The 2015 Northern Home & Cottage Home Tour in the Petoskey area takes place on Saturday, October 10 from 10 am to 5 pm. The tour treats tourgoers to 10 homes, each chosen for their distinctive style and/or innovative lifestyle concept. Proceeds raised during the home tour will benefit Northern Michigan non-profit, Child and Family Services of Northwestern Michigan. Save by purchasing tickets to the 2015 Northern Home & Cottage Home Tour at MyNorthTickets.com:


The eighth home on the 2015 Northern Home & Cottage Petoskey Area Home Tour is in Harbor Springs at Cottage 13, 575 East Bay Street.

Eleven years ago, Jeff and Julie Towner were one of the first couples to purchase a cottage in a new Harbor Springs development called Bay Street Cottages. What a fabulous investment it was. Bay Street Cottages are the brainchild of Rob and Vee Mossburg, owners of Cottage Company, a build-and-design firm whose creations have left a smart and charming influence on the Harbor-Petoskey area. In the case of the Bay Street project, the Mossburgs redefined condominium living. While the cottages are technically condominiums, they are actually stand-alone homes—sweet individual residences with sidewalks and lush gardens around them. Each cottage is as charmingly different as a fresh storybook illustration.

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From the get-go the Towners were in love with their new cottage. At 1,300-square-feet (which is about average for the development) the three-bedroom, two-bath home is so efficiently designed they have plenty of room for their three kids and two grandchildren. With proximity to the beach and the downtown, the Towners stow their car (in the development’s carriage-house style garages) when they arrive from their Grand Rapids home and travel nearly everywhere by bike or on foot.

After a decade of happy year-round vacationing in the home, it was time for a décor update. The busy working homeowners left it all to Vee Mossburg. “I wanted it all done from the knick-knacks right down to the soap holders—I didn’t want to have to finish anything up,” Julie says. Vee began the re-design by making the seating in the home more flexible—exchanging a sectional for a couch and three chairs, twin beds in their daughter’s room for a trundle, adding poufs that can be stored in a bedroom but brought out for entertaining, and swapping a banquette for a dining room table that seats five.

As far as style—well let Vee Mossburg do your décor and you will never want for style again. The Towners’ formerly green-and-yellow color scheme is now a modern neutral with navy and dramatic splashes of orange—as seen in side tables, lamps, leather dining chairs and two fabulous island stools. The French provincial–style fireplace received a contemporary makeover with white WalkerZanger Labyrinth Thassos Select Polished tiles, and the pink-and-green bedroom the Towners’ daughter dreamed of is fit for a princess. “The first time we saw the house after it was finished we got in at around 10 p.m. on a Friday night and didn’t go to bed until about 3 a.m. because we couldn’t get over how perfect it is,” Julie says.

 

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More Homes on the Petoskey Area Home Tour:

Home #1

Home #2

Home #3

Home #4

Home #5

Home #6

Home #7

Northern Michigan Wineries, Breweries, Petoskey restaurants, things to do around Petoskey and more! Our MyNorth Vacation Guide can help you plan your entire Northern Home & Cottage Home Tour Weekend!
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Photo(s) by Todd Zawistowski