Text by Kelly Guinaugh, ASID
Produced by Jeanne Delathouder
Over the past few years, a lot of our clients have been focusing on their second homes. The onset of the pandemic escalated this desire for many people who have since realized that life can change quickly, and having a place for making memories has become a top priority. As a result, the desire to create a getaway for their adult children, grandchildren, and friends has remained top of mind. My Chicago-area design firm, Interior Enhancement Group, has embraced this as we love nothing more than creating lifestyles through our designs that will serve our clients well in this chapter of their lives. So, join me as I walk you through some of my favorite interior furnishings trends for 2023.
Many of today’s emerging trends reflect a “Hakuna Matata” mentality—no troubles, no worries, take it easy. In response, we are selecting furniture upholstered in soft, comfy, and bleachable fabrics. We are using swivel chairs like never before (and believe me, they aren’t the swivel chair designs of the past). They have become the perfect solution for lake home furniture plans featuring multiple focal points. In addition, we are focusing on sunrooms that expand our living spaces and merge indoor and outdoor spaces. Nature rejuvenates us, and maximizing lake views is one of the very best ways to do this.
We are also moving away from the clean, straight lines of the past decade and going forward with a softer design aesthetic featuring sensuous curves and irregular organic lines. We are seeing this trend in both architectural design and interior furnishings. Additionally, mixing textures, materials, and shapes appears to be a trend that is most soothing to our clients today.
Inside Out
Sunrooms—often called three and four-season rooms—are one of our favorite spaces to create for clients with lake properties. They offer an ideal place to read, share a drink while watching the sunset, or enjoy coffee at sunrise. Sunrooms are the perfect spot to visit with family and friends without concern about the weather or bugs while still enjoying the spectacular views.
We recently completed a sunroom in a home on Lake Michigan in Sister Bay in Door County. Blue fabrics and accents are excellent hues to use at the lake to create a cohesiveness between indoors and out. Texture is always an important design element, and here, we selected furniture from Lane Venture’s Hemingway Loggia and Carlsbad collections with woven frames and smooth teak. Our end result? You just want to be in this room.
This bright white sunroom with blue accents overlooks the pool in one of our client’s vacation homes on Lake Geneva. Here, we incorporated Brennan swivel chairs from CR Laine (a double-duty trend alert) for ease of conversation and taking in the views. Uttermost’s natural teak Tectona end table features a bleached driftwood finish that enhances the natural wood grain and pairs beautifully with a Comanche table lamp.
Double Duty Furniture
Swivel chairs are the best choice for achieving the most functional use of your chairs. They are often selected for the great room, where our clients with lake homes want flexible seating to view the TV as well as the beautiful window views. These cocoon-like Jamestown Swivel chairs from Wesley Hall are our new go-to for comfort. The chair is not too large, yet it magically seems to fit everyone, whether you are petite or over six-feet tall. It is a fabulous chair—whether upholstered in fabric or leather, it emanates lake-house style.
Organic Flow
Incorporating different materials and shapes into our lake homes creates a beautiful juxtaposition. Think rattans and wovens alongside metals and concrete, like this Plateau side table and Tortuga lounge chair from Holly Hunt. Light fixtures, like Palecek’s Corsica pendant, offer another excellent opportunity to bring in woven materials that provide beautiful contrast when paired with live-edge wooden tables or concrete tables.
Colorful Personality
Our vacation lake homes offer a place to do something a little bolder than in our day-to-day homes. Whether it’s with whimsical objects, a vibrant color palette, or simply repurposing something in a way that is more fun than practical, many people feel a sense of unlimited creative freedom with their lake house or second home.
Here, we put on our creative, out-of-the-box thinking caps when our clients wanted to honor the memory of their late husband/dad by incorporating the fish he had caught into their lake home décor. So, we “bronzed” the fish and displayed them on a board and batten wall at their lake home. It is very special to the owners and something you might not do in a home you live in every day.
A brightly painted, repurposed table with a wave backsplash detail becomes the vanity in this fun powder room. Borrowed from Country Living, this look is perfect for a whimsical lake home bathroom or even a kid’s bathroom.
For this home, we decided to hang three woven light fixtures instead of one in the foyer. After all, a vacation home is the place to have some fun!
This trio of Tanner pendants from Palecek in Tapered Natural, Globe Natural, and Drum Natural combines to make a dynamic lighting statement.
Fluid Curves
A growing trend in furniture and architecture is moving toward softer lines, which mix well with the straight, minimal lines that have had the spotlight for the past decade. This Paoloa wing chair from Verellen is an excellent example of a chair with sculptural movement. We have sourced this chair for a lake house we are currently completing with a client. We think the organic lines work especially well, emitting the relaxed feel of a lake home.
Why not have a little fun and “color outside the lines” when you’re in vacation mode? This sculpted wood loveseat with an open back by Holly Hunt is another curvaceous favorite. Of course, selecting fabrics with soft textures, a great hand, and remarkable durability is most important and brings me to the next trend we are seeing in homes today—especially lake homes.
Durable, Sustainable, No-Worry Fabrics
Textiles have come a long way, and today we have amazing choices for indoor/outdoor fabrics. These water-repellant and stain-resistant selections from Kravet’s Purus Collection by Clark and Clark have a soft hand, just like luxe indoor fabrics. What a win-win for our lake homes, which are often occupied by multiple generations, many guests, and family pets. So, fabric durability is always a top consideration in our design selections.
Laundry Rooms, Pet Showers, and Mudrooms
Laundry rooms and mudrooms are the workhorses of our lake homes. In addition, we are seeing more and more pet showers included in these spaces where we can wash “the lake” off our furry friends. In one of my recent projects, we added a flip-up teak bench to the pet shower so smaller dogs could hop in unassisted. Plus, lots of storage and space for multiple washers and dryers are huge trends for lake homes—and for good reason. With lots of house guests and wet beach towels, convenient and efficient workspaces are essential.
I hope you feel inspired by my top picks for lake home furnishings. If you’re planning a project of your own, my team at Interior Enhancement Group is eager to assist you with all your interior design needs. Here’s wishing you and yours a blissfully beautiful summer by the shore!