see wildlife like that in the city. I turned to my husband and said I wanted to put an offer in. I wanted our son to grow up seeing wildlife, exploring the woods, playing in the creek. Doing things we just cannot do easily in the city. How fortunate would we be to have a cabin in the woods to escape to? We hoped vacation renters would feel the same. Next, we started discussing our offer.

THE CHALLENGES

Although it was really fun to dream up my plans to decorate the cabin, there were a few challenges we were facing from the beginning.

First, the foundation seemed off. The flooring was cracking in some spots and it felt “squishy” under your feet in certain areas. Obviously, that is not a good sign so we made note of that and looked up the cost of fixing a foundation. Luckily, the cabin was pretty small, but it would still be a large added cost.

Second, the roof was drooping in one spot. Again, sounds alarming, but based on the size of the cabin, we figured we might have it in the budget to fix the roof once we had an expert look at it.

Third, we noticed a few of the pine trees on the lot looked to be dying. We wanted to bring out an arborist to help us determine whether they would need to be removed or if they were just fine. Since the wooded lot is the main selling point, we wanted to make sure the trees weren’t dying on us!

We planned to bring out a contractor to take a look at all of the potential work that needed to be done and give us a cost estimate. We were really focused on the lot and the location so we were willing to look past some flaws in the structure itself, as long as we could afford to get them fixed and not go over budget…

THE HUNT CONTINUES

We ultimately decided to put an offer in on the cabin and wanted to bring contractors over to the property during the inspection to assess real damage and costs. Unfortunately, we never got that far. We had a counter offer on the table on Saturday evening and took the night to sleep on it. By Sunday morning the sellers had accepted another offer and weren’t accepting any more counters from us. It was pretty upsetting (I may have cried).

I broke a big rule, which was that I got emotionally attached to the property before we even bought it. I really loved that cabin. But over the next few days I realized that there will be more cabins. There will be more properties. There will be more opportunities, as there always are.

At first, I scrapped all of my plans and wanted to forget about the cabin. A few weeks later, I feel differently. I put this post together because I wanted to show all the work and thought process that goes into buying a home - or a rental property - and sometimes you don’t even get it. I am sure many of you have been through a similar process in your life when buying or selling. It’s a long-game. And even though I felt like all of my hard work was a waste of time, I now realize that I can save these plans for the future. Plus, we learned a lot!

And the silver lining is that it is now April 2020, we almost bought the cabin in February, and we would have been mid-renovations during the COVID-19 pandemic and losing money daily. I think maybe this all happened for a reason.

We will continue the hunt someday! Right now, I am enjoying our little corner of the city and planning to rent someone else’s cabin in the woods this summer :)