After a long winter, it's incredibly nice to be able to go to your summer house and "open" it for the season. One of the first considerations you may have is how your summer house living room should be designed. You're not looking for the same type of coziness that you have at home. You want something that's still conducive to family, but will encourage warm breezes and long walks on the beach, not long stays indoors.



Whether you will visit this home on weekends throughout the warm season, or if it will become a semi-permanent home, the living room is a space that's important to family and also important for entertaining. The living room is probably the second most used rooms of the house, the first being the kitchen, of course. This room will be where guests will be entertained and families will come together when they're not out playing on the beach.

A wonderfully freeing addition to a summer living room is the use of bead board on the walls. This adds to the cottage type atmosphere that you're looking to create. The walls should either be painted a stark white that would contrast nicely with the wood grains of the trim around the doorways and along the floors, or they should be painted a light color such as field green or sky blue. A summer house living room should give the feel of being outdoors even when stuck in the house on a rainy day. These colors will help create that look and feel within your living room.

Another nice touch to this style living room is small knickknacks that have to do with the outdoors and beaches. Seashells are a wonderful choice of d'cor when creating the illusion of bringing the beach and ocean into your very own living room. Shells can be used to surround the bottom of candles on a glass tray. They can be bagged and displayed through their mesh bags on a shelf next to a framed picture of you and your family on the beach or outdoors together.

Sparse collections of greenery either real or fake will enhance the "outside on the beach" feel of this living room. If you take a few plants that may vary in size and place them in a few strategic places, they will do a great job of adding a little green to your summer living room. If you're thumb is no more green than your is your forefinger, then choose plants that require little care or choose fake plants. Like their real counterparts, fake trees and plants are available just about everywhere. Be on the lookout and grab one or two that will truly enhance your living room.

Living rooms can be wonderful locations within the home and summer home. When everyone is at home over the summer, bonding can truly take home in a room that was well thought about and decided upon. Create your very own living space in the summer room style because you never know when you could be getting a new room to decorate.