In 2020, longtime city dwellers Ann and Ben Edgerton decided to sell their house in Austin, Texas and give country life a go. He was a restaurateur hit hard by the pandemic, she is an interior designer and the founder of Edgerton Studio, and they met when he hired her to design one of his projects. “I don’t marry all my clients, just one,” jokes Ann. “When the pandemic hit, it was just this opening to make a big change.”

They sold their Austin house, and included all of the furniture in the sale. “I really like fresh starts,” says Ann. “It felt invigorating. Like, let’s leave it all behind, you know?” The couple set their sights on Fredericksburg, about 90 minutes away, and decided to swap out their Austin midcentury for a traditional 1930s Tudor-style home in town.

“That’s how Muhly was born,” says Ann, referring to the collaborative furniture design studio she founded with Megan Carney, which offers pieces handmade to order in their respective home bases of central Texas and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (To learn more, check out our 2023 Dwell 24 feature.) “Furnishing that house was the inspiration for our first collection of wooden pieces.”

Ann and Ben planned to spend a few years in Fredericksburg (population: 11,542) and try out life there. “The reason for moving out to the country was to be close to nature, and to get a slower pace of life,” says Ann. “We bought a house in town because we didn’t want to move from a city to the middle of nowhere right off the bat.”

Before: Exterior

After: Exterior

In 2022, the couple were ready for “nowhere,” and they found it fifteen minutes away from the Tudor, in a house on two acres abutting a 500-acre ranch. They have neighbors, but they aren’t super close, and there’s a lot of room for the couple’s two kids to roam. “It’s in this neighborhood that is just very, very spacious,” says Ann. “Our backyard is expansive, undeveloped land. There’s no fences.”

Their 1983 ranch house also sprawled a bit, with 2,100 square feet spread over a single level, large rooms, and views for days. “There’s a horizon line out every window,” says Ann. “It felt like a big breath of fresh air.”

Before: Living Room and Entry

After: Living Room and Entry

Of course, while the land and the home’s bones were good, Ann wanted to change up the existing ’80s finishes—from the beige carpet to the waxy oak cabinetry flanking the fireplace. The couple’s ensuing remodel “focused on the things that we valued,” says Ann—such as the living area and hearth where everyone gathers, the kitchen where they love to cook, and the primary bathroom. “The whole ritual of bathing is another thing that’s really important to us,” Ann notes. “Not just cleaning yourself, but resting and recouping.”

The couple essentially stuck with the same layout, but they gutted the kitchen, reconfigured the primary bathroom, rebuilt the fireplace, raised the ceiling heights, and added skylights, with Ben acting as the general contractor organizing the subcontractors. When shopping for finishes and appliances, Ann chose from whatever was in stock—“nothing could have a lead time,” she says—so as to complete the project as quickly as possible and rent the house in town on Airbnb. “It was actually really fun to have those types of constraints,” says Ann. “It just guided our choices in an interesting way.”

The palette prioritizes the handmade—from the troweled plaster on the fireplace to the poured-in-place concrete counters in the kitchen—and natural materials like the wide-plank oak floors and the traditional Mexican clay tile on the front porch and in the bathroom. “One of our priorities in the home was investing in materials that feel really good when you touch them,” says Ann.

Before: Dining Room

After: Dining Room

Before: Library

After: Library

Of course, since much of their furniture stayed with the Tudor in town for the rental, Ann was once again faced with an empty house—but she took her time over two years to source furniture by strolling the vendors at the Round Top Antiques Fair, scouting out smaller thrift stores, or dreaming up Muhly pieces with Carney.

That’s how a new lighting design emerged: the Lin collection, which combines inspiration from environmental artist Maya Lin’s 2001 work, Ecliptic, with traditional punched tin lighting forms to create a starry night effect when switched on.

Before: Kitchen

After: Kitchen

Ann converted the property’s outbuilding into her office (Ben uses it in the evening for playing music), so the designer’s commute is just a short walk, and the family has settled into a relaxed pace of life. Any given night finds Ann cooking what she calls “your grandmother’s recipes,” with the kids piled in the nearby library chairs reading.

Later on, she and Ben often end up sitting in the same spot and chatting. “Having two chairs facing each other leads to more conversation, because when you’re sitting looking at each other, you have to engage, not just look at your phone,” says Ann. “This is why I love design. You create spaces that can really change your life. You can affect your daily life by just repositioning a chair.”

Before: Primary Bedroom

After: Primary Bedroom

Before: Primary Bathroom

After: Primary Bathroom

Before: Primary Bathroom

After: Primary Bathroom

More Before & After stories:

You’d Never Know This Maryland Cottage Nearly Doubled in Size

A Falling-Down Farmhouse Gets a Second Chance, Against All Odds

Touring Midcentury Homes Was an Obsession. Then They Got to Revive One by Saul Zaik

Project Credits:

Builder: Quinn Brutell

Interior Design: Edgerton Studio / @edgertonstudio