Idea House offers tips for home renovation - Atlanta News, Weather, Traffic, and Sports | FOX 5

You've done your spring cleaning and now it's time for the fall new beginning. But making changes to your home can be tough, especially in an older home. Southern Living magazine is making things a little easier with the 2012 Idea House, and it's just a short drive from Atlanta.

Back in the 1830s, the Idea House was just another farmhouse in Senoia. The scuffed wood floors and scraggly lawn certainly weren't magazine worthy. Nearly 200 years later, it's on the cover of one!

"What I love about the house is where the old house ends and the new one begins," said Lindsay Biermann, Editor-In-Chief of Southern Living magazine.

In just seven months, Southern Living magazine turned the farmhouse into the 2012 Idea House, moving it closer to the street, gutting it, and adding to it. Now it's a place to help the rest of us get cover-worthy homes.

Terry Pylant of Historical Concepts somehow managed to turn the old building into the Idea House.

"Well, you look at the old material of the house. It really did have great bones and a lot of great character with the material on the walls and in the floors.  So you really start with the main structure of the house and build your way from there," said Pylant.

That meant keeping as much of the original wooden floor as possible. Crews did the same with the walls, even though some areas of the walls had patches. Designers didn't try to hide the patches, but brightened them.

"The old part of the house is all a consistent white, and it really shows off the material of the wood and the texture. It really has a great textural feel to it," said Pylant.

The master bedroom, with a white ceiling and white walls, shows off that texture. It makes choosing paint really easy.

"You can never go wrong. Just paint everything white and kind of take it from there," said Biermann.

That's one of many ideas at the home. The home is open for tours Wednesday through Sunday. The house is located at 57 Morgan Street in Senoia. For more information, click here!