Sneak Peek: HGTV Dream Home 2017 Take

elcome to the HGTV Dream Home 2017! Hard to believe, but for 21 years, HGTV has been designing (and giving away) Dream Homes all around the country. This year designer Brian Patrick Flynn took on one of the biggest challenges yet: renovating a shabby house a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean on St. Simons Island, GA. It might look dreamy now, but when Brian laid eyes on it, he knew the project would be a doozy. “It was 1980s all the way,” he says. “The exterior was ugly stucco, and the rooms were small, closed off, and decorated in yellow and brown.” After knocking down a wall to make the living room, kitchen, and breakfast area one large, open space, Brian created a warm, welcoming home with lots of natural wood and easy-on-the-eyes colors. “This property has a spectacular yard—there’s even a lake on it,” he says. “I wanted the interior to feel like it’s just an extension of all the beauty around it.”

sofas

“This room looks out onto the pool and the expanse of greenery behind it,” says Brian. “It’s really stunning.” To not block the view—and to provide plenty of seating for guests—he arranged the two 90-inch-wide slipcovered Birch Lane sofas from wayfair.com away from the window but facing each other.

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chandelier

“I love adding a little glamour to a room that’s otherwise laidback,” says Brian. So he hung this House of Hampton bronze and crystal-teardrop fixture from wayfair.com from the wood-clad ceiling.

Before the reno, the 15-foot-tall vaulted ceiling had absolutely no character. So Brian covered it with local pecky cypress boards to highlight its peaked shape. The planks were finished with a clear sealant.

barn door

The plain Jane interior door that led from the living room to a small den (now a home gym) was replaced with a barn door made from salvaged longleaf pine that was treated to give it a weathered look.

coffee table and rug

A hefty farmhouse-style coffee table—it’s roughly 3 feet by 6 feet—is a perfect fit between the two long sofas. Brian describes the gray-and-brown woven wool rug as “cozy as a sweater.”

The cabinets from Cabinets to Go were chosen for their platinum gray color. “They’re almost an identical match to the bark on the trees right outside,” says Brian. For a luxe touch, he picked pulls and handles wrapped in green leather.

tune in!

Watch the HGTV Dream Home 2017 special with host Josh Temple (left) and designer Brian Patrick Flynn (right). It airs on HGTV on January 1 at 8 p.m. ET.

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tile and countertops

The countertops—a durable surface made of cement, soil, and crushed oyster shells and clamshells that’s popular in the low country—were tinted green before being poured. Brian picked matching cracklefinish clay tiles for the backsplash.

island and stools

To make the kitchen flow better, Brian swapped out the old peninsula for an island and added birch-andsteel stools with upholstered seats. “I normally love a white kitchen, but it wouldn’t have gone with the warm colors throughout the rest of the house,” he says.

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