Beach House Video Tour with Floor Plans

Thank you for all the sweet and excited comments on Instagram and Facebook about our beach house project that very much needs love. If you missed the announcement and are wondering what we’re talking about, see the original post to get up to speed. As promised, here’s the current plan for the floor layout and the changes we’re considering. Fair warning: we change our minds frequently, so this is the plan so far. This house feels like an iceberg that drifted into our lives, and we’re just standing on the tiny visible tip, excited and a little overwhelmed.

Before we dive into floor plans, we took a short video tour of the house on our first visit after closing, so you can walk through it with us. You’ll see all of the charming remnants that “conveyed” with the property. The place looked pretty rough, but that only increased our excitement as we made a few fun discoveries during our initial clean-out and rummage through the leftovers.

Also: Sherry asked me to mention the Invisalign situation that slightly changes her voice in the video—she has two trays on her teeth right now. If you want more details about her experience, we’ve discussed it in a couple of podcast episodes.

NOTE: If you can’t see the video tour (for example, if you’re viewing this in a reader), open the post on the blog and the video will be visible there.

Now that we’ve toured the house, here’s an aerial look at the current layout. We sketched a rough floor plan in Photoshop, so it’s not perfectly to scale, but it conveys the footprint and major rooms. The house is about 1,800 square feet and currently lists two official bedrooms, though we labeled a third because it’s essentially missing only a closet. We also labeled some enclosed porch spaces as “bonus rooms,” but keep in mind those areas have openings in the siding and are not currently conditioned or counted as finished square footage. In fact, much of the house lacks heating, cooling, plumbing, and functional wiring at the moment.

The existing plan works, but it could use a better kitchen and more sleeping options. Ideally, we want to accommodate two families when needed—our family plus guests—so we’re planning layouts that allow several kids to bunk together or sleep on air mattresses when necessary. That flexibility is part of the fun with a beach house.

Before making our offer, we toured a nearly identical renovated house next door. Their changes gave us a starting idea for our own plan:

We numbered a few key concepts:

1. Mudroom. Instead of converting the side porch back to open, we thought enclosing it as a mudroom would be practical for catching sand and corralling beach gear. Towel hooks, shoe baskets, and a small utility closet with a stacked laundry unit and water heater (likely behind bifold doors) would work well here.
2. Open floor plan. The wall between the kitchen and dining room is already partially removed, so taking it out entirely would create a more open living area. We confirmed it’s not load-bearing, and similar neighboring homes have done the same.
3. Shifted upstairs wall. Moving a long load-bearing wall slightly allowed neighbors to convert their upstairs bonus into an extra bedroom, so we considered a similar adjustment to add usable space upstairs.
4. Main bedroom with en suite. Converting a front storage room into an en suite bathroom for the front bedroom—plus enlarging the closet—was another idea inspired by neighboring renovations.

That initial plan seemed solid, but we ran into a few practical issues:

• Limited kitchen wall space. The back of the house has limited uninterrupted wall space because of the back door, a staircase, a low window, and a bathroom door, making certain kitchen layouts challenging.
• Plumbing cost concerns. A plumber warned that adding a bathroom to the front of the house would run about $4,000–$5,000 more because there’s no existing plumbing on that side. He recommended placing a new bathroom closer to the existing upstairs plumbing to save on materials and labor.
• Pass-through bedroom problem. The initial layout lacked an upstairs hallway, meaning some rooms would be pass-throughs to access other bedrooms or bathrooms. While adding a hallway could reduce usable space and make areas feel darker, not having one would require walking through bedrooms at night—an undesirable arrangement.

Then, a neighbor in one of the nearly identical homes invited us over. Her house included an upstairs hallway in the exact spot we were considering, and it didn’t feel dark or cramped—it felt right. That “aha” moment helped us refine the plan into the current version we’re working from:

Here’s a breakdown, starting with upstairs. The existing layout is on the left in our sketches, and the revised plan is on the right.

Major upstairs changes:

1. Hallway. Adding one new wall through the old Bedroom 2 creates a comfortable hallway while leaving adequate space for the remaining bedroom.
2. Hall bath and bunk room. We’ll divide the upstairs bonus area into two functional spaces: a hall bathroom installed behind existing plumbing and a cozy bunk room large enough for two built-in twin beds. While the bunk room won’t be an official fourth bedroom, it will work perfectly for kids.
3. No closet for Bedroom 3. Converting Bedroom 3 into the main bedroom with an attached bath and private staircase meant sacrificing Bedroom 2’s closet to create a flat wall for a bed. We have ideas to replace lost closet space elsewhere, though Bedroom 3’s wardrobe situation is still being finalized.
4. Closet wall in Bedroom 2. Because Bedroom 2 is long, we plan to install a wall of closets (likely an IKEA system) to compensate for the missing bedroom closets.
5. Small front room. The front small room could be used for storage, as our neighbor does, or repurposed as a reading nook or other functional space depending on need.

Downstairs, the revised plan swaps some room functions to better suit daily living (current layout on the right, revised on the left):

1. Kitchen and dining swap. We plan to move the kitchen to the center of the home, where there’s a long uninterrupted wall for cabinets and space for a large island. The dining area would float toward the back in a cozy nook, which could also house games and books for family time around the table.
2. Kitchen design basics. Although the full kitchen layout hasn’t been finalized, we envision an island with the sink so the person working at the sink can look out the two large windows rather than facing a wall.
3. Utility closet. The mudroom will house a stacked washer and dryer plus the water heater, concealed behind bifold doors for a tidy look.
4. HVAC placement. An HVAC professional suggested placing the first-floor unit in the storage space under the stairs to keep it out of sight and preserve mudroom space.

We’re now working on getting estimates for all of these changes, including necessary structural and exterior work like foundation repairs and a new roof. Those big-ticket items are outside our DIY zone, so we’re hoping the numbers land on the friendly side of the spectrum. Fingers crossed it’s affordable and not a gigantic financial headache.

P.S. With the holiday season approaching, we’ve put together gift guides and a collection of favorite home items and decor if you’re looking for seasonal ideas, and to share what styles we’re currently enjoying.