Whitney McGregor Design and Frank Heery of AMT Prove the Value of Reinventing the Home You Already Love

Relaxed yet refined, this English countryside-inspired living room trades stuffiness for charm. Club chairs receive a ruffled treatment and a gingham lampshade incorporates collected sensibility.

In the living room, custom pieces are mixed with big-box brands. The coffee table and slipper chair, both from Anthropologie, are approachable in the space.

The foyer serves as a warm welcome into the home, where a rug from Nashville Rug Gallery adds pops of persimmon and petal.

Patterns make a personal statement in the dining room. Bungalow Classic dining chairs are dressed in a Schumacher fabric and encircle the matching table, while a Made Goods chandelier hangs overhead.

In the keeping room, a custom banquette covered in Sister Parish fabric creates a communal spot for games or coffee.

The funky breakfast room is a playful place to start each day thanks to the vintage, scallop-edged table surrounded by Ballard Designs chairs upholstered in fabrics by Peter Dunham.

The kitchen holds a cottage atmosphere with practical design elements. Skylights overhead offer abundant natural light, and the custom stained checkerboard floor brings a pinch of personality.

Adelphi Paper Hangings wallpaper sets an unmistakably English tone in this butler’s pantry.

A skirted sink in Rose Tarlow and Visual Comfort & Co. sconces with custom shades softens the laundry room for a welcoming spot to tackle chores.

Matouk Schumacher Granada bedding and a Peacock Alley quilt topped with a Schuyler Samperton bolster layer in texture in the primary bedroom. A Casa Gusto papier-mâché botanical over the bed balances the linear stripes.

A custom cabana stripe from Spoonflower envelops every surface of this primary bedroom, creating a cocoon-like retreat that is equal parts cozy and visually interesting.

Sherwin-Williams Coastal Plain brings an instant calm to the hall bath. Schumacher wallpaper is carefully used on the cabinet fronts for extra character.

Farrow & Ball Pink Ground walls and striking Red Earth doors set a rosy, storybook tone. Stars scattered across a four-poster bed, hung by the young occupant herself, add a charming layer.

Antique mushroom prints add a whimsical element to the wall in the little girl’s room.

In the nursery, a Serena & Lily daybed dressed in Schlossberg bedding makes the room equally inviting for parent and child.

On the covered porch, designer Whitney McGregor held firm on a personal rule against using the same fabric or wallpaper twice, even within the same home, because she wants each space to hold its own identity.

Fermob dining chairs outfitted with custom Catswood Design cushions surround the screened porch table.

The pool’s clean, unfussy design is a deliberate choice, reflecting the project’s guiding ethos: elevated but never overwrought.

Copper gutters, refined light fixtures, and new roof shingles showcase attention to detail from the curb.

A 1950s mansard-roof home in Athens, Georgia, had been waiting for its moment. At a modest 1,400 square feet, the cottage was in need of someone who didn’t just see potential, but could recognize what was already there. Despite rising construction costs and plenty of outside advice to move, a family of four was not deterred. Instead, in the uncertain summer of 2020, what began as a simple refresh evolved into a years-long transformation.

Greenville, South Carolina-based interior designer Whitney McGregor was hired to unlock the home’s lingering personality, and together with Athens architect Frank Heery of AMT and builder Schmidt and Satterfield, the team set about doubling the home’s footprint while restoring, rather than reinventing, its soul. The home, now 2,800 square feet, has the cohesion to match the character it always possessed and serves as the setting for the story of a family who chose to stay and grow exactly where they were planted.

The kitchen and keeping rooms were the first to receive McGregor’s treatment, who wanted to better define the spaces and give them a harmonious feel. She added charming details, including the V-groove walls and the checkerboard floor, which was created using a semitransparent wash to avoid scuffing. The skylights, once considered by the client to be an unsightly detail, became instrumental in giving the otherwise dark, squatty space more natural light. “I knew these were going to be a nonproblem once we gave this room context. Now it feels like an English kitchen, especially with those little skylights,” says McGregor.

It was a preview of what the partnership between McGregor and her clients would continue to produce. In the primary bedroom, the designer drenched the walls and ceiling in a twist on a classic cabana stripe fabric that tents the room in coziness, turning the tray ceiling, once a pain point, into a standout feature.

Similarly in the dining room, McGregor clad the walls in fabric, where it does double duty, first as an insulating statement but second as a way to soften the acoustics. “How sound moves in a room affects how people live and feel in it,” she explains. The table is sized to its absolute maximum, a choice driven by a client who wanted to seat as many people as possible for the holidays. Far from feeling crowded, the room wears it well.

Outside, the rear elevation presented its own set of challenges. “The house has a traditional French mansard style, but used some more basic details and materials,” explains Heery. “The client wanted to keep this aesthetic but elevate it.” By breaking it into distinct sections with varying materials, differing trim details, and unique opening shapes, the team avoided the long, flat lines of the original while honoring its renewed character. A courtyard, pool, and screened porch now anchor the back of the house, which feels less like an addition and more like it was always there.

This project was never simply a renovation. It was a labor of love rooted in a deep respect for old homes; the original doors, the slender mullioned windows, and the solidity of the structure itself. More than a sound financial decision, restoring a home like this means inheriting something that cannot be built from scratch, something the client understood deeply. Even as friends and family urged her to sell and start over, she held firm. “If these walls could talk—the parties it’s seen and the Christmas mornings it’s hosted—there’s something about that energy,” says McGregor. Thanks to the team’s shared philosophy, this cottage will continue to hold memories for years to come.

INTERIOR DESIGN Whitney McGregor, Whitney McGregor Design; whitneymcgregor.com RENOVATION ARCHITECT Frank Heery, AMT, (706) 548-8211; amtathens.com RENOVATION BUILDER Schmidt and Satterfield, (706) 850-0094; schmidtsatterfield.com