Tour the Atlanta Home Mike and Egypt Transformed to Help Cocoa Brown Rise From Tragedy

In February 2024, comedian Cocoa Brown and her 11-year-old son, Phoenix, lost almost everything. The Fayetteville, Georgia, home they’d lived in since 2015 was completely destroyed in a sudden and catastrophic fire. “All I could yell was ‘get out,’ and me and my child ran out with our two dogs,” Cocoa recalled. “In a matter of an hour, we watched our entire home burn to the ground. It was gone.”

Egypt Sherrod, Mike Jackson and the Married to Real Estate crew sprang into action to help them determine what would come next. Cocoa and Phoenix couldn’t imagine or afford trying to re-create their former home, but with Egypt’s expert real estate counsel, Cocoa purchased this Fayetteville house — in Phoenix’s school district, with the pool that topped his wish list — for $630,000. That gave Egypt and Mike a $120,000 renovation budget to create the spaces Cocoa envisioned. Spoiler: They exceeded Cocoa's and Phoenix’s expectations. Come on in and have a look at how Egypt's and Mike’s family stepped up to help another family move forward.

Built in 1996 on a tree-lined lot that’s just over an acre of land, this five-bedroom house was a blank canvas for Mike and Egypt — minus some dated details like the shiplap wall and arched windows on either side of the fireplace. Cocoa hoped for new flooring — a detail that would add about $7,000 to the renovation budget — and to remove a few columns that interrupted sight lines between the living room and foyer. “When I walk in my house,” she said, “I just want to see!” That structural makeunder would run the team around $6,000.

The now-double-sided fireplace is a shallower feature that frees up floor space in the sunroom and provides Cocoa with some peace of mind. This new feature is also a water-vapor fireplace that doesn’t generate heat at all. “This way, Cocoa will not have any flames in her home,” Mike noted. Egypt had the bright idea of swapping the clunky interior windows out for crisp, functional French doors that improve flow and admit even more sunlight. Footed with spare marble from the kitchen renovation and framed with a sleek, contemporary plaster treatment, this new and improved feature wall suits the home’s updated aesthetic beautifully.

Given the downright spectacular pool deck just beyond (yet barely visible through) the original doors and windows, this sunroom was underwhelming in the extreme prior to renovation. The lackluster siding was particularly bad: “Oh yeah, that’s going to have to go, honey,” Cocoa noted.

What a difference new doors make! An 18-foot-wide glass expanse now dissolves the visual barrier between the sunroom and Cocoa’s beautiful pool deck. Egypt coated the resurfaced walls with a deep, sophisticated brown paint that complements both the fireplace surround and the veined marble — which now claims just 9 inches of floor space — beneath it. A sleeker ceiling fan and a sitting area with a quartet of nubby armchairs (and a magnificent view, thank you very much) complete the space’s makeover.

The darker stain Cocoa favored for the main floor creates an elegant contrast with the dazzling white walls and window hardware in her all-new foyer and dining room, where a chandelier centered in the tray ceiling glitters above an espresso-stained pedestal table and barrel chairs that recall the sunroom’s seating. Here, the columns flanking an interior arch are more than welcome; they give the space a sense of grandeur that welcomes guests in style. The curvaceous contemporary furniture Egypt and Cocoa chose for the entryway and the dining room, in turn, keep those original-to-the-1990s touches from feeling fussy or dated.

The finishes in the home’s kitchen didn’t bother Cocoa too much — she liked the cabinets’ color, and she even snuck in to try to salvage their hardware during demo — but the tray ceiling, shuttered dining nook and cumbersome peninsula did not add up to the contemporary entertaining space she had in mind. Egypt reconfigured the space by planning to demolish the peninsula and extraneous interior walls between the kitchen and living room; “[that] allows us an opportunity to give you an island straight down the middle here,” she explained.

Honoring Cocoa’s love of chocolate kitchens, Egypt topped her new range with an architectural hood in deep, rich bronze. The brown-veined marble she chose for Cocoa’s expansive, waterfall-edge island recurs in the hood’s trim, and a panel-ready refrigerator and built-in pantry bookend Cocoa’s new Shaker upper and lower cabinets. Egypt layered lighting on the now-uniform ceiling by installing both recessed fixtures and replacing the chandelier with a pair of chic, corrugated glass globes centered over the island.

The generous primary suite — on the first floor, per Cocoa’s requirements — was 400 square feet all by itself. “I like the size of this,” she said. “It’s kind of the size of my old room; I kind of think maybe it’s a smidge bigger!” Egypt’s challenge was to make all that space feel cozy rather than cavernous.

Simplifying the ceiling by smoothing out its plaster treatment, then replacing the ceiling fan with a tone-on-tone chandelier, Egypt saved her statements for the fireplace (where she anchored an intimate seating area with a marble tile surround and rich, fluted wood) and the custom-paneled headboard (where touchable upholstery in a velvety fawn fabric carries to the tray ceiling). Cocoa will have no problem wheeling her frequently flying luggage in and out of her suite — or with relaxing into its cocooning comforts as soon as she gets here.

Streamlining the primary suite’s oddly disconnected array of storage spaces, Egypt removed the doors that opened into the hallway to the bedroom and replaced them with sliders that both enabled additional hanging and shelving and utterly delighted Cocoa. (“Do I see barn doors? Do I see barn doors? I love barn doors! I LOVE BARN DOORS! OK, I think I’m going to faint.”)

“I would love a separate area for my son and his friends — and, you know, in a perfect world it’d be on the other side of the house,” Cocoa confided in Egypt and Mike at the beginning of her house hunt. “He’s at that age now, he’s a gamer.” This second-floor space — just down the hall from an en suite bedroom, and a floor away from Cocoa’s primary suite — was just the ticket for Phoenix and his guests.

Riffing on the classic look of a home theater, Egypt built a dark green foam-and-fabric-tufted paneled wall in front of the focal wall’s itty-bitty window, then mounted a floating TV above a shelf for Phoenix’s games. She painted the walls a matching shade of green, then added a bank of cabinets and drawers, complete with a mini fridge. “I mean,” she said, “what 12-year-old would not want this room?” (That was a rhetorical question, obviously. Phoenix’s reaction? “I’m going to be able to have friends here [and] we’re going to have a great time!”)

Phoenix’s activity room isn’t entirely fun and games, mind you; Egypt also used geometric wallpaper to establish a sunny, stylish spot for homework, complete with a floating desk clad in stone. The green she deployed in the rest of the space carries into this niche via the baseboards and molding surrounding the window.