Louisiana Home Renovation

Let me preface with that we purchased this home in 2014 and got to work right away, so the before pictures are less than blog worthy quality and I apologized for that. We were movin’ and groovin’ on this project and most of the before photos are very old cell phone photos. However, the after pictures are great and I hope to give you some inspiration from materials to design!

Disclaimer: I love to shop local any time I can and so many of my appliances and plumbing came from local shops in West Monroe, Louisiana. If you can, I highly recommend shopping around these shops if you are ever in town. However, I know you guys are all over so I have included links throughout for y’all to get similar items that can achieve the same look. I hope you guys enjoy!

Where to even begin!? Well, we bought this house fully knowing we wanted to renovate it. Although it was a beautiful southern traditional styled home, I really wanted to make it ours! The white columns and molding were pretty, but I really prefer for my structure to take on more of a masculine feel and then pop in my feminine touch with decor and fixtures.

Although the style of the home wasn’t exactly what we were looking for, the location was! This home is located so close to our family in a safe gated community. It sits on a 2 acre lot with is own private pond. It felt like a little southern oasis for us. I just knew we could create the best memories raising our children on this property. And that is exactly what we did. We worked hard to make it our own and played hard! I will always cherish the memories we made here.

First Step: Demolition

When renovating a house, after you have made your plan, talked to your insurance agent, hired a contractor and pulled permits, demolition begins! Oh boy, did we demo! We completely gutted this house. Floors, walls, electrical, plumbing, you name it!

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When asked about the inspiration of our renovation and why we decided to make such major changes, the answer is simple, our kids. Every single choice we made revolved around them and our desired lifestyle. We are a big family that loves to be outdoors. The original rooms were quite small and there simply wasn’t enough of them for how many family members we have. We started with the structure. Completely gutting all of the bathrooms, closets, main rooms and pillars outside. Once we had enough room inside, we moved onto our outdoor living lifestyle!

Step 2: Build!

To maintain your house remains safe during your renovation, structures come first. Away with the colonial white pillars and hello to charming rustic beams everywhere, inside and out!

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Walls came tumbling down and larger living areas began to take place. We even added an entire staircase!

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Then came the massive project of the kitchen. The most important room in the house if you ask me!

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This room, as all the others, you can see I rely on my structures to take on a strong and masculine feel and then add in feminine fixtures. Also, I love a washed wood, even placing it on the ceiling. You will see that I use washed wood throughout the entire house.

Our farmhouse sink came from a local plumbing shop in West Monroe but here is a similar option you can order:

Then we needed a dining room. Originally, this space was where the laundry room was.

With sculpting all brand new walls, we were able to also include a breakfast nook!

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Plenty of room for fine and everyday dining! And with lots of dining space and kiddos.. you need a big pantry!

Now time for the living room! Again you can see space for our big family was a priority. We also added some exposed brick to add more mixed textures and really give this room a cozy feeling.

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The living room and the bedrooms is where I feel you really get to see my style of mixed textures coming together. Our soft tufted blue velvet couch next our strong leather couch has always been a favorite pairing of mine. You also start to see our chandeliers come in. Chandeliers are my absolute favorite kind of lighting fixtures. I think they bring elegance into any room.

I love to shop antique road shows and a lot of my pieces are from there. However, I also love Restoration Hardware! Pottery Barn too! If it’s not from a local or road antique shop, it’s probably from one of those two places. I have linked some similar pieces below to help you get the look!

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The bedrooms are also such an important place. This where we lay our heads every night and I wanted the rooms to feel as cozy as possible! An easy way to get that cozy feeling in a bedroom is to add a fireplace! We used the original fireplace from the living room and moved it into a master bedroom. It instantly transformed the room!

I really gravitate to blues and reds. To me, they are soulful and warm. To obtain a similar design, use wood! The floors, bed frames, side tables and staircases are all wood. Then you bring in soft cottons with your upholstery and bedding.

Below are some links to achieve a similar look for your bedroom:

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As for the bathrooms, I went with some more whites and linens color to achieve an overall clean feel. Raised sinks and circle mirrors gave our bathrooms a unique feel. However, it just wouldn’t be our house without deer head antler towel holders, now would it? 😛

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Now it’s time to talk about the giant copper tub! Such a funny story. I always knew I wanted a big copper tub. I walked into the plumping store in West Monroe and picked one out of their catalog. Without reading any decisions, I told them to just ship me the biggest one they had! You can imagine my surprise a few weeks later when this big boy showed up at my house! I had no idea copper tubs even came this big!! Me and my friends were dying laughing when I sat inside of it. I felt like Little Women! It was definitely bigger than I expected or needed but it was quite spectacular, so we kept it!

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Here is a link for an almost identical copper tub:

Now to highlight some of my absolute favorite pieces.. my chandeliers! As you can see, they are in almost every room. There is only one place I get them from:

Old World Antieks is one of my favorite places of all time! Almost every light fixture in our house comes form them! They have so many designs to choose from. These chandeliers are what I think creates a perfect balance in my home of rustic but still classy. If I had to pick a favorite detail, these chandeliers are it!

Lastly, but certainly not east, our outdoor living area. I know I keep saying each space of the house is my favorite, but this truly has to be the best spot. This area didn’t even exist when we bought the house. We totally had to construct it from scratch, and I am so glad we did!

We are an outdoor family. We love to run, play, grill and just enjoy nature! We also love entertaining! Having the space to do that outside while adults sip on some wine and can watch the kiddos play, it just doesn’t get much better than that.

Below are the links to our exact outdoor living furniture:

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And the outdoor living doesn’t stop at grilling and drinking wine! We love to garden and grow our own food as well! Food just tastes better when you worked for it, plus it’s free from all the harmful chemicals other produce could have! Then after a day of working in the garden, we would go relax by the pond. It really is the simple things in life, y’all!

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We are loving our life here in Texas but I will never forget all the memories we made here. I will forever be thankful for them.

Genuinely, Jess