How a Lifestyle Blogger Transformed a Cookie-Cutter House Into a Tropical Paradise

From the outside, lifestyle blogger Carla Bethany Hayden's home just south of Atlanta looks just like the other houses on the block. Step inside, however, and you'll discover a world of vibrant color, tropical patterns and an ever-changing art collection that have her neighbors saying, "Is this really the same house?"

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August 09, 2023

By: Jessica Yonker

Show: HGTV Handmade

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Photo By: Tomas Espinoza

And They All Look Just the Same

When home and garden blogger Carla Bethany and her husband Eric moved into a house in the southern Atlanta suburbs, the new space didn’t really match her vibrant personality. “When I moved into this home it was very beige,” she laughs. “And it looked like my neighbor’s [home.]” A lover of all things colorful and interior design, Carla rolled up her sleeves and got to work.

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The first thing she decided to do was paint, but not the walls — instead, she left the walls white and painted her favorite furniture pieces to brighten up the space. (Just like us here at HGTV, she quickly fell in love with chalk paint.) Later, she decided to add removable wallpaper accent walls to her dining room and this office-meets-guest room.

Carla works from home, so to make every day feel a little bit more like vacation, she chose a pink and blue tropical print, appropriately named Neon Flowers, for the wallpaper for her workspace, topping it off with overhead beach scene art. “I like to think I’m sitting at the beach somewhere,” she says. "Even though we're nowhere near the ocean." The rest of the room follows suit with pink and blue accents, including a punchy raspberry desk from Brighton Hill. "I built everything around the wallpaper," she adds. "It was really about the wallpaper."

Watch the Video: From Cookie-Cutter to Colorful

Things Change

The word “removable” is key here: Carla's design style changes with the seasons, and she’s not afraid to try something new. As her vision for the dining room evolved, she swapped out furniture — adding a new console, a pair of ginger jar-inspired lamps and red chairs she sourced and built herself from a restaurant supply store — and eventually took down the tropical print wallpaper mural she installed on her birthday one year. “I wanted to quiet the room a little,” she said after revealing the newest rendition of the dining room on Instagram. “I had way too many patterns.”

Watch the Video: From Cookie-Cutter to Colorful

Tone Down for What?

Removing the wallpaper created a more cohesive color story for the dining room that was still packed with personality. “I have a formal dining room … but I keep it playful, cheerful, a place that when I come home, it’s inspiring to me,” she says.

Watch the Video: From Cookie-Cutter to Colorful

Inner Child

Carla’s secret to keeping a space youthful? Shop in the kids section. “I like these palm curtains,” she says. “When I can’t find something in the ‘adult section,’ I always go to the kids section to see if there’s something there, because you’ll find the bright, colorful things there. [Just] because I’m an adult doesn’t mean I don’t like bright and colorful.”

Watch the Video: From Cookie-Cutter to Colorful

Rug Emporium

The dining room has seen its fair share of rugs over the years. Carla collects them, keeping some in storage and moving others from room to room as she changes out her designs. “My friends like to say I have a rug emporium,” she laughs. And she’s happy to share the wealth: When her friends are looking for a rug for their own home, she’ll ask what they’re looking for and offer up a rug from her collection.

Watch the Video: From Cookie-Cutter to Colorful

Ugly Lamp Collector

Carla says friends also know her for more ... unique design choices. She loves thrifting, and one of her very first finds was this vintage 1950s lamp picked up from one of Atlanta’s many antique markets. “I just fell in love with it,” she says. “Most of my friends think the lamp is ugly — they say I have this thing for ugly lamps.” But she just shrugs it off, “I like it. If it’s ugly, then [that’s OK.]”

Watch the Video: From Cookie-Cutter to Colorful

Everyone Wins

The lamp cozies up next to a sectional she received as a prize for participating in La-Z-Boy’s Design Dash, a competition where challengers were tasked with designing a room with pieces from the brand’s showroom in only 30 minutes. The oversized teal sofa is a welcome departure from the charcoal couch that preceded it. “I wanted to seat a lot of people,” she says. “And I also want to be comfortable while I watch my marathons of TV shows.”

Watch the Video: From Cookie-Cutter to Colorful

Smart Solution

You’ll see lots of gallery walls around Carla’s home, but the one in the living room serves another function: grounding the extra large television. To keep things budget-friendly, she buys digital art on Etsy. When it’s time to add them to the gallery wall, she takes a trip to the office supply store and buys engineer prints, which come on large, thin sheets of paper and are typically reserved for architectural plans. “Once you invest in the frame, you can just switch out the prints throughout the seasons if you want a new look,” she says.

3 Ways to Decorate Around the TV: 3 DIY Ways to Decorate Around a Television

Colorful Collectibles

Also framing out the television are a rainbow of ornately styled knick-knacks across two white open shelves and a tropical plant that will make you do a double-take: It’s actually a faux plant, but Carla styles them in a pot with real dirt and rocks to make them look real.

Watch the Video: From Cookie-Cutter to Colorful

King and Queen

Two of her favorite pieces on the shelf are these vintage king and queen busts. “I like to say [they’re] my husband and myself,” she grins.

Watch the Video: From Cookie-Cutter to Colorful

Groove Is in the Heart

Carla’s favorite color makes an appearance in the living room, too. “I got it because it was pink,” she says of the record player.

Watch the Video: From Cookie-Cutter to Colorful

Rose-Inspired

Just around the corner is Carla’s breakfast nook, which houses a collection of real plants. She refers to the area as her plant nursery; since the area gets great light from the adjacent windows, she’ll bring plants that are in need of a little extra TLC to the nook. “It’s how I hoard plants in plain sight,” she giggles.

She inherited her gardening know-how from her grandmother, Rose. “She had a front porch full of plants,” she says. “When I see my plants it reminds me of her. So to me, that’s my way of keeping her legacy alive.” Carla has also been working diligently to revamp her outdoor space and garden as a tribute to her grandmother.

Watch the Video: From Cookie-Cutter to Colorful

Moody and Muted

In the bedroom, Carla takes a departure from the technicolor hues of the living spaces and goes for a more muted approach, choosing softer shades of pinks and blue, “so that when I do come to rest, I can rest.” She made the headboard herself from lumber she got at the hardware store. It was one of her first big projects where she used tools and power drills. “As long as it looks great, no one knows the secrets,” she says. “I probably didn’t put it together right, it’s probably not square, but it looks good to me ... it set the tone for the muted colors I wanted in my bedroom.”

Watch the Video: From Cookie-Cutter to Colorful

Multitudes

Across the room sits a modern, light gray dresser styled simply with a round mirror found on clearance, family photos and a boho wall hanging. Carla laughs when trying to describe her eclectic design style, a blend of modern and bohemian with tropical touches and vintage finds. “Can I be all of those?” she jests.

Watch the Video: From Cookie-Cutter to Colorful

It’s the Little Things

The bedroom is not without whimsical details that are signature in Carla’s design style. These brass hand curtain tiebacks pair perfectly with the brass lamp on the nightstand, which, by the way, used to live in the dining room before Carla’s big remodel.

Watch the Video: From Cookie-Cutter to Colorful

Two-Minute Vanity

Carla calls her vintage vanity a “two-minute purchase.” While she quickly claimed the Goodwill-find while browsing the store on her lunch break, it took much longer for her to actually get it home. “I locked eyes with a vintage piece,” she says. “I had to have her.” She tried to squeeze the vanity into the back seat of her car, even going as far to leave the store and go buy tools to remove the vanity mirror, but it still wouldn’t fit. Thankfully, her husband came to the rescue later that day and picked up the vanity in his truck. She stripped and stained the vanity and sits at it every morning.

Watch the Video: From Cookie-Cutter to Colorful

Stand Out

“The No. 1 comment when most people come into my home is, ‘Oh wow, it really is colorful,’” says Carla. Though the outside may look like every other house in the subdivision, Carla hopes people who step inside the front door find her home a breath of fresh air. “I want people to feel welcome,” she says. “Just relax.”

To see Carla’s latest home design, follow her on Instagram @itscarlabethany.

Watch the Video: From Cookie-Cutter to Colorful

How a Lifestyle Blogger Transformed a Cookie-Cutter House Into a Tropical Paradise

Related To:

Shop This Look

And They All Look Just the Same

Shop This Look

Everleigh Raspberry Writing Desk

Stand Out

Things Change

Tone Down for What?

Inner Child

Rug Emporium

Ugly Lamp Collector

Everyone Wins

Smart Solution

Colorful Collectibles

King and Queen

Groove Is in the Heart

Rose-Inspired

Moody and Muted

Multitudes

It’s the Little Things

Two-Minute Vanity

Stand Out

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