On her own, McGill opts for renovation of a forever home
Yellow lab Lexy is snoozing on her thick foam bed in the dining room as Oliver, a fluffy Persian cat, greets guests in the foyer. Miss Pickles, a French bulldog puppy who has already prompted several rugs to be sent to the cleaners, is spending a little time in a dog run at the side of the house.
The three fur babies are part of the ever-evolving brood that Olivia Grace McGill keeps at the Katy home she’s just renovated.
Work on the nearly 5,000square-foot house began a couple of years ago when McGill — the youngest daughter of the late Houston auto dealer Don McGill, and Mildred Barrett, now of
South Carolina — bought it.
Olivia Grace — a Second Baptist High School graduate now studying fashion in college — was living with her father in the Houston area, spending time at his Katyarea ranch and building her own home there, when he died a couple of years ago.
The 23-year-old shifted from building a new home for herself to buying one that she could remodel to her liking. Her builder had already connected her to Rainey Richardson Interiors to help with the home’s space planning and finishes.
In the time the two worked together, they transformed a home with rustic charm, reclaimed beams and old barn siding into one that suited
McGill’s personality and lifestyle: feminine, sophisticated, functional and durable.
A casita/guesthouse was updated to accommodate McGill’s workout-from-home plans, with a small gym with a stationary bicycle, workout mirror and a Peloton
on the way.
Four electric fireplaces were added to the home, and one was placed in the casita’s living room, making a cozy spot for watching TV.
No room went untouched in the main house.
A large room off of the kitchen had been used as a family room by the home’s prior owners, Kris and James Buescher, who is a stock car and NASCAR race driver. Now it’s a dining room, and McGill uses the built-in shelves to display crystal that once belonged to her parents. (McGill was born through in-vitro fertilization, an embryo frozen before her parents divorced that was implanted afterward. A custody dispute made its way to the Texas Supreme Court. Not long after, the couple’s oldest son — Olivia Grace was their fourth child — was killed in a car accident. Devastated by the loss, the couple agreed to raise her together amicably.)
Richardson urged McGill to rearrange the kitchen island, so though they didn’t have to replace the physical structure, they could make it more functional. McGill liked the gray faux treatment on the walls, so they kept it but replaced the backsplash tile, added a pot-filler faucet behind the range, painted the cabinets and swapped out hardware from a darker metal to gold.
Both the updated kitchen and perfectly arranged dining room come in handy. McGill may be just 23, but she loves to cook, leaning toward the Southern dishes taught to her by her mom and handed down through her mother’s family. These days she’s shifting to a more plant-based Mediterranean diet, so her kitchen is getting a workout as she
experiments.
“I use my kitchen every day, morning and night, and I love having my family over,” McGill said. “My best friend got engaged to her boyfriend, a Navy SEAL, and I will have a reception at my house for them, so it’s a gathering place.”
Eye-popping crystal chandeliers hang throughout, including in the kitchen and dining room, plus the living room and bedrooms. Many were brought here from Don McGill’s ranch after his death. Those are lead crystal and gold leaf, but some are much less expensive — such as the one in her bedroom, a Facebook Marketplace find that’s plastic with gold paint.
At the front of the home, steeland-glass doors were replaced with wood doors — painted deep blue on the outside. Her foyer, which opens into the main living area, is wallpapered with pretty birds by A Street Prints. The symmetrical space has a table, antiqued mirror and a pair of sconces on each side.
The oversized living room has two seating areas — each with a sofa and pair of chairs — as well as steel-and-glass doors that lead to the pool and patio outside.
A small powder bathroom off of the living room is now lined with Thibeaut wallpaper starring dragonflies and ladybugs, stylish sconces and an attractive cabinet and sink. This bathroom has one of many bidets installed in the house.
McGill loves bidets, and though others teased her over the choice, they weren’t laughing at the start of the pandemic when toilet paper was hard to find.
Her bedroom suite is a massive space with two closets, a living room, a bathroom plus a powder bath that was converted into a sauna.
The suite’s large living-room bathroom had walls of reclaimed wood. McGill opted to pare down the wood look in the bathroom by removing the patchwork of multicolored reclaimed planks and replacing it with white beadboard, syncing up with the Italian crystal chandelier found on firstdibs.com.
While McGill has opted for more color in the past, she and Richardson decorated with a light neutral palette.
A notable exception is her upstairs “play room,” a place perfect for McGill and her friends even if it’s occupied more by her three cats right now. (Their food and water dishes and litter boxes are in the adjoining bathroom, where cabinets were painted a muted plum.)
The room has a sectional sofa in front of a TV and a group of chairs around a round table under a chandelier made of Moroccan-style punched-tin pendants. A coffee table and side tables made of acrylic add to the Bohemian vibe.
A diptych of Marilyn Monroe embossed with the Louis Vuitton logo and Swarovski crystals hangs on a wall here. It reminds McGill of her extensive travels with her mother, where she cultivated an appreciation for fashion and design.
Outdoor spaces were updated, putting stone tile on top of the stamped concrete and new tile around the pool. Dog runs with artificial turf — easy to hose down — were installed at the side of the home, with a pergola and ceiling fans to keep the pups cool.
McGill, who has a stake in her family’s auto dealership, is a full-time student and dreams of having a home in Maui someday, too.
“I want to eventually live in Hawaii and open up something that can help people make their home comfortable and beautiful,” she said. “I love the beauty and simplicity there. This will be a forever home for me; it will always be my home base. I will always have ties to Houston.”