A Dream Home Makeover 20 Years in the Making

The term “dream house” gets thrown around a lot, but for Mattye Dewhirst, it couldn’t be more fitting: She started envisioning her forever home as a teenager, creating designs on The Sims game after school. “The original version had a turret and a moat!” she says.

The concept evolved as Mattye went off to design school, and during the next two decades she continued refining her plans, filing away rugs, wallpaper, and lighting that she loved. Eventually she found the perfect location, near the Rhode Island–Massachusetts border, where she could bring her ideas to life. She built this whimsical, 3,225-square-foot Victorian-style home and filled it with fun, unexpected details.

Then came a storybook ending: Mattye and her husband, Tom Couture, a photographer, got married at their storybook abode this summer. “The house is proof that dreaming big really can pay off,” she says. Read on to take the tour with HGTV Magazine.

Mattye chose this serene green hue for the walls (Pine Forest by Benjamin Moore) so there wouldn't be too much contrast with all the plants. (She uses this space to grow flowers that don't thrive in her zone, like dahlias and an avocado tree.) The room feels collected over time, but there's a mix of old and new here. The painted trunk is from World Market, and the cane rocking chair is from IKEA. The rug is a vintage find from Etsy.

Mattye designed the Art Deco–inspired molding to add texture overhead, then she gave the floor some dimension with cross-shaped zellige tiles from Villa Lagoon Tile. "I think of molding as frosting, and I wanted a lot of it on the ceiling," she says.

The sideboard looks vintage but it’s a Mattye creation. A chandelier from Vakkerlight and vintage chairs with velvet cushions add a pop of color.

This space is home to Mattye’s ever-growing collection of design samples, and it shows off her knack for pattern mixing. Vintage-inspired wallpaper from Spoonflower, geometric cement tiles from Villa Lagoon Tile and a consignment shop floral sofa all work together, thanks to Mattye’s golden rule: “Patterns should be different scales, otherwise they compete too much.”

A galley-style kitchen keeps the focus on cooking. “I don’t really want everybody in here,” she says. “That’s where the dirty dishes are!” She installed a high, extra-long window above the marble backsplash to fill the moody, low-contrast room with natural light. The vintage Turkish runner was an Etsy find.

Mattye chose a fun orange-red hue for this nook off the dining room. “It felt too bold for the walls, so the bar was the perfect place to let it shine,” says Mattye. The backsplash is from Fireclay Tile and the flush mount is from Sazerac Stitches.

“I saw this wallpaper way before I started on the house, and I had to have it,” Mattye says. She bought fve rolls of it at Anthropologie, stored it, then fnally put it all up in this room. She had just enough for the ceiling and a strip along the upper walls. The iron bed was a Craigslist score that she painted Habanero Pepper by Benjamin Moore. Neutral walls ground all the bold design choices painted a mid-tone gray (Secret by Benjamin Moore).

This was the last room Mattye decorated because, at the time, she hadn’t met her now-husband, and she thought a future partner might help inspire the look. In the end, she trusted her instincts, layering warm yellows, browns and natural wood to create a soothing retreat. “I like layers of the same color,” she says. She opted for a color-capping effect with a slightly darker tone on the ceiling (Leather Bound by Sherwin-Williams) and a lighter shade in the same color family on the walls (Smokey Topaz by Sherwin-Williams). Mattye designed the rug herself, sending paint swatches to the artisan in Morocco so every yarn would match her vision.