Texas House Call

What a fun week! Last September I started working with Mike & Christie on the renovation of their home via e-design. On Memorial Day, I flew down to their place in Texas for all the finishing touches and styling. Not only was it exciting to see all of the changes in real-life, but it was a total blessing to hang out with this sweet family, live the farm life for a few days, and decorate like crazy. What a privilege! Are you up for some pics? Oh good, because I have TONS!

Night one. Got to meet the farm animals on a beautiful evening, before the thunderstorms of the week rolled in (Ummm, WOW, Texas! Those thunderstorms!). We then walked through the house and made a list of everything we’d need to pick up the next day, on our designated “Shopping Day.” We made a pretty good list, but you should have seen the room that was waiting for me when I arrived. I’m kicking myself that I don’t have a picture. Christie had been working hard to fill an entire room with fun home decor, antiques, vintage finds, old books (my request), miles of jute, signs, trays, baskets, boxwood everything, etc. etc. ETC!!! I shopped from this room the entire week and sprinkled her finds all over the house. We ate some delicious ribs (Thanks Mike!), and headed off to bed to rest up for the big adventure.

Day two. Shopping day. We headed out with our list in hand, and made our first strategic stop, a darling shop in Denton called “Vintage Bleu.”

We found some total treasures here, and it was so much fun to meet the sweet shop owners, Thera & Debbie. Next stop? HomeGoods. I had quite a few things on the list for that stop, so I had my fingers crossed that we’d have good success…

Ya, I guess you could say we found a few things! (Ha!) 4 or 5 carts later, we were trying to squeeze it all into the car. 🙂

We loaded it all in, and had to take a lot of it out to reconfigure once we finished our other 2 stops. We all had bags and decor on our laps, but we made it home and unloaded!

Day 3 & 4 were similar: Diet Coke (check!), country music (check!), and DECORATING (yes, please!). I can’t wait to show you the result! Ready for some before & afters?

Here’s the fireplace wall in the living room, “before.” Working through e-design, we decided to do new stone, new built-ins that would go all the way to the ceiling, and shiplap over the fireplace. The clients also had the carpet removed and added gorgeous new hardwood floors.

Aaaand after. Can you even? I am so in love with this room. The windmill on the shiplap was a local find, and the perfect focal point for this space. The rug is from Ballard Designs, and blends the camel color of the sofa they already had with the gray wall color (Sherwin Williams “Repose Gray) just beautifully. The drapery panels (from Overstock, although they are no longer available in this length) were the perfect find to add interest at the window. All of these components were important foundational picks to support the final look and styling that was achieved this week. It’s so rewarding to see it all come together!

Here’s another view, looking back toward the sofa. The clients opted to forgo a coffee table, so their girls have more room to play and hang out. When I first suggested moving the sofa out and away from the back wall, Christie wasn’t so sure. Now she says she LOVES it, and I appreciate her trust! See that amazing antique pie hutch in the corner? Let’s take a closer look…

Christie found the pie safe at a local antique shop. It’s absolutely stunning in real life. Those copper tin inserts in the doors? Gorgeous! I moved it to the corner, angled it, and created a fun basket vignette on top. And the antique iron headboard on the wall? I’m in love! Perfect spot for a magnolia wreath, and don’t worry…Mike is an expert decor-hanger and that thing isn’t going anywhere. 🙂

This angle looks back toward the front door, the music room (formerly the formal dining room), and demonstrates how having one type of flooring throughout can really create a nice flow.

Ok, one more before pic of this area, because it’s just so much fun to see the progress.

And after. 🙂 What a difference!

Ok, let’s move into the kitchen! Here’s the before. The tile floors were then removed and replaced with hardwood, a new kitchen island and range hood was built, cabinets painted, backsplash & lighting added, and new granite countertops installed.

LOVE this farmhouse kitchen. Light, bright, and simple.

This little hutch area needed some love as well. The glass was removed from the upper doors, and replaced with square mesh chicken wire type material. (Does that sound like the professional term? You get the picture.) 🙂

Here’s the after. We also decided to make this the coffee bar area. So fun!

Here’s the before of the eat-in area. It was such a long wall, it needed something. Hmmm…SHIPLAP? Yes! Perfect place to add some interest with this favorite material. And a new light fixture for sure. In the window area to the right, we decided to create a “Keeping Room,” a cozy spot to gather, chat with whoever is cooking in the kitchen, or read. It’s become a favorite!

Here’s a close-up of the Keeping Room area.

Ok, another before shot. This wall houses the pantry door on the left, and the laundry room door on the right. The laundry room door was a nightmare, because when you opened it into the laundry room, you covered up the entire sink area, making it really inconvenient. Perfect spot for a barn door. And the client wanted a pantry door with a little more character.

So much more fun!

This open cabinet used to hold a wine rack, and we repurposed it to hold a cute plate rack, and some fun decor. The view out this window is just perfect. Wide open pasture.

Let’s go back to the entry. I don’t want you to miss this little welcoming spot. The rug is from Dash & Albert, and the amazing mirror is just an old window Christie found, and had a mirror added to the back. The lamps are from World Market, and their simple lines are just right.

We added some fun pillows and a striped throw to the chairs in the music room to add interest. The little mirrored table is a HomeGoods find.

This little vignette is found on top of the piano. Rustic, simple, farmhouse.

Ok! Let’s tour the bedrooms, shall we? This is the darling bedroom of the client’s two daughters. My sister, Julie (@signsofserendipity on Instagram), made the custom initials to go over the beds, the sweet lamp is from Hobby Lobby, and the ladder is from Magnolia Market! The ladder is everything in this room. It brings the warmth of the burlap bedskirts right up onto the wall. We had 18″ stripes added to the focal wall to create interest, and boy did it ever. I. Love. This room.

This is a guest room/sewing room, and was the room that held all of the fun decor all week. Needless to say, it was looking a bit disastrous a few days ago! It’s nice to see it looking like a bedroom again, and it’s all ready for guests.

This was my bedroom this week (and will forever be known as “Janna’s Room”, right Mike & Christie?). 😉 We had purchased the bulletin board for another area, but then decided it needed some cute stenciled words, and it would be the perfect focal point over the bed. That’s one of the things I love most about design, the unexpected things that happen along the way!

Aaaand the master bedroom. Neutral, with a pop of coral.

We created a cozy little seating area in the window, complete with a step-ladder repurposed as a table in the middle. One of my favorite things. So fun to think outside the box! And this gorgeous old mantel? Per. Fec. Tion.

The mirror is from Wayfair, and bounces light around the room so gloriously. Yep, GLORIOUSLY.

Oh! One room I almost forgot to include, the upstairs bonus room/play room. This room started out almost completely empty, except for a few toys, and the TV, but it almost became the biggest problem. Christie had been calling all over town to find a sofa that would work, that we could purchase right away (we wanted to see it complete before I left on Thursday night!). She was able to locate one, Mike picked it up, and when it arrived, it didn’t fit up the stairs. IT DIDN’T FIT UP THE STAIRS. No, no, no. We were not going to be detoured that easily. After all, we had the perfect rug, the perfect curtains, and the perfect pillows waiting upstairs, and we needed the perfect sofa to join the party. It just so happened that the sofa in the Keeping Room was very similar, but slightly smaller that the new sofa. The guys tried moving THAT one upstairs, and VOILA! It fit! Ok, it BARELY fit, the feet had to removed, the door had to be removed, but hey! It FIT!!! The new sofa is happily living in the Keeping Room, and the upstairs bonus room is complete.

This called for a celebratory Diet Coke, and Christie showed me how to apply some fun Jamberry nail wraps before I had to be on my way. (Hard to see, but these are a cute swiss cross pattern! Love!)

Thanks for having me, Mike & Christie. It was a blast, and your southern hospitality was amazing. We stayed up late, we got to hang 27,000 things on the wall, we ate delicious food, and we worked hard. We “might could” do this, and we “might could” do that. We endured crazy thunderstorms with even crazier rain, ate ribs without napkins, and I feel so blessed to have lived every single second of it. You guys are the best!