A House We Built

Custom House Designed by Husband & Wife Team | Modern Farmhouse Inspired

A House We Built: Introduction and Product Sources

Welcome to the official website of A House We Built. We are a husband and wife team who designed and built our custom forever home in the forest. We share daily posts on Instagram @ahousewebuilt where you can follow updates and progress on our house building, styling, and decorating journey.

We designed this house from scratch together in 2016, we then broke ground the following summer, moved in the summer after that, and are now working hard on projects that make our house into a home.

This website is where we share sources for items from our home that many of you have asked us for on Instagram. Sources are all listed below or you can use our website roadmap to find room-specific pages. We always list the same items we have if possible, or offer similar options (always labeled ‘similar’) if ours isn’t available. Across our website, some of our listed sources are affiliate links and also as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which means we may earn a small commission from the purchases you make through our links but it doesn’t affect the price you pay at all. We don’t collaborate with any brands, our content is never sponsored anywhere, and we don’t have any ads. We simply hope that sharing the sources we used and items we love here may help you in your own decorating journey.

FIREPLACE MANTEL DECOR:

LIVING ROOM SOURCES:

KITCHEN SOURCES:

PANTRY SOURCES:

GUEST BEDROOM SOURCES:

MASTER BEDROOM SOURCES:

GALLERY WALL SOURCES:

ENTRYWAY/FOYER SOURCES:

HOME OFFICE ROOM SOURCES:

DINING ROOM SOURCES:

MUDROOM SOURCES:

LAUNDRY ROOM SOURCES:

POWDER BATHROOM SOURCES:

BUFFALO CHECK BATHROOM SOURCES:

MASTER BATHROOM SOURCES:

MASTER CLOSET SOURCES:

BASEMENT BATHROOM:

BASEMENT HALLWAY:

BASEMENT FOYER:

BASEMENT MUDROOM NOOK:

BASEMENT GAME ROOM:

BASEMENT THEATER ROOM:

Theater room snack bar:

SPICE ORGANIZATION SOURCES:

KITCHEN ORGANIZATION SOURCES:

Clear Kitchen Drawer Organizers:

SNACK BOARD SOURCES:

EXTERIOR LIGHTING SOURCES RECAP:

INTERIOR LIGHTING SOURCES RECAP:

CLEANING SOURCES:

CAT-RELATED SOURCES:

APPLIANCES SOURCES:

(linked to the brands we used since our models are not necessarily still available)

HARDWARE SOURCES RECAP:

  • Black drawer pulls (long): Amazon | Similar: Schoolhouse
  • Black drawer pulls (short): Amazon | Similar: Schoolhouse
  • Gold drawer pulls (long): Amazon | Similar: Home Depot | Schoolhouse
  • Round knobs (black, gold, copper): CB2 (mine were replaced with these very similar ones)
  • Gold geometric knobs: CB2 (pantry)
  • V-pulls (no longer available, but this is a similar option from the same source): CB2
  • Mudroom hooks: CB2

MIRROR SOURCES RECAP:

FIXTURE SOURCES RECAP:

SINK SOURCES RECAP:

WALLPAPER SOURCES:

VASES SOURCES:

GREENERY SOURCES (ALL FAUX):

FAQs – FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS & ANSWERS:

  • Our floor plan is fully custom. We designed our house from scratch together so our plan is dear to our hearts and the result of over a year of hard work and planning. We put a lot of ourselves into this house design and, in a way, it is an extension and combination of us personally. As such, we are not releasing or sharing our plan at this time and appreciate your understanding. .
  • Our house has 6500 square feet of finished living space spread out over 4 floors. Since we work exclusively from home, our house also includes 2 home office rooms.
  • Our ceilings are 10-ft on the main floor, 9-ft on the second floor, 8-ft kneewalls and 15-ish foot vaulted ceilings on the third floor, 20-ft living room, and 10-ft in the basement. Our basement has varying heights due to our ceiling details: bathroom is 8′, hallway is 9′, rest is 10′.
  • Our windows & exterior doors are all custom made. They’re triple-pane fiberglass in Tricorn Black or Simply White. Our exterior door hardware was custom ordered with our doors.
  • Our exterior materials are a mix of engineered stone and Arctic White James Hardie siding.
  • Our shiplap is MDF. Here’s our tutorial on How to Install Shiplap.
  • Our flooring planks are all brushed white oak laminate Lionel by Evoke (no longer available) for everywhere that isn’t tile, except our stairs which are white oak hardwood (custom stain color), and basement which is polished concrete (concrete flooring details on our Basement page).
  • Our lighting is LED.
  • Our beams are all solid wood, natural color, no stain.
  • Our location is something we keep private to balance how much we share publicly, but we’re pretty open about everything else. For this reason, we do not list local sources.
  • Our build cost is one of the few things we don’t discuss because building costs varies wildly depending on building location so even if we were to post that information it wouldn’t be all that helpful given how much costs differ everywhere.
  • Our house is not for sale.

PAINT COLORS RECAP:

  • BM Simply White: all white walls, ceilings, shiplap, trim, doors, cabinetry (except basement).
  • BM Classic Gray: living room ceiling, guest bedroom accent wall, basement bathroom.
  • BM Soot: pantry cabinets, powder bath, master bedroom shiplap, closet mirror & island.
  • BM Black Panther: theater room dark shiplap.
  • BM Revere Pewter: barn doors.
  • SW Dorian Gray: home office window seat & chevron wall.
  • SW Tricorn Black: all windows & dark exterior doors, custom finish.
  • Ceilings/walls: flat. Trim/shiplap/interior doors: satin. Bathrooms: eggshell. Cabinets/windows/exterior doors: custom finish.
  • Hardie siding: Arctic White.

STAIN SOURCES:

Used on dining table, console table, tree stand, master bedroom beam, and basement bathroom counter:

  • Pre-stain conditioner: Amazon (don’t skip this!!)
  • Gray stain (one coat): Amazon
  • Matte top coat: Amazon (also used on pantry & office shelving)
  • Stair & railing stain is a custom color.
  • Fireplace mantel, hallway beams, & open shelving have no stain.

AV SOURCES:

  • We have an Apple TV in the fireplace column nook, wired in with Ethernet
  • 1x Polk Audio 255c-RT center channel speaker: Amazon
  • 2x Polk Audio RC85i: Amazon
  • 2x Polk Audio RC80i: Amazon
  • We picked these because they’re white, simple, and met my standards for “best quality at reasonable price”
  • We don’t have a surround-sound receiver yet, mostly because we’ve chosen to not have a TV in our living room so we just have a small stereo receiver (Amazon) so we can listen to music

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

If there’s something else you want sources on, you can ask me questions at this link and I’ll add it in.

And please be sure to follow us on Instagram where we post daily updates on our house progress!