This Charming Texas Guest Cottage Started With A Southern Living House Plan

A few years after building a new home for his in-laws on their Texas Hill Country property near Fredericksburg, designer Marcus Mohon and his wife Autumn (who together helm Austin-based Mohon Interiors and whose new book, The Romance of Home, is available now) were tasked with another family project there: a guest house to host loved ones and friends.

Rather than starting from scratch, they looked to Southern Living House Plans to simplify the process, ultimately settling on Hunting Creek Alternate (SL-987). The charmingly unpretentious cottage, which measures around 1,100 square feet, felt at ease on the rambling landscape and true to the area’s history. “Fredericksburg, like many places, was a farming community,” explains Marcus. “They had the church and the fort in the center of town, and then they would also have small cottages for when [families] would come into town on the weekends to shop and worship. That’s why they were called ‘Sunday houses.’ ” 

The simple structures were often covered in stone and plaster, and while the Hunting Creek Alternate plan “had the kind of approach of a Sunday house,” notes Marcus, they opted for weathered cedar siding to coordinate with the primary home.

If the exterior took its cues from historic and existing structures, the interiors are singularly Mohon Interiors—and something of a departure from their usual work at that. “It was an opportunity to branch out of my normal neutral palette a bit and be a little zany,” says Marcus. “My favorite color is orange. And I thought, let’s just see where this thing goes.” Here’s how the pair outfitted the guest house into a layered, but relaxed getaway.

Embrace What You Have

In the spirit of Sunday-house scrappiness, the couple shopped their own storage and inventory to decorate much of the house. “We thought, we don’t need to buy everything new. How can we furnish this in a really interesting way that it pulls the whole thing together?” recalls Marcus. The open and airy living room, for instance, is anchored by an orange mohair-and-leather chaise from their previous home. “I spent hours on it with all the kids when they were little… it was worn out and stained, and you could tell that it was well-loved… so we reupholstered it,” he says. The fireplace is made of Texas limestone, and the French rattan chairs were a new-to-them-find from an antiques dealer in Austin. 

Rethink the Traditional Kitchen

Installing custom millwork in the bitty, U-shaped kitchen would’ve cost a pretty penny, so the designer opted for an unfitted cookspace instead, relying on stainless steel restaurant tables for countertops and an old black secretary for the bar, plus a small range to accommodate any necessary cooking. The lamps were a Round Top find, and the floor is stained concrete. “It has a wonderfully vintage feeling,” notes Marcus. 

Aim for Hospitality

In the dining nook, they opted for a Saarinen tulip table as the centerpiece. “We couldn’t be too country with the place,” he quips. A Welsh dresser is filled with their collections of pewter and stoneware, and the painting was something they picked up on a family trip to Seaside, Florida. They draped the back wall in window treatments for further impact. “It gives an unusual sense of layering and expands the size of the room,” notes Marcus, who purposefully chose off-the-rack curtains, rather than going the custom route.  “We wanted it to feel like yards and yards of flour sack or something like that. We wanted everything to be so approachable and that you felt like you couldn’t really mess it up when you were visiting.”

Don’t Settle for the Expected

Cultivating comfort was all-important in the primary bedroom. “To put an Empire-style sleigh bed into a tiny rustic cottage is very antithetical, but that’s what we did,” says Marcus of their unorthodox choice. “It takes up the whole room, but that’s all you need… you go in there to sleep and feel cozy at night.” They painted the walls Benjamin Moore’s Racoon Fur (212-20) and wrapped the nightstands in Moroccan textiles to underscore this sense of retreat. 

Keep a Low Profile

The cottage’s layout incorporated surprises, including the upstairs loft. “I love this space because you didn’t see it all right when you walked in,” says the designer. “Even though it’s small, it had some mystery, and it had little moments where you have to take a journey for the whole thing to reveal itself.” They called for low-profile furnishings in the sunlit sleepspace, using an antique kneeler (another Round Top discovery) for the headboard, piling the bed with colorful textiles, and tucking in artwork and accessories throughout. “I wanted you to feel like you were in the attic,” he says. 

Lean On Outdoor Rooms

To expand the home’s liveable footprint and make the most of the meadow views, the couple treated the porch like an extension of the interior spaces, furnishing it with a table and chairs that make casual entertaining especially easy—and double down on its connection to the landscape. “The porches face this kind of giant, open lawn that’s under the oak trees. You can set up the tables out in the open space or under the canopy and it makes for a magical atmosphere,” says Marcus. “You have such coverage from these massive oak trees that it feels like the porch just ripples out into the lawn.”

Marcus and Autumn Mohon’s new book, The Romance of Home: Houses by Mohon Interiors, is on sale now and features this project and more.