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Walks on the beach usually turn up seashells, but for Jan and Dan Frey, the sand led them to their dream house. “We just turned the corner and found this cottage,” Jan says of her tiny 1930s house on Tybee Island, Georgia. “We had been looking for something like this for years,” Dan says. “It’s just what we had envisioned. I took one step inside and said, ‘We’ll take it.’”
When the Freys happened upon their treasure, it was nearing the end of a major renovation by Jane Coslick, an interior designer and preservationist who has saved more than two dozen of Tybee Island’s original beach homes. After restoring and decorating them, she sells the beloved cottages, although Jane says it was especially hard to part with this one.
photography: Richard Leo Johnson
Jane stuck to an all-white palette to make the cottage feel laarger. She added color with a coloection of blue pottery to give the living room a focal point. |
“I had been watching this house for 10 years until it finally went on the market,” she says. “It was covered with vinyl siding and brown trim. Other than that, the basic design had not been changed.” When a friend backed out of purchasing it, Jane snatched it up and went to work. After addressing no-fun needs like adding ductwork for central heat and air-conditioning and replacing the 70-year-old tin roof, she focused on restoring original style elements. “This cottage had an energy that you would not believe, and I really wanted to maintain that,” she says. “I wanted to remodel the house, not re-muddle it.” 
photography: Richard Leo Johnson
Original scalloped trim frames the entry to the galley kitchen. Jan says she loves the room's pocket windows for their historic charm. |
Jane took her cue on where to begin the restoration from one of the cottage’s most charming features—original pocket windows that slide up into the wall to open. Previous owners had converted a front bedroom into a bath and covered up its street-side windows with a wall to create privacy. With a set of windows over to one side, “it seemed like the house was winking at me,” she recalls. “I took down that wall, and the original windows were right there.” Now, curtains provide the required privacy for bathers. Next, Jane scrubbed and refinished the original V-groove heart-pine floorboards and wall paneling, which had turned brown with nicotine stains from a former smoking resident. Smitten with the vintage hardware, she removed every hinge and doorknob and cleaned and repainted them in their authentic black color. “All of the parts even work!” she says. Jane acknowledges that the biggest challenge she faced was “to create as much living area as possible in only 650 square feet.” Thanks to a clever manipulation of space, she enlarged the cottage by creating multipurpose rooms. For example, the front room has a daybed that can be used to lounge and read or to sleep extra guests. “I always put daybeds in the cottages I design in case extra people show up—which they always do,” she says with a smile. She also had guests in mind when she added an outdoor shower to supplement the one indoor bath.
photography: Richard Leo Johnson
A large porch extends living space and provides a breezy spot for relaxing in a hammock on cool evenings. |
The addition of a 360-square-foot screened porch increased the amount of living space by more than 50%. “Incorporating the indoors and out is very important,” Jane says. “Nature has to be made a part of every cottage.” The porch’s sloped tin roof, exposed rafter tails, and latticework echo design elements from the original structure. “I had my draftsman draw the porch to look like it had always been there,” she says.
photography: Richard Leo Johnson
A row of windows with sheer curtains creates a cool, open atmosphere in the bedroom. |
To make the interior feel bigger, Jane chose a creamy white palette. Quilted white cotton slipcovers camouflage a friend’s hand-me-down orange velour furniture and go straight into the washing machine for cleaning. To keep things lively, she added accent pieces in various shades of blue that echo the house’s exterior. “Putting only a few things in each room makes them stand out more, especially against the white,” she says. For Jan and Dan, the white was a big hit. “We have painted every place we have lived white, one room at a time,” Dan says. “We just love the serenity of it.”Jane’s finishing touch to the project was painting the exterior. “I thought about white, but I wanted to give the house some definition,” she says. She decided on a bright blue for the
siding and lime green for the front door. The unexpected bursts of color embody the cottage’s appeal to the Freys: “It’s quirky and charming but not pretentious in any way,” Jan says. |
