Not Your Neighbor’s White Kitchen A Baton

pantry

This space used to be the laundry room, but because it has a door that leads to the backyard, the McGehees thought it would be better suited for entertaining. So they installed cabinets and a butcher-block counter from IKEA to make a bar. The walls and the ceiling are painted muted rose pink (Venetian Rose by Benjamin Moore), and the floral wool rug is from World Market. As for the doorway’s inspiration, “I was going through a Moroccan phase,” says Merrilee. She drew the outline and had her contractor cut the drywall.

breakfast nook

To cozy up this corner, Merrilee and Pittman built a banquette with a neighbor’s help. Merrilee had its purple linen, from Calico Corners, treated to make it wipeable, like oilcloth. The tulip table is from White on White in New York City, but when the top cracked, Merrilee replaced it with a precut round of pine from Home Depot. “I love mixing materials,” she says. “Stained wood paired with white metal really appeals to me.” She scored the chairs from a thrift shop—$20 for the pair—and had them reupholstered in a posh David Hicks fabric. A framed piece of vintage Verner Panton fabric hangs front and center.

exterior

The house originally had black shutters and shiny white siding that showed every speck of dirt. So the McGehees repainted it forgiving matte gray (Fieldstone by Benjamin Moore), then chose dark green (Olympus Green by Benjamin Moore) for the shutters. “I like in-between colors,” says Merrilee. “This is such a deep green, you might think it’s black from afar.” She plopped a patio table and chairs from Uptown Modern in Austin in the middle of the lawn; it’s a great place to sit while the kids play.

gallery wall

The Merrilee way to design a gallery wall: Use a mix of frames, and cover every inch of wall space. The runner? She found it on the street! “We live in a college town,” she says. “Kids are always moving and throwing things away. I found this rug and had it cleaned. Now it’s in my hallway.”

clementine’s room

“Clementine is a fun little lady,” says Merrilee, so grownup accents like ’70s floral paintings, a brass chandelier from Again & Again in Dallas, and an overdyed rug from Rugs USA coexist with a Hello Kitty pillow, a toy microphone stand, and a berry red Jenny Lind bed from The Land of Nod. This past Christmas, Clementine wanted a desk, so Merrilee bought a bamboo-and-brass one from a vintage shop called The Brass Peacock on chairish.com and painted it pink (Paris Romance by Benjamin Moore). The three-elephant lamp is from a Shirley Fintz collaboration with West Elm.

finnegan’s room

Merrilee repeated her not-tookid-like kid room decorating style in 10-year-old Finnegan’s bedroom with a red-and-graystripe rug from Wisteria, a dark brown bobbin bed from Restoration Hardware, and vintage bamboo card tables that serve as nightstands. The Belle & Sebastian concert poster was a gift to Merrilee from a friend.

bathroom

This gilded mirror from Gypsies Antiques in Austin probably wasn’t intended for a bathroom, but flanked by brass sconces from Circa Lighting, it looks made for the space. The McGehees replaced the bulky vanity with a pedestal sink and added a slim cabinet, which they topped with Carrara marble left over from the kitchen. The old linoleum floor was ripped out in favor of hexagonal Carrara marble tiles, and the rug is from an antiques shop in Northport, MI.