My writing partner and I decided to get out of town to focus on the book and screenplay we’re writing simultaneously. Our original idea when we booked this getaway was to come back with at least one finished product. But after ditching the chapters we’d already completed and changing our storyline about a hundred times in the weeks leading up to our little retreat, that goal downshifted to Please Gawd Let Us At Least Get 25 Pages Done.

Scouring Home Away looking for something cute within an hour or two of Austin, we settled on this little cabin in Seguin. We couldn’t have picked a better place.

After all this talk about having more fun with home decor recently, I got so excited when we pulled up to this adorable, aqua blue cabin:

With vintage letters spelling out “nest” on the side of the building, pink flamingos in the yard and Chinese lanterns hanging from string lights on the enormous patio, it was just perfect for two mamas celebrating a kid-free weekend.

There were so many bits of preciousness, I found myself taking pictures left and right. Katherine looked at me and said, “Someone loves this place,” referring to the care that was taken with every detail.

The cabin is not spacious by any means–it reminded me of my studio apartment in the West Village–but if you’re planning to spend your time outdoors anyway, it could be perfect for you. There’s a full-size and twin-size bed inside, a futon, a vintage kitchen (no stove, but there’s a microwave and hot plate inside and a grill outdoors) and a small bathroom with shower–all surrounded by butter yellow beadboard paneling.

There’s plenty of shade and ceiling fans on the porch, so you can lounge outside pretty comfortably. If you visit during warmer weather, there’s an outdoor shower as well as innertubes and such for drifting down the Guadalupe just steps away from the cabin.

We made good use of the fire pit in the chilly evenings, thanks to a neighboring homeowner who conveniently chopped up a tree and left the logs out front of his house for trash pickup. Thanks, neighbor!

Although we worked our butts off, we couldn’t have asked for a better setting.

If you go and are looking for restaurant recommendations, I highly recommend the Fish Cancun plate at Los Cucos there in Seguin. A fish filet topped with crab meat, scallops and shrimp in the most amazing garlic butter sauce, I insisted we go back a second time before we left just so I could have it again. On the Don’t Waste Your Time list? The Grain Bin Cafe, which took forever to serve us the most mediocre food and was definitely not worth the drive from the cabin.

Want to create the look of this charming getaway in your home so you can feel like you’re on vacation all the time? You could…

Stretch a vintage tablecloth onto a canvas for inexpensive art, like I did with this one in our playroom:

Photo by Suzi Q. Varin / Q Weddings.

…or snap up an old paint by number:

Incorporate a pillow or two with a 40s era motif, like this one I spied on Etsy:

Add a splash of soft yellow:

Decorate with pre-lit rusty letters from local fave, Jaya:

Photo by Suzi Q. Varin / Q. Weddings.

And you certainly have to go crazy with colorful string lights under a covered patio. Can’t go wrong there!

If you have the big bucks, there’s always this fridge, available in lots of supercute colors from West Elm:

 Pretty dang sweet.

Disclosure: Robin Callan is a paid blogger for West Elm parent company, Williams-Sonoma. Read her interviews with celebrity designers and articles about the interior design industry here.