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A couple turns their 800-square-foot lake home into a nostalgia-rich retreat where vintage collections and quirks of the cottage whisper stories all their own.
Good fences make good neighbors, so the proverb goes. But when you live in a small town where property lines are about as defined as a lakeshore, the lack of boundaries can be a blessing. That’s what Abby and Joe Albers learned when they renovated their 800-square-foot cabin in Pentwater, Michigan. “You meet a lot of people who stop by and want to chat when you’re outside sawing on a Saturday afternoon,” Abby says. “We’ve been adopted by the village grandparents, and one of our neighbors, if she sees we’re in town, leaves us homemade blueberry scones on our outdoor table. It’s just that kind of place.”
Sage advice and colorful stories passed on by these neighbors regarding the circa-1800s lake cabin helped the couple piece together its history. “According to the rumor mill, our house was the barn/shed to these larger Victorians around it,” Abby says. Joe was already familiar with the village, having spent childhood summers camping in Pentwater’s Mears State Park, when the couple began looking for a small escape within a two-hour drive of their home in Allegan. After spotting the listing 10 years ago, they jumped at the chance to make it their own. “We bought this property thinking it was only a cosmetic fixer-upper, but we ended up taking everything down to the studs,” says Abby. “We evicted lots of critters from the attic and made some amazing discoveries along the way: Partly through the renovation, we found out this home is actually a barn and another structure pushed together.”
Abby, who co-owns vintage home shop The Found Cottage, couldn’t wait to outfit the rooms to feel reminiscent of summer camp. Retro collections she had set aside for years—vintage suitcases, paint-by-number art, and plaid patterns on anything and everything—are right at home in the quaint quarters.
Keep reading to take a tour of Abby and Joe's happy cabin retreat.
The cabin’s main floor is covered in laminate wood flooring to stand up to sandy, wet feet from the beach a few blocks away. Abby pulled in a black plaid rug to ground her more colorful flea market finds, including a pair of floral upholstered chairs. “They reminded me of something my grandma would have had, and I built everything else around them,” she says. “I love that they don’t match anything.” Amateur lakeshore paintings, most found for $10-$15, make for a cohesive (and affordable!) collection above the fireplace and sofa.
Get the Look: Rug: Tattersall by Annie Selke Laminate Wood Flooring: from Home Depot
Abby attributes her love of all things old to her antiques-dealer grandparents. Years ago, she began picking up vintage suitcases for about $10 each. Her son Otto’s toys are tucked inside some of them. “Like his mom, he’s already a collector of collecting,” Abby says.(Tip: Abby tosses a fabric softener sheet inside each suitcase to keep them smelling fresh inside.)
Abby stashes wool blankets inside an old pharmacy cabinet, which she bought from her friend who owns Warehouse 55 in Chicago. “We have some cold nights and mornings up here, so the blankets come in handy,” she says. Camp canteens also reinforce the summery spirit.
The kitchen’s metal sink and cabinet unit, likely added during the 1950s, came with the cottage. To add color and “conversation,” she turned to another of her favorite collections. “I love old signs,” Abby says. “I’m drawn to the different fonts, but for the Pentwater cottage, I tried to stick to the campy lake cottage theme.”
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A seafoam-colored farm cabinet Abby found in a barn adds extra counter space for the nearby kitchen. Above it hangs a pair of 1950s metal signs advertising trading stamps that were popular as part of a frequent shopper loyalty program. Abby bought one sign for $50 and the other for $75 on Facebook Marketplace, but she’s often spotted them for as much as $300. “I love the way they look above this minty wood piece—it's one of my favorite spots in the whole house,” says Abby.
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A painting of what Abby likes to think of as an old sea captain—“We call him Salty Paul, even though we’re on a lake”—overlooks the kitchen table paired with two vintage Herman Miller shell chairs. “I bought them from Hope College, which is where Joe and I met. They were raising money were selling the old dining hall chairs to alumni. We thought, ‘How cool would it be to have these chairs we used in college?’” (They bought them for $50 each.)
The cabin’s cozy size, with ceilings just shy of six feet in some spaces, appeals especially to the Albers’s son, Otto. “He calls it the ‘little house,’ ” Abby says. “He loves it because everything is so accessible to him, and we’re always close together.”The lofted bunk room is just big enough to fit twin beds bookended with camp stools found at a flea market. The original floorboards were sanded and painted, and an old trunk and suitcase stand in for a nightstand between the beds. (Tip: Make sure your stack is at least 24 inches high for easy arm’s reach.
Lumbar pillows, made by Abby's friend Sue Vanderveen of Fabric Scout Studio, feature vintage pennants that are a nostalgic nod to the locale, including nearby Ludington, Michigan where the family rides their bikes for fried fish lunches.
An antique white dresser that Abby salvaged from a house about to be demolished fits perfectly under in the attic's slanted ceiling. It provides ample surface to display a mix of treasures, including a brass duck lamp and a collection of vintage sea captain figures.
“My favorite part of summer camp was arts and crafts, so I really love to collect the old paint-by-numbers art,” Abby says of the wildlife scenes above her metal bed (a steal for under $200 on Wayfair!). “It’s gotten a little out of control.”
A midcentury armchair gets a lake-worthy redo with cushions made from wool blankets and grain sacks by Abby's friend Sue Vanderveen of Fabric Scout Studio. A pair of double-sided Burma-Shave wooden signs that Abby found for $95 at a flea market hang above. From about 1925 until the early 1960s, these planks were spaced apart along roadsides as messages meant to replicate an advertising jingle. “They're a really fun part of American road trip history,”" Abby says.
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Do you love peeking inside dreamy camp-style lakeside homes? Check out this pattern-filled cabin in the Adirondacks, this Georgia cabin full of colorful vintage finds, and Camp Murph, a dreamy lake cabin in Minnesota.