2014 Richmond Homearama House Tours – Houses 1 & 2

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)

The kitchen was absolutely gorgeous with amazing detail on the glass fronted cabinets. There were also two islands in the kitchen, which I thought was weird and impractical, but cool. It was also the only kitchen with stacked ovens, which Jesse and I thought was pretty necessary for a house with two islands. (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.

There wasn’t a lot of color in this house, mostly greys and beiges, so this room with pink accents was one of my favorites. I don’t mind neutrals, but I’ve got to have some color! I also loved the stencil on the ceiling, the metallic shine doesn’t really show up in the picture but it was gorgeous.

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.

The closet in the master bedroom was also gorgeous. It was one huge space for both him and her, with a dark stained organization system that included cabinets with slide out drawers. There was also a coffee bar in the closet with a mini fridge and Keurig. Jesse said he would fill the fridge with beer and get a tv in there and just camp out in the closet.

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.

This house would be perfect for someone looking for a space for their parents to live with them, except for the fact you’d have to visit with your parents every time you wanted a bottle of wine. 😉

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)

Instead of a formal living room downstairs there was a small home office. I thought the space was a little small, but a small office is better than no office, especially one within view of the kitchen and living room. I also loved the little YHL touches they brought to each room. It was like secret Mickey’s in Disney World.

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)

Outside there was a large deck with an outdoor dining space  and a patio with a large outdoor fireplace. I would LOVE to have a space like this outside for entertaining! So gorgeous!

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 laundry room was upstairs between the master bedroom and the guest room, and it was a dream come true! I loved the amount of space and the stencil on the back wall.

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.

The kids’ rooms in this house seemed the most kid friendly, with bright colors and little spaces that screamed normal little kids live here. It also helped that when we toured this house the upstairs was filled with little children playing in the playroom and children’s rooms. 

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. 

These first two houses were definitely at the top of our list as far as the layouts were concerned. They just made the most sense to us, some of the others were just weird.

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?