I really love this time of year. The weather is warm and there are so many more activities to do, and we tend to have more energy. We took advantage of the beautiful weekend weather to check out the 2014 Richmond Homearama. The Richmond Homearama is showcase of local Richmond home builders. The model homes feature all of the latest trends in home construction and design. The Richmond Homearama takes place in a premiere Richmond area community. The 2014 Richmond Homearama took place in Magnolia Green (Chesterfield) and featured 7 model homes. This post offers Richmond Homearama house tours for the first two homes in the showcase.
If you read Young House Love, then you know that they helped design and decorate one of the houses in this year’s Homearama, which is how my interest in going was sparked. After they blogged a few details the other week, and gave their own Richmond Homearama house tours, I knew I wanted to go check it out for myself. The day that we went there was a wine tasting and a jazz band playing, so we had a ton of fun wandering the houses and hanging out. I took a bunch of pictures and thought it would be fun if I did a couple of posts summing up the houses, their layouts and their designs.
2014 Richmond Homearama House Tours: House #1 – aka “The House of Joy” by LeGault Homes
Each house featured in the 2014 Richmond Homearama is designed to reflect current styles in both home construction and interior decorating. These Richmond Homearama house tours are all based on my own personal opinions. The style of this house was a French shabby chic with a very clean layout, in fact it was one of the better layouts of the day. Most of the furniture looked like it came from Restoration Hardware and the floors were an aged gray hardwood. The foyer was two stories tall with the dining room to the left and a formal living room to the right and the main family room straight ahead. The main room was also two stories, a feature we love in a house because it makes things feel so open. The kitchen, and an eat-in area also open into the family room, which had a double-sided fireplace into the sun room. (Photo via YHL)

One of my favorite features of the house was the coffered ceiling above the two story family room, though the fleur de lis weren’t exactly my style.
Jesse wasn’t a fan of the double barn doors outside of the office in this house, but I was. I especially liked that the doors opened directly across from the balcony, so there was a clear view of the living room. The room is labeled bedroom, but they were using it as an office for the show. I think I’d prefer it as an office, you know if I could afford to live here.
The master bedroom was beautiful, a little too grand for my tastes, but gorgeous none the less. (Photo via YHL)
The master bathroom was also gorgeous! I loved the large shower and his and hers sinks, but I didn’t love the tub. It was super small, like I don’t think I could stretch out my legs small.
This house also included a finished basement, complete with a family room, small kitchen (by small I mean apartment sized), sliding doors to a patio, a bedroom and a full bathroom. The basement was staged with a pool table next to the sitting room, so it seemed like a great space for hosting parties.
The basement was also equipped with a wine cellar. There was so much space for wine I was literally swooning! The designers even setup a small bar height table with stools in the wine cellar, in case you like to drink your wine in a dimly lit room when there’s a large sitting room 20 steps away.
2014 Richmond Homearama House Tours: House #2, “The Clover” by Biringer Builders
This house, by Beringer builders, was the house decorated by John and Sherry of Young House Love. The layout of this house was the most practical to me of all of the 2014 Richmond Homearama floor plans because there weren’t 5 different sitting rooms. We just aren’t formal living room and parlor people, just give us one big family room and we’re good. One thing we did not like was the choice of light fixtures. There were WAY too many exposed bulbs that cast harsh shadows and hurt your eyes when you looked at them.
The kitchen was directly behind the family room, which is a great setup for entertaining or watching the kids while making dinner. (Photo via Richmond Homearama)
I did not like that there was a small cramped passage between the kitchen and the dining room, I would have preferred to see a large open space there instead. However, there was a wine fridge and storage and some really awesome chalk art from a local Richmonder.
I also did not like the banquette nook next to the kitchen. The high storage on either side, and the fact that if there were a bunch of people sitting around the table the person on the inside was stuck. It made me feel a little claustrophobic. (Photo via Richmond Homearama)
Upstairs was full of more bursts of color, both in paint choices, accessories and tile choices. I really loved the tile they chose for the master bathroom!
The furnishings for the master bedroom were a little sparse in comparison to some of the other houses, but it was still a gorgeous space.

The guest room was one of Jesse’s favorites because of the high ceiling and high round window.
My favorite space in this house was the playroom. It was located in the center of the upstairs and was just an adorable room, I could also see it being used as a home office, if there wasn’t one downstairs already. This was one of the few homes in our Richmond Homearama house tours that I felt was truly designed for a family with small children.

I really loved the little nook in the boy’s room above the bed, it was really popular with some of the little boys running around the house.
This house had the best front porch of all the 2014 Richmond Homearama house tours, there was a swing and a ton of space. Plus the rough wood pillars just looked really cool.
There were seven homes featured in the 2014 Richmond Homearama, and this post is already super long, so the remaining Richmond Homearama house tours will be featured in additional posts. I hope you enjoy the virtual tour as much as we enjoyed the actual in-person tour!
Check out houses 3 and 4 of the 2014 Richmond Homearama here and houses 5, 6, and 7 in this post.
So what do you think of the first two houses? Do you prefer the classy French country look of the first house, or the more realistic “I could buy this stuff” look of house two?
I really wanted to go see their house, but glad you posted pictures because I couldn’t make it! Those houses were all soooo gorgeous, but YHL’s was definitely my favorite 🙂
Love this post! I’ve been following along via YHL and I love seeing your pics and getting some insider feedback about what you liked and didn’t like. Plus, being from San Francisco, seeing nice homes for $500k is funny since those same homes here could easily be $3 million depending on what town they were in!
Jessica
I really was disappointed in the YHL house. There was a lot of can’t-undo mistakes and then some easy-to-fix mistakes (weird furniture/paint colors/etc.) – totally agree with you on the lighting for example. But I loved the outdoor spaces at their home. The Joy house had a lot of potential for me but thought the family room “median” was funny. I also thought the bar stolls were not fitting for the kitchen, the barn doors too rustic, the bath tub too small and the coffered ceiling should be painted a solid. I really am particular in my tastes! haha
Awesome post, Ashley.
Both homes were gorgeous but so different! Although I liked the decor of #2, the fact that #1 had a wine cellar pretty much sold me!
While there were some elements that I liked in the YHL house, I felt that it was too taste specific and I felt it was too sparsely decorated throughout for the amount and scale of the home. Home #1 was one of my faves. Minus a few of the decorating touches here and there. I’m really enjoying your tour! 🙂