Tour a Historic Atlanta Home Renovated for Modern Family Life

Nestled in Decatur, Georgia, a quiet suburb of Atlanta with a walkable downtown and easygoing pace, this Colonial Revival cottage was built in 1921 and had been a home to a family of five for 10 years. The homeowners searched for another home in the area that would better suit their family's needs, "but they weren't really getting the warm fuzzies from anything they were looking at," notes Jaime Dupes, lead designer at Copper Sky Design + Remodel.

The family ended up staying in place and undertaking a gut renovation with help from Jaime and team. The direction was simple: Maintain the charming character of the home but help with flow and storage. Adding a primary suite on main floor and a connection from the kitchen to the family room — features rarely found in older homes but necessary for modern living — were essential. "It's very personalized and customized to the homeowners and their personalities, but to me it's very classic and Southern in its aesthetic," says Jaime. Read on to take the tour!

Part of transforming the main floor of the home was creating a more convenient way for the family to enter from their driveway. (They previously had to come in through a back door located on a deck at the back of the home.) To make that passage easier, Jaime created a new side entry with brick stairs, a charming round window and an overhang with decorative corbels. The new entrance leads to a reconfigured mudroom.

The kitchen and living room area are the heart of this home, says Jaime. Making them into one continuous space meant moving the staircase closer to the back of the home and away from its previous slot next to the kitchen. That move helped to increase the home's flow and offer sightlines from the kitchen to the family room. The bright, open area is now where the family spends the majority of their time says Jaime.

This built-in shelves next to the fireplace keeps with the ethos of the rest of the home. They house a mix of new elements sourced by Copper Sky and the family's beloved objects and heirlooms to create a space that feels authentic, lived-in and full of personality.

The family requested a classic white kitchen, so Jaime's challenge was figuring out how to personalize it to them. One of the ways the Copper Sky team achieved a bespoke look was installing the Negresco Leathered granite backsplash.

Also critical was creating a kitchen made for entertaining. "The client wanted to cook more. She wanted to have people over and have this entertaining space," says Jaime. She delivered by making a beautiful space where clutter and appliances are hidden for a clean sight line from the adjacent family room.

With an active family, including a runner mom and daughters deeply invested in soccer and other sports, storage is essential throughout the home. Jaime incorporated plenty of need-specific storage into this kitchen island. "We have deep drawers that have water bottle dividers," says Jaime. "They're deep enough that the water bottles can stand up, but then they sort of have their own little cubbies."

The highly functional kitchen also conceals its utilities behind thoughtful design details, including a paneled dishwasher and refrigerator, a pull-out trash bin and hidden island storage for pots and pans and a knife block.

Whether to use wood floors in a kitchen can be a controversial topic. Some people shy away from wood because of the potential of water warping or discoloring the floors, but for Jaime it was a no brainer to lend a sense of history to this 1921 home. "Anytime you have a natural element, such as wood or a marble or stone, it is going to have wear. To me, that is part of the beauty of living with natural elements," she says. "It's going to patina a little bit, and I think that's fine. It adds a lot of warmth to the space."

"The client was a big coffee drinker," says Jaime, "so having some sort of coffee station was a priority of hers. And I like to create hidden storage. I want things to function. We all live our lives in these spaces, but it's nice to be able to close the door and have it go away."

Jaime tipped her hat to the couple's Kentucky heritage in this beautifully appointed butler's pantry. The gold shelves display Kentucky bourbon, paying tribute to the bourbon and mint juleps of the Bluegrass State. The floral wallpaper and bar cabinets, painted in Sherwin-Williams Rocky River, also reference the homeowners' Kentucky roots.

While many families are dispensing with dedicated dining rooms, for this busy family, the dining room provides a space where everyone can gather for meals and quality time. "We added paint and wallpaper to this room and changed out the light. We freshened it up for sure, but we largely kept the footprint of it," says Jaime. She also kept the family's existing table and chairs.

Copper Sky built the sink console with whimsical turned legs to fit within this powder room on the ground floor. The Hydrangea Drape wallpaper by Schumacher is a subtle nod to the home's Southern location with one of the region's favorite perennials.

While some offices are tucked away from the main action in a home, this cleverly designed space off of the home's formal living room offers privacy without sacrificing a sense of connection. Jaime brought warmth and heritage to this renovation with wood furniture and architectural flourishes. Her team built a wall to break up the very large living room and found wood pocket doors at Scott Antique Market in Atlanta to close off the office when needed. "We intentionally brought in wood tones to add warmth and texture," she says.

As a counterpoint to the wood in this home office, Jaime used Granite Peak Sherwin-Williams on the walls. The color remains in the home's organic, natural color palette.

Jaime and team turned three bedrooms on the home's main level into one exquisite primary suite with a bathroom and a walk-in closet that allows everyone more privacy. (The girls' bedrooms are now on the second level.) The French casement windows were original to the home, and Jaime decided to show them off — and the beautiful view of the backyard — by skipping drapes or shutters. The windows also act as a headboard for the bed, says Jaime.

Black-and-white checkerboard tiles and vintage-style tiles throughout the home create thematic consistency. In this narrow space (Jaime describes it as a "shotgun" bathroom) she used mosic tiles to mimic the look of a rug.

A long vanity with sink and dressing table leads to a walk-in closet in the primary suite and takes full advantage of the long, narrow layout.

With no room for a bathtub here, Jaime went all in to make the shower design feel intentional and luxurious. Carrara marble, including a marble seat, adds to the feeling of opulence.

Jaime moved the staircase from its original placement in the kitchen and transformed the second level into a sanctuary for the family's three girls. What was once an upstairs bedroom with walk-in closets is now three bedrooms, with the oldest daughter nabbing an en suite bathroom and the two younger girls sharing another.

One of the goals of Jaime's renovation was creating space and privacy for the family's daughters, who now occupy the second level of the home. Included in that transformation is a cozy lounge area where the girls can have friends over and socialize apart from the main living areas downstairs.

A wash of a lilac paint on the walls (Intuitive by Sherwin-Williams) and a cozy, sloped ceiling define the oldest daughter's bedroom. Jaime used a color-drenching technique to envelope the entire room in the pretty hue, which ends up making the room feel bigger.

Complementing the subtle, pink-purple blush of the bedroom walls, the adjoining bathroom delights with a soft palette drawn from the Peonia wallpaper by Mokum, another celebration of Southern botanicals.

The family's two younger daughters share this sleek bathroom. The pared-back palette allows the details to shine, like the wavy-edged mirror, patterned floor and botanical shower curtain.

Custom cabinets in a soft blue hue are an elegant way to hide the nitty gritty of family life. Jaime included decorative vents for better air circulation in the cabinets, where the girls keep their sports equipment and shoes. There are also outlets in the cupboards, so laptops and phones can be continually charging while neatly tucked away to reduce clutter.

This workhorse space that connects the mudroom and laundry room (and acts as a homework station) is united by checkerboard floors, soft blue paint and beauty that is never subjugated to practicality.

The same porcelain checkerboard tile continues into the the laundry room, whose clean, bright white paint job signals the task at hand. The misty blue paint on the ceiling continues from the adjacent mudroom, too.

After the interior transformation was complete, Copper Sky came back for phase two: a 585-square-foot expansion on the back of the house. To the right Jaime added a screened-in porch with a fireplace, and to the left, she created an open-air dining area. The peaked gables keep the addition in line with the home's original roof line.

Sliding wood doors beyond the kitchen and family room open to reveal the stunning screened-in porch. Appointed with plenty of wicker furniture, the whole family has a comfy spot to kick back here.

The family pup likes to lounge by the fireplace on the screened-in porch, which seamlessly flows from the family room.

Neither the screened-in porch nor the dining pavilion is air conditioned, so both have been furnished with durable outdoor furniture and materials that can stand up to Southern heat.

Adding the fireplace to the screened-in porch allows the family to spend more time here when the weather cools. "The fireplace is definitely necessary, so [the family] can enjoy the space year round," notes Jaime.

Next to the screened-in porch is what Jaime calls the dining pavilion. "They wanted to be covered from the elements, but they did not feel the need for it to be screened in," she says. Jaime added blankets at every seat, so there are layers of texture and warmth when the Georgia weather gets chilly come fall.