The past few months have brought a whirlwind of activity on the Homearama showhouse, the home we’re helping design and decorate to benefit Habitat for Humanity. If you’ve followed along, you know the lot went from a bare patch of dirt to an almost fully framed house in a matter of weeks. Watching that transformation has been thrilling, so here’s a concise recap of the progress and the design choices we’ve been making as construction raced forward.
A few weeks ago we filmed a rough house tour to document how the floor plan is coming together. The tour was recorded while the site was active, so we re-voiced the narration later to make sure the details were clear. The video shows the layout taking shape and highlights some of the plans we have for each room as they evolve.
When a build moves this quickly it forces design decisions to happen all at once. Instead of picking one element at a time as we often do in our own home projects, this process required selecting lighting, plumbing, flooring, cabinets, and fixtures simultaneously so the contractors could frame, wire, and plumb appropriately. That level of coordination—choosing every last tile, cabinet style, and sconce before the walls are even finished—was a new challenge for us.
The experience has been equal parts inspiring and overwhelming. After eight years of remodeling one room at a time, being asked to decide dozens of elements for every room at once has stretched our skills and patience. It’s been a huge learning curve, and we’re definitely improving as the project progresses.
To give you a sense of the scope of the choices we’ve made in recent weeks:
- Selected cabinetry for seven rooms, deciding door and drawer styles, paint or stain colors, configurations, and hardware for each run.
- Chosen five different countertop materials for kitchen and secondary spaces.
- Specified 21 plumbing fixtures, including faucets, sinks, tubs, toilets, and shower sets.
- Picked 44 hardwired light fixtures—chandeliers, pendants, flush mounts, and sconces—for precise placement.
- Completed an electrical walkthrough to locate all wiring, can lights, outlets, and switches to the exact inch.
- Made 14 tile selections for kitchen backsplashes, bathroom floors and showers, and mudroom or laundry floors.
- Selected kitchen and laundry appliances.
- Chosen door styles for the front and garage doors and every interior door, including pocket doors, hinges, and doorknobs.
- Conducted a carpentry walkthrough to plan moldings, wainscoting, built-ins, shelves, benches, and custom bedroom cabinetry.
- Picked hardwood flooring style and stain color.
- Selected exterior stone and finalized porch column height.
- Designed the living room fireplace and mantle to scale with construction plans.
Coordinating between trades has been critical. A recent example: we had to ensure the countertop fabricator, cabinet installers, and plumber were aligned so a sink cutout would match the chosen faucet. These are the kinds of fine details that keep the build functional and beautiful.
Lighting has been one of the most enjoyable parts of the design process—Sherry especially loves choosing light fixtures—so we’re excited to see the selections start to go up as walls and ceilings get finished.
Our goal is to blend new purchases with thoughtful secondhand finds, so alongside fixture and finish selections we’ve been hunting for furniture, rugs, bedding, art, and accessories. Once the fixed elements are finalized, we’ll shift toward styling and will likely share mood boards to show how each room is coming together.
For a sneak peek of some finishes: we selected a dramatic tile for the powder room that will run floor to ceiling behind a pedestal sink, complemented by a mirror and decorative sconces. In the primary bedroom bathroom we chose a watery blue glass tile for one shower wall and an octagonal tile for the shower floor. In the kitchen, two oversized gold pendants will hang above a large navy island while the rest of the cabinetry will be in a lighter coordinating tone. We also chose crisp five-panel interior doors to suit the Craftsman-inspired exterior.
Color inspiration has been part of the fun. We decided the kids’ jack-and-jill bathroom vanity should be a cheerful green. A serendipitous find at a store helped us lock in the exact shade we loved—Courtyard Green proved to be the perfect fit.
All of these choices must stay on budget and meet strict deadlines—the show opens May 1st—so our builder has been invaluable in keeping the schedule on track. Exterior painting and trim selection are next up, and we’ll soon be ready to share more progress photos and interactive polls so readers can weigh in on certain aesthetic choices, like front door color. In roughly three months we expect to share more than fifteen finished spaces from the showhouse.
P.S. When the showhouse is complete we’ll share a full tour with final photos of every room, the floor plan, budget details, a walkthrough video, and shopping information for the furniture and accessories used throughout the house.