Kelly and Ty Milford weren’t actually house hunting when they decided to call the number on the “For Sale” sign to ask about the skinny, three-story, cedar shingle–clad charmer they’d come across on a walk that rainy afternoon. It was 2018, and the couple were vacationing in Cape Meares, one of the few secluded spots left on the Oregon coast within an easy drive of Portland.

“We were just completely taken with how beautiful, quaint, and quiet it was,” she says of this enclave by Tillamook Bay, which has a population of 80. “There’s wetlands, the bay, and the ocean all in one place, dunes to hike around, a lighthouse you can walk to. We loved that we could let our dog off the leash—there was hardly anyone around, even on spring break.”

$1,061 Septic	$8,539 Plumbing	$15,858 Paint, Carpet, Tile, & Other Finishes
$3,515 Electrical & Lighting	$9,386 Structure & Decking	$8,701 Appliances & Wood Stove
$5,897 Landscaping	$72,871 Furniture, Casework, & Decoration	$8,962 Lumber, Hardware, & Building Materials
Grand Total: $134,790

Unlike many of the older, adjacent homes with weathered facades and musty, waterlogged interiors, this one dated only to 1998. After making a successful offer of $310,000, Ty and Kelly focused on making it their own. “With our kids growing up quickly, we had been wanting a place to escape the hustle of our day-to-day lives, but be near enough to Portland be able to get away for weekends to just slow down,” says Ty.

“It was well built, but the walls were beige, there was old linoleum and carpet, and the kitchen and bath needed some remodel work,” Ty recalls. “It clearly had lots of potential and was within our budget range, even if it needed a healthy dose of love.”

The owners of a classic, midcentury-modern house in Portland designed by noted architect Saul Zaik, the pair also appreciated that this modest, 1,500-square-foot residence wasn’t too precious. “There was nothing sacred that you couldn’t touch,” Ty explains. “Basically, we kind of had a clean slate to put our own touches on it.”

The couple didn’t necessarily set out to act as their own general contractor for The Cape, as the home is called—nor to be the primary landscape designer and laborer. But in a less populated coastal area, Ty quickly found it sped things along and saved money to go the DIY route.

“I hired a plumber, an electrician, and a carpenter in Portland for the built-ins, and I sourced all the lighting,” he says. “It wasn’t a huge space, so it wasn’t too daunting to do the rest ourselves. There were moments where it was frustrating, but not too monumental of a task.”

In the kitchen and bathroom, they added new flooring, cabinetry, and surfaces, and also laid new, radiant-heated slate flooring on the ground floor. But much of the rest of the interior, with its exposed wood ceilings, was left intact.

On the ground floor, the couple restored a missing back door and a small deck; up front, they inserted a new Dutch door, which brings in cool breezes. Next to the mudroom by the entry, the couple expanded and brightened a small, dark bedroom by claiming space from an adjacent closet to create a bigger, brighter four-bed bunk room; their kids, nine-year-old Adam and 13-year-old Malia, now have room to bring their friends.

One floor up is the main living area, where the existing L-shaped kitchen was made U-shaped with an extension of the counter that also does double-duty, acting as the base for a built-in living room sofa on the other side.

“The main floor is only about 600 square feet,” Kelly says. “To make it really usable, we had to figure out how to maximize the square footage as much as possible.”

The couple also committed to renovating sustainably. “All the built-in furniture from the bunk room to the main living area to the bedroom upstairs is salvaged from home demolitions in Portland,” says Ty, “so it’s all hundred-plus-year-old lumber.”

The main floor also feels more spacious than its square footage because the design removed much of the third floor to create a double-height living/dining.

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The third-floor bedroom then protrudes out over the back of the house, forming a canopy for the second-floor deck. That, in turn, makes the bedroom feel even more unique.

“One of the most special things in the whole house is the bird’s-eye view on top,” Kelly says. “It’s all windows. We raised up the bed to window height. The air is coming in, and it’s like you’re perched out above the ocean in this little tree house nook. On one side is the headland with cliffs and trees, and the other side is the ocean. It’s the best place to go to sleep and wake up.”

The couple had fun giving the house its own take on beach style with the help of a few pop-culture guideposts.

“The house, with that asymmetrical roofline and the cedar shingles, kind of felt like Wes Anderson to me,” Ty explains. Inside, he channeled an Andersonian enthusiasm—partly earnest, partly ironic—into a more nautical vibe: “Almost a Captain Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea kind of fashion,” he says. “If the Black Pearl [from Pirates of the Caribbean] ran aground on the beach at Cape Meares and they built a land base with the leftovers from the ship, this is what it might look like. Nets and ropes and old wood, a little bit of wool, leather: It all kind of follows a feeling.”

Hanging above the living room, for example, is a vintage 1950s Penn Yann dinghy Ty found online that he and the family take into the nearby lake. Next to the kitchen is a salon-style grouping of vintage paintings of ships. The dining room table is made of yellow pine salvaged from a bowling alley lane. The home’s brass lighting is from a company called Big Ship Salvage, which resells items from decommissioned ships.

Some of the best touches, though, are personal mementos. Serving as a living room coffee table is Ty’s grandfather’s former chest, used in World War II when he was a member of the U.S. Army’s famed 10th Mountain Division. Ty also created an artwork that now hangs in the stairwell from antique glass floats and nautical rope.

Both during the pandemic and as it has ebbed, the Cape Meares house continues to be a quiet, inspiring oasis in a coastal setting that’s full of adventures waiting to be had. A family favorite are the caves at the base of the cape that only are accessible for a few days each year at the lowest tides, where the kids collect agates.

“Our kids don’t get to roam as much as we did,” Ty says. “We can give them a larger area here to have the freedom to explore. And the beach is Kelly’s happy place.” They do, however, occasionally rent out the Cape Meares house via the house’s Instagram account.

Spending hours searching sites like eBay, Craigslist, and Etsy for furniture, art, and objects, Ty began to see his immersion in the details and logistics of the Cape Meares house renovation as not just a way to save money, but a creative outlet—not unlike his work as a commercial photographer.

“The thing about my photography work is it’s not technically perfect. It’s just about feeling,” he explains. “I think this space follows the same suit. The whole space has a feeling. When you walk into it you can say to yourself, ‘I’m in something that feels different.’”

More Budget Breakdown:

An Architect Couple Find Work/Life Balance With a Backyard Office Built for $144K

An Architect Turns Her Parents’ Garage Into a Tiny Home for $2,695

Project Credits:

Interior Designers: Kelly and Ty Milford / @tymilford

Builders: Kelly and Ty Milford

Cabinetry Designer: Todd Nopp Furniture Design

Lighting Designers: Ty and Kelly Milford

Landscape Designers: Ty and Kelly Milford