Southern Living Idea House + Delta Faucet Mess Makers Event

Visiting the Southern Living Idea House during the Delta Faucet Mess Makers Event was such a treat! You have to see the amazing home they built!

Last week I was lucky enough to be invited by Delta Faucet to tour the Southern Living Idea House and Time Inc. Studios Test Kitchens. It was so so cool, and I never imagined I would be able to do something like this! Now, while you might be thinking, “Allyson is a food blogger…what does this have to do with FOOD?!”…well, let me tell you, seeing gorgeous kitchens and different ideas on kitchen setups is a food bloggers dream! Not only did I get to visit this amazing house (above), I also toured several test kitchens at Time Inc, which was amazing. Let me tell you more about it…

I drove into Birmingham, Alabama, on Sunday afternoon (it’s just under 3 hours from Atlanta), and it was gorgeous! I had never been to Birmingham, so I was excited to see it. Myself and 4 other bloggers were invited to this Delta Faucet Mess Makers Events, and they hosted us at The Grand Bohemian Hotel in Mountain Brook (right next to Birmingham).  Now, let me tell you, I have been to hundreds of hotels, and this was by far one of the nicest. It was incredibly chic and the guest rooms were ‘smart’, spacious, and gorgeous. Every detail was paid attention and it really showed. They had a gorgeous rooftop restaurant, The Habitat Feed & Social, which was where I first met everyone for dinner on Sunday night.

During the delicious dinner, I was able to connect with the other 4 bloggers attending the events, as well at the PR company and Delta Representatives. It was so fun!

The next morning we headed out bright and early to finally see the Southern Living Idea House! Right away I noticed the GORGEOUS wrap around porch – it was like a dream!

We toured the inside of the house where everything was explained by the lovely tour guide. Each room was designed and decorated by a different designer and they each had a feel from a different decade. It was really cool seeing the different spins on each room, but how everything cohesively came together.

The formal dining room was very cool and had a bit of 1980’s flare!

The living room was also really interesting, as it was 2 halves, basically mirroring each other.

The small details that went into everything was really extraordinary. You can see above on the far right, that was the CEILING in the sitting room off the kitchen. It reminded me of a circus and it was so cool.

Of course my favorite room of the house was the kitchen! The green cabinets were such a fun color to pick for the kitchen, and the Delta Touchless Faucet was the perfect addition. If you’d like to see a full tour of this house, checkout the LIVE video tour I posted while touring on Facebook. The outside of the house was super gorgeous as well!

After the Idea House, we headed to Time Inc. Studios which was about 20 minutes away from the Idea House.

This space was SOOOO cool! I can’t even begin to describe how cool it is! They do so much here, from creating recipes, to testing recipes, eating recipes, photography, videos…really everything that goes into all those recipes you see online and in magazines. Southern Living, Cooking Light, Real Simple are just a few of the major names that use these studios. Not only did they have a million kitchens here, but they also had the most gorgeous land!

It was so pretty! Once we headed inside, we had the most amazing tour of the test kitchens and studios…

The first kitchen was to most beautiful. This is a new office space for the company, so everything is just so bright, gorgeous and new! I wish I could do all my cooking and photos here! As you can see above, we saw many people cooking in various areas. We also were able to see people taking videos, photos, and building really cool gingerbread houses. Even though Christmas is a few months away, they are finishing up everything for those issues now.

They had story boards and timelines like these setup everywhere. This keeps everyone on the same page and makes sure everything stays cohesive.

It was awesome to see a live photo shoot going on. Look at that food stylist using those tiny tweezers to place things JUST right! So cool!

Now for the coolest part of all…the PROP room! They had a HUGE (I am talking probably 2,000 sq. ft), room that houses all the props for all the photography/videos. It was AMAZING. They had everything and anything you could ever need or imagine. I was obsessed with all the wood items (above). It seemed to go on forever and was just so so cool. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen my live stories while I was in there! Everything is cataloged like a library, so the employees have to check things out and back in; that way nothing gets lost.  Only certain people have keys to this locked down prop room as well…don’t want anything to go missing! I wish I could move in!

Lastly, a chef at the studio cooked a recipe to ‘test’. We all sat around a big square table and talked about the recipe, things we would change, things we liked, etc. It was cool to see first hand how the testing process works!

I am going to have a follow-up post to this one in a week or two! I am super excited to install my new Delta Faucet and share that and a new recipe with y’all! Stay tuned!

This post was sponsored by Delta Faucet, however all opinion are honest and my own.