Almost a year ago my husband and I got a wild hair one day to just stick a for sale sign in front of our previous home. Within four days of placing that sign in the yard we had sold our home. It was at that time panic set in wondering what in the world we were going to do. We had family land and we knew we wanted to build and raise our family there, but we had no idea what we wanted. As I said, this was family land..... so this would be our forever home. That night after signing the contract to sell our home my husband was going over scenarios....he was popping off ideas like building a garage with a mother in law suite and us living in that for a few years so that we could build our dream home later on and yada yada yada....in the meantime I was scrolling through websites that I had searched on google. I finally clicked on the Southern Living House Plans home page....typed in all criteria for what I was looking for and BOOM! The Sugarberry Cottage was the first thing to pop up on the screen. I saw it, I fell in love immediately, stopped my husband mid sentence and said, "This is it! This is our forever home!", before even looking at the floor plan. At first he thought I was joking. This house at 1679 heated sqft. was not any bigger than our home we had just sold and we were moving because we thought we needed more room. But it made sense. The home was beautiful, the floor plan was perfect, there is not a foot of wasted space in the whole plan. And because it was not a huge house we could actually afford to start building our dream home, our forever home right away. My husband fell in love too....and from that moment on our dream began.
We started construction the first week in October and after a very rainy and cold winter we wrapped up construction in mid-April. We have finally settled in enough that I thought I would share our home tour. It is still a work in progress....I have lots of projects and honey-do's for my husband to finish, particularly in our bathrooms (so they will look a little bare) but that's what a home is. It's a constant work in progress. I will constantly be rearranging and redecorating because that's just who I am.
But anyways,
But anyways,
We purchased the plans directly from Southern Living and we made absolutely no changes to the floor plan.
All of our paint are colors from Sherwin Williams. The exterior is painted in"Pure White". The shutters are "Tricorn Black" and the front and back doors are "Watery" .
The Front Porch.
The back porch.
The back porch enters into our laundry room/mudroom and it has actually become our main entrance because it's closer to the driveway than the front door.
The living area.
The interior ceilings and trim are in SW "Pure White". All interior walls besides the master suite were done in SW "Alabaster".
The Dining Area.
The light over the dining room table I found at Canton Trade Days. I believe it's made from an old duct vent probably found in an old warehouse. My husband built me the table and bench and the chairs I collected from random garage sales. The blue chairs are painted with ASCP "Duck Egg Blue" and the white were done in ASCP " Original".
The kitchen.
The kitchen, by far, is my favorite room in the house. And go figure....I don't even like to cook. It sure is pretty to look at though. The butcher block island is over 100 years old and came out of an old governor's mansion in Mississippi.
We lucked into the stove. It's a Magic Chef brand, probably from the 1940's. My husband's boss had actually just bought a rent house when we started building our home. He was in the process of renovating the kitchen and was just going to throw that vintage beauty out so we pounced on that sucker. It took some elbow grease to clean up the outside, but the oven and broiler seriously looked like they had never been used. It could use a little tune up and some new knobs, but I am totally smitten by her.
This is the hallway off the living area that leads to the master suite and the laundry room.
The master bedroom.
Our master suite is painted in SW "Eider White".
The master bath.
We had a few communication errors with our contractor.....one being our shower which was suppose to have white subway tile with black grout to match the tile work done in the kitchen...but we ended up with white grout. I wish it had been done right, but I still think it's pretty. All of our cabinets were custom made. That's a question I receive a lot. But they are just a traditional shaker if you were curious as to what style they are. The mirrors I picked up from Hobby Lobby and I just adore them.
The laundry room.
The laundry room is another room that's pretty bare and I have lots of projects in mind for it. The first task will be adding a table top above the washer and dryer for folding.
The powder room.
I found the wash stand at an antique store and we had it converted into a vanity for the powder room by adding the bowl sink.
Moving upstairs.
Bedroom 2.
Since our home is 3 bedrooms, the boys are currently sharing a bedroom so they have the spare room for all of their toys. The triangle decals on the wall are from Urban Walls. I will be doing a review on them soon in a separate post so stay tuned for that.
They each have a built in desk on their side of the room to do their school work at when they get older. Whether they use it or not is yet to be told, but as of right now the idea of it is genius to me.
The boys bathroom.
The playroom (bedroom 3).
At the top of the stairs is a little foyer area that joins the two rooms together. They had the perfect little nooks for built in desks and since the boys already had a work space in their bedroom I have turned this little area into my little craft area.
And that's it! It's not a huge house, but it's home. I seriously have to pinch myself every morning because it's been such a dream. And I am so incredibly thankful.
xo, Brittany
