Southern Living Style House

This weekend I had the pleasure of touring the 2011 Southern Living Idea House in Horeshoe Bay, TX. It was beautiful and full of gorgeous features and ideas! I didn't realize I could take pictures until my heart's content so all I had was my iPhone and my little point and shoot, but I did snap a few photos to remember some of my favorite elements and to share it with those of you who haven't had the pleasure of going. Of course, clicking through the photo gallery on their website gives you MUCH better pictures than these that I took!

A few disclaimers:

• My first FAIL is that I didn't take a picture of the front of the home. Who forgets that? Anyways, it is a Tuscan style home. Click here to see the floor plan and professional pictures.


• The lighting in these photos is skewed due to the dark ceilings, my poor photography, me hiding in the corner to take the photo since there were at least 30 other people touring, etc. So, for example, the wall coloring in the first photo of the living room looks very yellow and it was not quite so buttery. The second photo has more natural light and shows a truer depiction of the wall color.


• Apparently I didn't take pictures of things I didn't like. ha! So, I will explain to you the 2 bedrooms upstairs because I didn't take a single photo...oops!

As you walk in, you look directly to the stairs and you can turn right or left. Left takes you into the formal living area...I am absolutely OBSESSED with the cathedral, wood-exposed ceilings. (I took the first 2 pictures from upstairs so you could see the entire room)

As you turn right from the front door, you walk into the dining room and turn right into the kitchen. FAIL #2...I only took one photo of the kitchen. There were people everywhere and I couldn't get any decent photos without a million people in them. Bottom line: no upper cabinets. All lower level cabinets. The vendor booklet said all of the cabinets were from IKEA. I'll just say it was nicer than anything I've ever seen in IKEA (and I love me some IKEA, don't get me wrong) so I'm not sure exactly which cabinets they used. I do LOVE the light fixtures they used in all of the rooms.
See the woman in the blue walking through a walkway? That leads into the laundry room and down to the garage. The photo below is of the laundry/mud room. I was standing in the garage and taking the photo looking through the laundry room and that doorway leads into the kitchen. I love the sea foam green chosen for the laundry room.

Off of the kitchen is the dining room. I think it's interesting that they put curtains around the entire dining room walls. looking through the dining room is the second living area. What I would call the "den" or the "living room".

Below is the living room. Things I loved: The dimension of the windows. Again, the exposed-wood, cathedral ceilings, the gorgeous distressed wood wide plank floors, the interesting light fixtures, and I adore the lamps, tufted ottoman, throw pillows, etc. I greatly apologize for my poor photography! It doesn't do the colors any semblance of justice. :)

Now for my favorite part of the entire home...off the living room was a tiny library nook. It was SO cozy, SO homey, and exactly what I would love to walk through to get into my bedroom everyday! The small windows on the right added some natural light and looked out onto a private courtyard/patio of the residence. Again, the wood ceilings are Texas Hill Country swoon-worthy and I beyond adore the yellow chair for a great pop of color. I don't know what it is about books but I've met very few home libraries I didn't like! I by very few I really mean not one.

You walk through the library nook into the master bedroom...swoon! And don't miss the exposed rock. Truly gorgeous! As you can see, most of the colors of the home are very earthy and natural. The master bedroom has whites, khakis, light blue, etc.

The master bathroom had it's highs and lows. Remember how I told you in the disclaimer that I forgot to take pictures of things I didn't particularly care for? Well, this is my fail. The master bathroom was very modern/contemporary. It's not that I didn't like it, I didn't like it for THIS home. The home was beautiful wood, earthy colors, rustic, and then the bathroom was all marble, white cabinets, etc. Click here to see (PS...this makes it look better than it did in person! In my opinion).

I was, however, completely obsessed with the indoor/outdoor shower. Having a door in the shower to walk outside and enjoy an outdoor rinse was pretty awesome.

I gasped when I saw the master closet. The convenience of a washer/dryer in the master closet seems almost too good to be true!

Finally, the private Juliet-style patio off the master suite was perfect. I can see many great mornings with coffee and a good book or nice evenings to unwind spent out on this patio.

As you walk upstairs, this darling little nook is a great gathering place. It overlooks the formal living room.

Unfortunately, that's all I took of the upstairs...the bedrooms left me completely underwhelmed! There were 2 bedrooms upstairs off of this nook and they were fairly small and completely contemporary. There were a lot of people coming in and out and I didn't see anything particularly noteworthy, so I didn't shove my camera in all of the other tourist's face. :) I'm sorry in retrospect because I'd like to show you.

Moving on! The outdoor patio was very large and had several sections of sitting areas. The pool was very small, more of a private pool type than a laps pool.

Do you see that small "house" those 2 people are walking into? That's the guest quarters.

Inside the guest room. We were taking a poll with the ladies I went with: Twin beds or Queen/king sized bed in the guest room? Ready....go! This house opted for twin beds.

And finally, from the guest house looking back to the main house....

So, your thoughts on the 2011 Southern Living Style House? I'll tell you that it's being sold for $3.7 Million...that's a lot of zeros out of my price range. While I thought there were many beautiful, unique and cozy things about this house I also thought it was a bit of a choppy layout and some of the items weren't very functional for a Texas home. (ie- the metal table on the back patio that was holding in the 107 degrees of Texas heat the sun was radiating.)

But let's be honest, if Dave came home with the keys tomorrow I wouldn't turn him away! What are your thoughts? See anything you particularly love? Or don't love? Do share!