Have you ever started drooling while you are watching HGTV when they show off their Smart Home of the year? Imagined yourself living in it and enjoying all of the beautiful furnishings and crazy technology that it holds? Entered the sweepstakes every day in hopes that it would one day be yours? Me, too.
So imagine my delight when I actually got to take a tour of the 2015 HGTV Smart Home. Y’all, I tried to hide in a closet so that I could just stay forever, but they found me.
This year’s smart home is in the Zilker Park neighborhood in Austin – a little bit of the new Austin nestled in between a lot of the old Austin. The style of the house and furnishings is considered “Modern Austin Farmhouse” (remember when I said to mesh three styles together for a good eclectic mix?).
Shaw Floors has been a HGTV Smart Home partner since the beginning, and they invited me to go on a tour of the home a few weeks ago. And so of course, I’m going to share some of the home with you! It was a dreary, rainy day (like every other day in Austin for the last month – what’s up with that?), so please excuse any of my pictures that seem dark!
And speaking of pictures, this post will be really picture heavy (and I even narrowed them down!), so get ready for that. You’ll also see some other tour participants in some of the shots; I got to tour the home with some of Shaw’s largest Texas retailers, so it was fun to see the house through their eyes, too.
Front of the Home
The front of the home is a funky mix of modern and farmhouse. As I mentioned, it was raining when I toured it, so a giant tent was set up over the entry and driveway so that we wouldn’t track water and mud into the house. I could only get a good shot of the front door and amazing neon street numbers.
But, here’s what the whole exterior looks like via professional shots from HGTV:
My favorite parts of the exterior are the neon house numbers and the walls of glass by the front door. I love the feel of floor to ceiling windows that meet in a corner like that.
There will eventually be other homes built all around it which will all share the same driveway, so it doesn’t take up as much land in this valuable part of Austin as it looks like it would.
Living Room
When you walk into the front door, you are greeted by an open living room/dining room/kitchen floor plan. The living room definitely has a Texas vibe.
I love the black wall adorned with the window pane mirror. And do you notice the natural color wood trim? You’ll see that repeated throughout the house. I think its a great way to tie the exterior into the interior. Of course, the living room is styled beautifully, too.
Dining Room
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