Comfortable country chic home highlights Friendship Club tour

Ask April West where she gets her decorating style, and her answer is friends, flea market finds and Pinterest.

But her house -- open for tours Sunday for the Friendship Club's annual Madison County home tour -- is anything but kitschy. Its clean lines, neutral basics and pops of color all say country chic and family connections. In spite of her modesty, everything has a story, and most of those tales come back to the talent for restoration and invention she shares with husband Adrian and her father, contractor Gil Bryant.

Floors and countertops, for instance, are stained concrete, created with her father's resources and knowledge and the couple's sweat equity. A dresser in the master bedroom is one of those pops of color, painted in the exterior green of the home and the white of the ceilings, both left over. Her father did the tile work in the laundry room and bathrooms, and a friend who has a printing company created the elegantly simple signs and sayings that are featured in the house: "Home Is Where the Heart Is," "Give Thanks," "Morning, Gorgeous" and "Go Confidently in the Direction of Your Dreams."

The pieces West treasures most are also simple: A hip-high chest of drawers in the dining room was handed down from her late stepmother, Diana Walker Bryant, a beloved kindergarten teacher in Huntsville. Red was her favorite color, West adds, and so the piece is red. Shelves in the living room and dining room were fashioned from oversize coat hooks and pieces of trim from a grandmother's porch. And the wall of plates in the dining room came from Adrian's side of the family.

"I can let things go," West says firmly. "But I do treasure things like that."

The 2,100-square-foot house plan was one West saw in a magazine, and she found herself attracted by its comfortable exterior and the idea of four bedrooms -- one for her to share with Adrian, one for son Stetson, 9, one for guests and one for a home office. Her father built it in just a few months, much of the early work completed while the family was in Germany, visiting Adrian's mother.

"Adrian's family is from Germany -- his dad met his mom while he was stationed there," West explains. Two sons were born to the marriage, but Adrian's mother moved back to Germany when he was just 4 years old. He visited throughout the years and speaks fluent German, but it was during a visit a year ago that April West got to sort through treasures in the basement of the family's two-generation home. Some of those keepsakes -- including brightly patterned nesting dolls -- highlight built-in bookshelves in the living room.

West says she was lured into sharing her home on the Friendship Club tour by her aunt, a club member. She worries she still has "so much to do." She was convinced not to wait another year, but rather share the house while it was new. Besides, she says, her husband wanted to show off their camper, a converted school bus for which he paid $900 in Pea Ridge -- and drove it home!

Again, all the work inside and outside the bus has been done by the couple with help from family and friends and a watchful picker's eye. The sink, for example, came from Fayetteville's Funky Yard Sale. April West saw it online for a bargain price -- $50ish, she remembers -- and called to see if it was available. Then she jumped in the car to make sure it didn't get away.

"Eventually, we want running water, of course," she says, but camping trips are mostly related to four-wheel trail riding with a group of friends, and that means all the amenities are as close as the camper next door.

The home tour, explains club representative Kaye Johnson, is intended to entertain, inspire and support the mission of "women committed to promoting civic, cultural, educational and social improvement by donating our resources, talents and energy to ensure the betterment of our community." Organized in 1944, the club turns its money toward scholarships and community projects, which in the past have included beautifying Huntsville's town square and helping fund the War Memorial Wall and Memorial Waterfall near the courthouse. The home tours have been a Madison County event for decades, although they used to be held closer to Christmas. The rescheduling to a fall tour came in 2014, and Johnson says the response to the change was so positive it stuck.

Throughout the visit, West comments on how much she will enjoy seeing the other homes. Asked if her decor will suddenly change on Monday, she laughs.

"I already made my husband do all of the 'honey-do' list," she says. "And I'm done getting ready. We live here. That's what I finally told my aunt. It's my home -- and I want it to look like one."

NAN Our Town on 09/29/2016