There are a few outdoor showhouse spaces that we haven’t shown at all in this entire yearlong process. Each of the seven showhouses were encouraged to include some fun outdoor spaces as well as indoor ones, so aside from the stuff you can see from the curb, there’s also a back porch and a back patio complete with a stone fireplace. The cool thing about these outdoor spaces is that they’re the places that we got to put our heads together with the builder and the architect the most – and they ended up being some of our favorites.
The craziest thing is that our house won 1st place (i.e. the “Gold Award”) for both Curb Appeal and Outdoor Living. With this being our first time doing a showhouse, we honestly weren’t sure we’d win anything at all, so getting those two along with the silver for Creative Home surprised and thrilled us to say the least.
We’ve talked a lot about the front porch already, since it has been one of the defining features of our home. Namely the exposed wood (stained with Sikkens in their “Cedar” color) paired with the navy siding (which is Newburg Green by Benjamin Moore) and the crisp white trim (which is Steam by Ben Moore). But it’s looking even more polished now that the landscaper worked his magic, and we got our big limestone pathway laid. In addition to the aggregate driveway and front pathway, we wanted to create some charming access from the street, so after sharing a few inspiration photos with the landscaper and the builder, they cut big 2 x 4′ slabs from the same material as the porch’s stone column caps, and laid the sod around them.
One interesting tidbit about the landscaping was that John the Builder and Chris the Landscaper had to submit their plans to the developer of this community, who actually nixed a bunch of larger plantings (we love more mature looking bushes and trees, but I guess for the show they wanted everything to have more of an open look).
The front porch is nice and spacious, with a large 14 x 11′ area to the left of the door, which is where we created the main seating area with a sofa, ottoman, chair, and a few side tables (some of those aren’t pictured in the shot below but if you look at the picture above you can get a better idea).
The other side is around 11 x 12′, which means there was room for a porch swing, a swivel chair, and another red side table (that’s hidden behind the chair in the photo below).
Most of the outdoor furniture is the Wyatt collection from Arhaus, including the sofa, the ottoman, and the swivel chair on the other side, which they kindly donated for the show (we’re sending them back afterwards). They’re all super comfortable, and the best part is that Arhaus agreed to give away an identical set of outdoor furniture to one of you for this week’s giveaway.
Most of the smaller accessories were stuff that we bought at Lowe’s (like the red metal garden stools and the medallion pillows) or Target (like the bolsters). They brought in some nice color, while the dark 12 x 24″ porcelain tiles that were donated by The Tile Shop grounded the porch.
The sun prevented me from getting good pictures of the other chair on that side, so forgive this photo from an earlier day (note the lack of sod next door). It’s a swiveling egg chair and side table from Green Front Furniture. Since Sherry is genetically one-quarter egg chair, she had to have it.
Here’s another shot from that same day, which is the best one I seem to have of the light fixture we bought from Restoration Hardware. The angles of the light are nice with the peaked wood ceiling, and the fans are from Hunter (they’re the same ones we installed in our own sunroom).
The porch swing on the other side was a purchase from Hayneedle.com, but we had to spray paint the gold chain black to make it blend better with the rest of the porch. I won’t admit to how many times we took breaks just to swing out here. Clara was that bench’s biggest fan.
The chair nearby is part of the same Arhaus collection, and it swiveled like the egg chair on the other side of the porch, which made the arrangement feel more flexible (someone sitting there could swivel towards the porch swing or towards the seating area on the other side).
The rest of the porch was filled out with random potted ferns (we bought the pots & ferns at Lowe’s), just to add some greenery.
We also had the carpenter build window boxes to liven up the trio of windows on the right side of the house (that’s actually the garage, but it has side access).
On the front porch we also went for dark bronze rain chains instead of traditional gutters, since we can probably all agree that downspouts aren’t the most charming architectural detail out there. These decorative chains help guide the water from the gutter down a drain to the ground and look pretty darn cute doing it.
If you walk around the side of the garage, we continued those limestone slabs so they lead to the patio area behind the house.
The stamped concrete patio is almost literally “hugged” by the outdoor fireplace. Most of the design credit for this area goes to the builder and his team. We gave input on the type of stone and a few details, but John and his guys built it seemingly overnight while we were tending to a few other spaces. Then we walked out back and said “yeah, we could get used to this.”
We kept the “styling” pretty light out here, since we were running out of time and wanted the focus to be on the fireplace anyway. There’s an outdoor dining area on the back porch (which we’ll get to in a minute), so we didn’t think another table made sense down here, so we landed on a casual seating arrangement. The woven outdoor lounge chairs, pillows, and planters are all things that we bought from Lowe’s.
Behind you as you face the fireplace are two staircases, one that leads up to the mudroom (which includes some closed, covered storage underneath it for yard equipment, etc) and the other that leads up to the back porch.
The back porch has the same exposed wood look on the ceiling as the front porch, but instead of tile this space has a Trex floor. The french doors lead into the living room/kitchen area, so this was a natural spot for an outdoor dining area.
The dining table and chairs were from Green Front Furniture, the indoor/outdoor rug is from Dash & Albert, and the runner & sodas are from World Market. All of the other styling accessories are HomeGoods (like the planter, the lantern on the table, etc).
So that concludes the outdoor tour. We’ve still got a few bedrooms, bathrooms, and miscellaneous spots like the laundry room and the mudroom to share along with a video walk-through of the whole house, so we hope to have all of that sourced and shared in the next week or two.
Psst – Wanna see more showhouse info & photos? Click here for Our Full Showhouse Tour, which includes final pictures of every room, the floor plan, budget info, a video walk-through, and shoppable showhouse furniture & accessories.
Jen @ The Decor Scene says
OMG it’s all gorgeous!!! I’m drooling over here. You kept a very nice secret from us for this long. I would sit on either porch all day long and then to end the night by the fireplace. OK I need to win the lotto now. lol
kristen osborne says
Wowzer! Your front porch is amazing! I could sit there all stinkin day long. I used to live in a 1920’s house with a big front porch and miss it fiercely. The Blue is also a favorite of mine…reminds me of being in a cute seaside cottage, ahhh. How do we enter the giveaway for the amazing arhouse furniture. NEED this sooo bad!
YoungHouseLove says
That giveaway will be up tomorrow on the blog!
xo
s
Elizabeth says
Seriously with every new picture I see of this house, I love it a tiny bit more! You guys are amazing!! Congrats on the well deserved awards!
Rachel K. says
What the what?? This place is awesome!! I fall more and more in love with your showhouse every time you post pictures. How do you resist the temptation to buy this place for yourselves?? Or have you secretly purchased it? ;)
YoungHouseLove says
Thankfully between being smitten with our own house in the woods (and our neighborhood) plus it being our of our price range we’re able to resist it. But you bet your buns we hope to house crash the new owner!
xo
s
Paula says
Loved the outdoor spaces. I’m in search of those gray woven patio chairs. You mentioned Lowes , But I couldn’t find them on the website. any chance you have a link to them? I need them.
Thanks
YoungHouseLove says
I don’t think they’re online but they’re in stores I think (for a good price like $65 or so).
xo
s
Cindy says
I am just so impressed with how much you are getting done AND with a brand new baby…kudos to you both. I think your awards were well-deserving…loved your show home!
Lil says
Are you taking requests for which room we want to see next? If so, I would like to see the guest room. I NEED to know the source of the water/beach print/painting/photo. “Ferdos”? “Ferdas”? I googled it and can’t find the artist.
Of course I loved everything…I’m just anxious for that bit of detail.
YoungHouseLove says
That was a HomeGoods find!
xo
s
Lil says
Thank you! Home Goods here I come! BTW…I popped into 3 Home Goods stores when I was in Richmond. You have the BEST HG down there. Let’s just say that Home Goods are not created equal.
YoungHouseLove says
Aw man, hope yours get good too!
xo
s
lori says
i really do luv all that house so far….all of it….i want it.
Heidi says
You guys did a finominal job on the house!! I’ve been following your blog for years now. And yours is def my fav blog I’ve followed. I always recommend people reading it when they are unsure what to do with some part of their house. We are in the process of selling our house and hoping to move into the house I grew up in…which needs every room flipped. So I’m sure I will remain a devoted follower and will prob have questions down the road. Thanks for being so clean, vulnerable and amazing at what you do!
Sarah says
I love the outdoor spaces! Well done and well deserved award! I would love that Arhaus set. I clicked through to the link and looked at the prices and decided I can’t afford to buy it so I’ll just have to win it.
Renee says
I CAN’T wait to jump on a plane Thursday evening so my husband and I can come to the Homeramma and see this house. Are you guys going to be there this weekend at all?
YoungHouseLove says
Ahh, so exciting! We will just be stopping through occasionally (not sure when since newborns are unpredictable) but I hope we see you!
xo
s
Deb says
Wow…just wow. I am a “porch person” and usually prefer older homes simply because of their great porches, but I could happily live with a new home, IF it came with that front porch! And the patio…love it!! And congratulations on the 3 awards! They were well earned!!
Rebecca says
Where did you get those chairs by the fireplace outside, name? I can’t find them on Lowe’s website and i love them!
YoungHouseLove says
Can’t find them on the site, but we’ve seen them in stores. Someone sent me a pic of their flyer with them and it’s called the Tucker Bend patio chair if that helps.
xo
s
Marissa says
Wow who knew that patio was hiding back there?! It looks so cozy and i’m sure the buyers will have plenty of fun cookouts out there! I love the back porch too, I can just imagine eating breakfast on a nice morning and leaving those french doors open all day!! Can’t wait to see the rest of the house!
Connie Stead says
Congratulations on your awards, well deserved. You are an extremely talented couple. I am curious, can you give us all the categories that were considered for awards? Also, what was taken into consideration for “Creative Home”? The design, the decor, or both? Did they consider both the interior and exterior of the house?
YoungHouseLove says
Creative Home was all-inclusive, so it took things like design, architectural features, decor, and color palette into account. I don’t believe outside areas were part of it since there are two other specific awards for the outdoor spaces, but we weren’t privy to the specific judging questions/scores, just who won what. There were also more specific awards for individual rooms, like best bedroom & best kitchen, along with best merchandising & best best floor plan. I think that’s all of them (seven total). There’s also People’s Choice which we JUST found out we won! That was voted on by everyone who went to Homearama, so we’re still kind of reeling from it!
xo
s
Tara F says
Definitely loved your interior the best!
Outdoors looks great. I love the southern habit of outdoor ceiling fans. And THOSE LOWES CHAIRS. I MUST HAVE THEM. I drool over them every time we go there.
Amanda says
Love the front porch and deck/outdoor dining area! We’re moving into our first house next month (!!!!) and we have a covered patio. Shopping for outdoor furniture is completely giving me sticker shock. But it’s just so fun!!
(P.S. I’m completely loving the new, less is more blog posts! The writing and content has improved, and it makes me happier to know you aren’t forcing stuff, and are spending more time with family)
alisa says
I TRIED to look through all the comments, but bugging me… I thought that the front door was going to be a different color than white? Did I miss something?
YoungHouseLove says
Here’s the post about that for ya: https://www.younghouselove.com/2014/02/showhouse-smorgasbord/
xo
s
Jess says
Yayyyyy! Congrats on the People’s Choice award! You guys are the raddest! (Is that a word??? -in any case, so well deserved. If I was buy a home, I’d be battling for this! Picture a giant sumo wrestler suit like the have at carnivals).
Ok. Weird post, sorry. CONGRATS!
Jess says
Ahhhhhhhh! Yayyyyy! Congrats on the People’s Choice award! You guys are the raddest! (Is that a word??? -in any case, so well deserved. If I was buy a home, I’d be battling for this! Picture a giant sumo wrestler suit like the have at carnivals). But seriously. When I buy a house in like, 5 years…. I want you guys to design it. Because you’re just that good.
Ok. Weird post, sorry. I sound like a creep. CONGRATS!
Melissa says
I have to say, your home is my favourite. I could totally see myself living there. The colour pallette is gorgeous and your choice of furniture makes it so homey and liveable. Excited to see the remainder of the home.
Nicole S. says
Congrats on the awards! Not that I’m surprised. Your house seemed the most imaginative to me when I saw the shorts from the other houses. Any chance we’ll see a video tour of the finished house?
YoungHouseLove says
Yes, we have one planned for you when we reveal the final rooms!
xo
s
Kelly says
Wow, congrats on the awards. They are well deserved. The outdoor living spaces are so amazing, I would be in heaven if I had a cozy covered living room on my front porch, a gorgeous dining room on the covered deck, and fabulous fireplace on the back patio. Great work, guys.
Also, I am digging the slower pace of content on the site. I still get my daily fix, but don’t spend quite so much time being distracted from the job that I’m supposed to be doing.
kristen osborne says
Wowzer! What’s not to love? The front porch and blue have me drooling. Congrats on a job well done. Do you have an extra room for me lol?
Kate says
Congrats on the the awards! You guys totally deserved them! You two did a wonderful job decorating inside and out. So many ideas that I would love to incorporate into my house. =)
Emily @ Life on Food says
I would love to have a bigger front porch with that comfy sofa. I could nap there all day long. Loving the light fixtures.
Swarfel says
I’ll take one of these please, and by that I mean the house, the yard, colors, design, furniture, finishing touches, ALL OF IT! This house is incredible! Love it all! Way to go to guys! Platinum award all around if you’re asking me!
Xoxo swarfel
Hot Pink Manolos says
Does it say something about the day I had that you wrote “outdoor dining area” and I read “outdoor drinking area?” I had to go back and reread the post to figure out what I’d missed!!
YoungHouseLove says
So funny!
xo
s
Jennifer says
I’m surprised none of the awards list the designers. I thought the partnerships would get more credit.
YoungHouseLove says
There were many people on each team (there was also the architect, the landscaper, the realtor, etc) so I think they thought it was simplest to put the team name on it (each team was referred to by the builder’s name just to keep things simple). We don’t mind at all :)
xo
s
Heather @ Them Teaching Us says
Congratulations on the (3!) awards! You all worked so hard on this project and it truly shows. The home is such a delight to look at (well, through the pics you post! hehehe). Thank you for posting about the outside. Hubby and I are planning our own home-build and one of our outside elements is going to be rain chains. PERFECT picture to show him. Thanks, guys!
kim says
I can see why you all won – the house is so fresh and not a smidge of over designed “faux -farm- house French” (why do they all go there??) But seriously the picture of the Burg is just the heart and soul of the whole thing , love it.
Amanda says
I love love love that porch! I’ve been urning over a porch for some time now, living in an apartment and all does that to you when the sun starts coming out.
Amanda says
I just read you won PEOPLES CHOICE!! Congratulations — you definitely deserve it, the photos you’ve taken along the way make the house to die for, I can’t even imagine what it looks like in person.
I would love love love to see the master balcony, hopefully we get to see that in the video perhaps?!
Also, the white door choice (my choice- haha!) was the right one especially with all the other “white” accents along the outside of the house
aude says
I’m french, I love your blog and I love your house!
It’s wonderful (merveilleux)!
Alison says
I love all the outdoor areas! One thing I’m curious about… I’m in northern Virginia and rarely see covered decks like this one, instead they’re almost always screened-in since we have sooo many bugs in the summer. Any thoughts from you or the builder as to why you went with the covered deck vs. a screened porch? It looks super close to a screened porch, basically the same thing minus the screens??? The only disadvantage I can see to screened porches, having had one myself, is that they get messy during pollen season (so more upkeep) and can block the view slightly from the interior of the house, but to me the pros outweigh the cons. Anyway, we’re actually in the process of figuring out what to put on the back of our new construction house, so am really curious about how you wound up where you did with the covered deck.
YoungHouseLove says
We debated that with the builder and landed on the “he can add them for the buyer if they want them, but it would be annoying to take them away” so we just left things open. With a fan running most bugs don’t like moving air so that really cuts down on them, and the view without screens (and the pollen-factor that you mentioned) was a pro in the no-screen column :)
xo
s
Kim Sall says
Now that is a home I can see myself living in. I absolutely love the exterior color as well as the use of outdoor space in the front. What a perfect place to curl up with a good book in the summer time. Bravo for a job well done! :)
http://www.screwdriversandmimosas.com
Erin says
I would love to just see what the porch columns would look like in white! The porch is fabulous, but for me I feel like there is a small disconnect without any other natural wood elements on the facade of the house. I would love to see it with white columns and a natural wood ceiling, like it is now. The exterior of this house is AMAZING, the builders and you guys did a fantastic job – and who wouldn’t want that backyard set up! Yummy!
Also the egg chair – really think I need one of those.
Barbara Mullins says
Congratulations on your well-deserved rewards! That front porch is fantastic! Makes me want to curl up on the sofa with a good book and a cold beverage. And the back porchand fireplace are inviting, too. The whole house is gorgeous. Kudos! (Guess your clones can’t come work your magic at my house, huh? ;))
Chris says
Congratulations Young House Lovers!!! I’m so inspired by the details in your show house. We’re about to move (one month to go) and we’re dreaming up all sorts things. Have a great weekend!
Amanda {NoDak Nest} says
Are the shingles a charcoal color? I’m wanting to paint our house a blue like this one with white trim and we are replacing shingles this summer. I LOVE the way this house looks, it’s absolutely gorgeous.
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Amanda! Yes, we went with a charcoal dimensional shingle roof.
xo
s
Jess @One English Teacher says
Congrats on not one, not two, but three awards! I’d call that a successful first show. Well, I think it would have been a success even if you hadn’t snagged anything, but why not have some icing on the cake :-) That front porch is making me drool. The stained wood looks great curbside, but I think I love it even more from the perspective of sitting under it. What a cozy feel, and yes, I’d plop onto that porch swing quite often too :-)
Connie says
I have to say one of my favourite aspects of your house was the portico and back porch ceilings. Those areas are often overlooked, and it’s wonderful to see something beautiful and unique made from what is often a throw away design detail. Congrats and well done.
Jonia says
Looks amazing! Huge congratulations to you guys!!!
Emily says
We toured the houses last weekend and by far yours was our favorite. The first house was beautiful inside too but your house was the complete package! Please share how you did the paneling in the dining room, it was one of our favorite touches and are dying to do it in our house. Spot on design, there was nothing about the house that I would change inside or out! Now to start the redesign of our kitchen… :)
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Emily! We designed that pattern and the carpenter made it happen, but it was essentially made with boards that were installed on around a 15 degree angle and they were spaced around a quarter inch apart to make that recessed area, which helped to establish the pattern.
xo
s
Allison says
Congratulations on a job well down on the showhouse! My husband & I checked it out over the weekend & LOVED yours! You really put a lot of thought into the details, which made your house have the “wow” factor. The house has a great flow, and we especially loved the kids’ bedrooms & also all of the porches! Your awards were well deserved. You have our vote for the people’s choice award. The time & effort that you put into this home for charity is so awesome!
Also (and more importantly), congratulations on the arrival of Teddy! What a blessing.
Alli
candace says
I love all of your posts but I especially enjoyed each of the Homearama posts. So inspiring!!! Thank you for all of your hard work and sharing with those of us that live far away and can’t tour it in person!
Laurel says
Your house was amazing inside & out! So curious which house won best interior??? And will you be taking this project on again in the future??
YoungHouseLove says
There wasn’t a category for best interior, but for “Creative Home” (the one we got silver in, which includes decor/design/architectural features/color palette, etc), House #4 got the gold. As for taking this on again, we’d love to team up with John the Builder sometime in the future. He’s like family now!
xo
s
Kathy says
What an amazing job! Wasn’t the original color for the front door supposed to be a mustard yellow color?
Again, I want to move into that house right now!
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes, that door was debated a ton! Here’s the post where we shifted again: https://www.younghouselove.com/2014/02/showhouse-smorgasbord/
xo
s
Annie says
Hi, I have a kind of strange question. Were/are you contractually prevented from sharing in-progress stuff from the showhouse? It took such a huge amount of your time for so long that it seems unfair for you to not be allowed to milk it for every ounce of blog fodder you can. I assumed while you were doing it that the builder wanted the whole thing secret until the show opened and we had to pay to come see it, but you did share pics beforehand.
I know I’d have loved to see a breakdown of how to choose finishes for a room which only exists on paper (as would anyone buying a new build!), and how to figure out how many tchotchkes you’ll need to fill it, and what mix of tall vs wide, dark vs light, textured and smooth, the rule of threes, all that sort of stuff. And then the rundown on how that worked, like you thought this color would work, but once the lawn went in it turned the room green, or the cookbooks you’d bought at the thrift store turned out to be too tall and too brown for the room, or there’s no way to pick a countertop without visiting show kitchens. Plus the actual plumbing and wiring and building itself. How did John the carpenter do that wainscoting inthe dining room?
Pics of finished rooms and source lists are nice, but you deserve more than just a dozen posts out of all your time invested in the project. Why weren’t you allowed to do this?
YoungHouseLove says
We were allowed to share progress stuff as often as we liked, but with running around actually doing things we didn’t have a lot of spare time to do weekly updates or anything like that. It’ll end up being 20+ posts by the time we’re done (we already have 18 in our showhouse archives, many of which we shared along the way) and we’ve also planned a wrap-up post about what we learned/what we’d change. We definitely think having another whole house to add to our House Tour page along with all the experience we gained was well worth the time we put into it – not to mention the check we get to send to Habitat :)
xo,
s
Toni says
Many congratulations on a job well done– to all involved! What is the story behind “The Clover?” Is that the name of the house or the team?
YoungHouseLove says
Clover is the name of the house’s floor plan. We were charged with coming up with ideas for a plant/shrub/flower name (that’s what all of John the Builder’s plans are named after) and we landed on that since they’re known for being good luck, and the word “LOVE” is literally hidden in the middle of the word Clover ;)
xo,
s
Toni says
Wonderful! There’s a portrait company here in Vermont called WILD cLOVEr Photograph, written in that manner to emphasize the ‘love’ in clover.
YoungHouseLove says
So cute!
xo
s
Shyla says
Hi there–loved your house at the show and I’ve been interested in going to the furniture event on 5/19 but they don’t tell you a lot about how that’s going to work. Do you have any insight into what is will be? Is it like an auction, a giant yard sale, etc?
Thanks for your help!
YoungHouseLove says
I know that our house isn’t involved (the items inside are either being returned to vendors, donated to Habitat, or kept by the builder if he paid for it) but other homes might be selling their stuff – maybe try to contact a specific builder if there’s something you’re interested in from their house?
xo
s
Joanna @ TheNestbook says
I would kill for an outdoor fireplace like that! You guys did such an amazing job with this house!
Karin says
So bummed I will miss Homearama as not heading down to Richmond for vacation until the week after…but so glad I got a taste of it from you guys! Your house was definitely the best and absolutely deserved to win 1st place! Any good playgrounds to take a 3 year old and 1 year old to while we are down there?
YoungHouseLove says
Maymont Park is awesome! Lots of greenery, goats to feed, bears and a fox to check out, etc. Lots of fun – and it’s free!
xo
s