Southern Home and Hospitality House Tour
Don’t you just love a home tour?
Me too! I’m rarely in the market to buy a new place, but I do love a good open house or tour of homes where I can just poke around for ideas and inspiration.
Since my husband and I bought our fixer-upper in 2014 we’ve been pouring lots of TLC into it. It’s an ever-evolving labor of love that has offered up plenty of challenges—but also lots of unique decorating opportunities.
If you missed the introduction post on how we came to buy this home, you can catch up here.
I thought you might like a tour page where you can see the house all in one place. Come explore with me and see what we’ve done, what we still want to do, and just some of the things that made this house cry out to us, “I’ve got promise, really! Pleeeease make me yours and fix me!!”
This page is still undergoing improvements, just like the house. I’ll be adding more details and new photos to different areas as I post on the blog about them. But I’ve tried to at least go in and snap a photo or two of most of the rooms to give you the lay of the land.
So welcome in—grab a drink and let me show you around!
The foyer and staircase.
When you come in through the front door, you enter a large open area that is the living room, dining room, and stairs. First up is the foyer.
We’ve gotten rid of the dirty 90’s oriental carpet runner, the tacky Italian countryside mural with cutout holes in the wall, and we toned down the glossy, orange-y wood banister and treads.
See the staircase draped in garland at Christmastime here.
The dining room.
If you direct your attention to your right, you’ll see the formal dining room with its marble inlay in the floor around the table and curved arch millwork and columns. My parent’s vintage French chandelier looks right at home—in its new home.
And a set of French doors floods the dining room with lots of light:
We added a wine bar to replace a door to a storage room, which became the new pantry in the kitchen. It solved the problem of the brick floor inlay so that we wouldn’t have to attempt to match the marble tile.
See the dining room transformed for a spooky chic Halloween here.
The living room.
If you continue forward from the front door you’ll be in the formal living room, framed out by another wood arch and columns.
A curved turret wall of windows fills the room with more fantastic light. The many windows are one of the things I loved about the house.
We painted over the original overpowering two stories of ’90s burgundy and replaced the ceiling fan with an oversized chandelier.
And there’s a screened-in patio off of one side that’s a great place to escape the mosquitos.
You can see the before and after transformation of the whole living room, dining room, and entryway here. And see the living room with the Christmas tree in the turret window wall here.
The kitchen.
Coming from the dining room, you’ll pass into the heart of our home and where we spend most of our time—the open kitchen and family room area.
The kitchen was the first area we had to attack to make this home functional. You can see all of the details and before and after photos here.
We kept only the floors—the brick inlay is one of the unique features of this house that spoke to me. We ripped out all of the cabinets, countertops, and backsplash, and gave them all a new layout and a timeless and comfortable French Country style.
The main attraction in the kitchen is where we worked in most of our new counter space—a furniture-style island with a soft black granite that looks like marble.
We reimagined the strange little room that had opened to the dining room as a walk-in pantry hidden to look like a cabinet:
We also took down the two half walls that made the kitchen feel cramped:
You can see the holiday kitchen here. And the kitchen in autumn here.
The family room.
Open to the kitchen is our family room. This room had the same rustic, easy-to-maintain slate and brick floors. And lots of great arched windows on both sides.
The biggest change was to the wall with the fireplace. You wouldn’t believe how ugly godawful odd the mantel design was. For all the before pictures and details on our remodel in the family room, see that post here.
We also took out a large iron circular staircase where this hutch is now located. The spiral stairs took up so much floor space, it crammed the sofa too close for comfort to the fireplace.
See the family room in springtime here.
The laundry room and pool bath area.
I was jazzed about getting a dedicated laundry room because I’d had a pass-through from the garage for years. And this one came with a sink, a desk, and brick floors!
We refreshed the brick with some Grout Renew. The former tile on the desk was an awful, weird cobblestone, so we replaced it with a leathered soapstone counter from Seconds & Surplus.
This desk has become my office so I spend a huge chunk of my time in this room. I’ve toyed with the idea of making an upstairs bedroom into an office, but for now, I like to be close to the main parts of the house.
The pool bath.
In the same area as the laundry room is a bathroom that’s been on my remodeling list for years.
I’d love to change out the tile and shower glass – fingers crossed that someday you’ll see a makeover post here. It gets way more daily use by us and guests than the powder room, so weirdly it’s only one of two bathrooms we haven’t renovated.
The primary bedroom hallway and half bath.
Because our home is narrow and shaped like a “v”, we have hallways that aren’t space efficient. And this hallway had some features that were a bit perplexing.
The first is the wood floor “runner” over the marble.
Second, it was built with two alcoves that seemed like were planned with a purpose in mind. We just have no idea what that purpose was. Did they think people were going to sit in the hall and hang out??
In the first alcove, the previous owners had a tiny settee under these glass shelves. We left the shelves and made the area a place to display glassware.
The second became a “doggy bedroom”. Not because the dog uses it or likes it, but because we needed a place to put her prison pen.
Also in this hallway is a half bath under the stairs. We painted over the faux Grecian columns and ivy that covered the walls before and replaced the black sink and the toilet with the shell lid.
The primary bedroom.
The master bedroom had more of the same pretty arch woodwork and columns and lots of windows.
And a fireplace. It only required a fresh new paint color and a little carpentry. You can see all of the details of this makeover with the before and after here.
The primary bathroom.
The bedroom is open to the bathroom, so we carried the same soothing green paint color in here. When we remodeled this bathroom, we kept the fairly new travertine floors and chose the new tile and counters based on it.
The fireplace, French-style vanity, and French doors in this bathroom really helped sell me on the whole house!
You can see the details of the remodel with before and after photos here.
The upstairs hallway.
At the top of the stairs there’s a large open catwalk/hallway that overlooks the downstairs living area.
When we bought the house, I loved that all of the upstairs had wood floors. But they were coming unglued, in terrible shape, and not refinishable. So we’ve since invested in replacing them.
Want in on a little secret? There’s a spiral staircase leading up to a third floor attic room behind this bookcase.
Upstairs bedroom number one.
We are recent empty nesters so our youngest child’s bedroom is still intact for when she stays here (the oldest has been on her own for a long time). There were lots of lovely features in this room like French doors and a fireplace. We did have to construct a larger closet when we remodeled the bathroom.
And the original mantel looked like it was built in high school shop class and only got a D+, so we had a carpenter build a new one. I loved the heavy cast iron insert that was there, so the new mantel was built to fit it.
The decor in this bedroom is such a mishmash of her different ages and not her style at all anymore. Someday I’ll redecorate but for now, it’s her very own time capsule.
Upstairs bathroom number one.
This bathroom was in terrible shape when we moved in. It was beat up and there was no room to move around because of too many unecessary walls and doors. There wasn’t even a mirror over the pedestal sink! We opened it all up and replaced the worn out tile with classic white marble.
And added a furniture vanity with some counter space the bathroom lacked before.
The sunroom/exercise room.
This room appears to have been a sunroom. It has ventilation but also has the stucco walls like the outside. It had a wonderful view, but we knew we’d never just sit in here, so our exercise equipment took up residence in this space.
Like most of the rooms there were the strange and unusual features we had to deal with. There had been a real sink built into a tiny wicker baker’s rack. And there was a door into our daughter’s bathroom. If you can’t get to the bathroom the other way in time, you may have a problem, lol.
Upstairs bedroom number two.
Down the hall is this bedroom where most of our guests stay. It has more French doors and also has a fireplace.
The furniture in here was my mother’s as a little girl. It’s not a style I love and I’ve been tempted so many times to sell it and put something different in here. But these are legit antiques at 100+ years old so I hesitate to get rid of it. What do you think?
This antique mantel was one of the only ones that came with the house that I liked and kept. We did replace the tile surround with marble that matches downstairs.
Upstairs bathroom number two.
This bathroom serves the guest bedroom and we’ve remodeled this one as well.
It’s a small, awkward bathroom with a window that hangs over into the shower. And like the other upstairs bathroom, it originally had half-wood and half-tile floors in this tiny area.
We put beige marble in a herringbone pattern on the floor. And brought it all the way up to the ceiling on the shower walls to make the room feel bigger.
The sink plumbing is right in front of the door, so vanity options were limited. We replaced the old narrow depth sink with a vanity that has a bit of counter space but the rounded shape makes it easier to get around.
The “gallery” hall.
The hallway ends with a door that passes through into this area, which leads to the media room and game room. It’s another one of those weird, wasted spaces but it does have a couple of useful closets in it. This whole area of the house seems to have been finished out after the original part. Which would explain why there’s a door into it.
I use it as my gallery of memories, covering the walls in family photos.
The media room.
We aren’t sure what this room was meant to be. It had a small raised platform and theater-looking columns on the walls, but windows on both sides. After it was our daughter’s hangout room in high school, we converted it to a media room because my husband had always wanted one. It’s one of my favorite rooms too—but don’t tell him because I might have given some pushback to the idea.🤫
He wanted a patterned movie theater-like carpet, so after we chose this one I decided to paint the ceiling red for some dark, cozy drama. I laughed when I saw this same carpet in the casino in “Ozark”.
The original platform wasn’t large enough to put chairs on so we extended it to fit two media recliners. But we mostly lay like vegetables with our dog here on the sofa.
The game room.
The media room adjoins the game room. Mr. SH&H got that pool table he’s always wanted too:
I told you I took quick pics of some of the rooms for the tour—I obviously didn’t clean the stuff off the counter. Let’s just say I’m keepin’ it real,
There was a strange little cabinet in this room that we thought was a kid’s play kitchen. But it had a working sink. We took advantage of that existing plumbing and built in a bar.
The “apartment” bedroom.
The fourth bedroom is a room that was built out over the garage. It’s kind of like a small studio apartment or nanny suite and has a kitchenette complete with a compact stove and refrigerator.
Everyone asks my daughter why she didn’t choose this bedroom so she could sneak in and out, but she wanted to be closer to us!😂
On one side is the bed and on the other, we have a chair and a desk for guests to use.
It has a bathroom as well, which is the other one we haven’t touched other than hanging a new light and putting in a closet:
On your way out, you may be wondering why we don’t have a study. We do, but it’s my husband’s space that I try to keep “blog-free”. It does have some nice features, so maybe I’ll sneak in and take a few pictures someday.😉
There’s more to explore outside too. You can see a tour of the porches and patios here.
Thanks for walking the house with me—I hope you’ll come back to visit often!
