Hale Kai Lily

On the marina in Hawaii Kai, this month-to-month rental has always been our family's favorite getaway. Peaceful, but close enough to everything that you never feel stuck. What it didn't have was personality. The name carries a family name, Lily, tucked into Hale Kai, "house by the sea."

My dad wanted a mural on the wall behind the outdoor shower and spent weeks going back and forth on it. I sent him mockups; he decided it was too much and let the idea go. He left the island before the project happened, but we stayed a few extra days, and without asking permission, I painted a red hibiscus on that wall anyway. I knew he'd love it once he saw it in person, and he did, completely.

Not long after, a neighbor mentioned it to him in passing and called it "the hibiscus house." It stuck. Now the whole family wants to keep going, more hibiscus, more color, working its way through the rest of the house.

The Living room

Because it's a short-term rental, I knew I could push further than I would in a forever home — go bold, get a little weird, make it pop in photos and in person.

This house has so many walls, and every visit I'm adding to them. The collection is intentionally mixed: thrifted aloha shirts stretched and framed, garage sale flips, postcards, leis, old posters, pieces I made myself, thrifted art, and a few pieces gifted by a friend. I hope it feels collected and curated, like decades of finds, not a single shopping trip, because its been a slow process.

The Bedrooms

Three moves did almost all the work in the bedrooms: bold wallpaper, tropical light fixtures with real personality, and new bedding. Paired with walls full of art, the whole feeling of each room changed — proof that you don't need a huge budget to make a rental feel like a boutique hotel.

My dad's a surfer, so the goal from the start was a surf shack feeling, worn-in, sun-bleached, collected over time rather than decorated in one trip to a store.

The Twin room

This room has the cutest floating people wallpaper, it felt sweet and feminine and its usually where my sisters stay. So it felt like a perfect twin room wallpaper. We got some cheap hot pink pillows and white linens and this room popped! I love the black and white rug in here also, bold and graphic and really helped pull this space together.

The Front Bedroom

This room was the biggest headache for me. I just couldn’t decide on a paper and I really didn’t have a vision for it. Once I ordered this Jen Peters MCM paper It was so easy to grab the orange target quilt and a green checkered Ikea rug. The last thing i grabbed for this room are these mushroom lights, I love the side tables that have been there for years and this little update has made such a difference!

The Back Bedroom

This back bedroom was the easiest to design for me, I saw this bold, graphic wall paper and knew we had to have it. It was a perfect jumping off point. It immediately brought so much life to this room. This is where me and my husband usually stay and I wanted it to feel punch and bright, instead of the back room that nobody liked. We somehow had an extra roll of paper and so we put it right at the entry to this room and it is so fun to see all the way down the hall.

Master Bedroom

This is the room I'm still not done with, but it has the marina view to lean on while it gets there.

The best piece in here happened by accident. I saw a photo of a green surfboard, thought it was cute, and sent it to my dad. He wrote back: "I have a board just like that sitting at home under my deck." We shipped it over, and now it's the piece that makes the room.

The vintage photo above it surfers at Waikiki, I found at a HomeGoods in Seattle and carried it over. There's a new chair going into the corner too (not the gray one currently in there), no photo of it yet. On the dresser, the framed pieces aren't art, they're cutouts of the wallpaper from the other bedrooms, framed to tie the room back into the rest of the house.

Rattan lights matching the back bedroom are going in next, which will pull it closer to finished. One of these trips, this room gets the real overhaul.