‘The Mother Flip’ Star Rebecca Franchione’s Texas Home Is Ready for a New Chapter—as She Turns Her Own Page After Divorce

“The Mother Flip” star Rebecca Franchione moved into her Texas home as a married mother of three. Now, single and with just one child at home full time, the home-flipping expert, 49, is reclaiming the family nest and nurturing it to be a supportive space where she can soar into a new life chapter.

Franchione’s 1995-built house in Wimberley, TX, is located in the Texas Hill Country. She and her ex-husband bought the two-bedroom, two-bathroom, 2,400-square-foot residence in 2020 to live in with their children, sons Wyatt, 21, and Gunnar, 16, and daughter Isabella, 19. 

Surrounded by natural beauty, Franchione’s home base emphasizes strong maternal ties, with the reality star thoughtfully placing meaningful decor pieces to celebrate the women in her life, including a plate from one grandmother and furniture from another.

Following her divorce last year, and with her two eldest children off at college, the A&E personality is ready and excited to be the sole steward of her home’s design direction.

And, in the latest installment of Celebrity Sanctuary, Franchione explains how she’s transforming the home to encourage creativity between herself and business partner Kristy Etheredge, while revealing the changes she’s already made to her favorite rooms as she confidently steps into her second act.

What’s crazy is we were going to buy another house—and this is why fate always comes into play. We were going to buy another house on the golf course a few blocks away and the seller’s disclosure was not truthful, so we decided to back out with one minute left to spare in the contract.

You know, 2020 was a very hot market. We backed out of that contract [and] within an hour this one came back on the market, so we came the next day and snatched it up immediately. It’s two lots: I have a wooded lot next door that’s undeveloped.

[My “Mother Flip” costar] Kristy is across the street, so had I moved to the first house, I may not have ever met her. 

My main house is about 2,400 square feet. Then I have a casita that’s been my oldest son’s bedroom that’s 616 square feet, so all together, we’re a little over 3,000 square feet. My oldest son is in college and he’s moving out today, it’s so sad. I made him tons of cookies last night. He’s moving 30 minutes away, but it’s still hard.

My daughter [attends the] University of Alabama, so she left the day after the premiere [of “The Mother Flip”]. Then my youngest son, Gunnar, is a junior—I cannot even believe it—in high school.

My house was built in 1995. It was actually built by the developer of the neighborhood. He built it for his wife and himself. It’s stucco. It’s actually down a hill on a cul-de-sac. My house, because it’s on a hill, it’s excavated for the house and then it goes down.

There’s a golf course about a block away and you just fall in love. I have a deck that wraps around three-quarters of the house and there’s all these custom windows throughout. Cypress Creek is across the street, so you can look across, see Mount Baldy in the distance, which is a historic landmark here in town. Kristy and I climb it all the time.

You can see Mount Baldy and from my couch, you feel like you’re in a treehouse. So my living room, especially in the winter, there’s a couple weeks a year you can burn a fire here in Texas, and just sitting on the couch with the fireplace and looking out is so special. I’m staring at my living room right now. I’ve got a huge array of windows around the room and then little small pocket windows above each window.

In the breakfast nook, I’ve got these amazing windows, a window seat—I hide all my Department 56 Christmas decorations in there for the year. One of my closest friends, he built this amazing custom table, and so to me, I just feel like I don’t really have a style per se. I think it’s just an eclectic mix of who I am.

I have a metal roof, which is very important here in Texas. It reflects the heat, and I love when it rains really, really, really hard and you hear the little pitter-patter on the roof. It’s special. It reminds me growing up, my best friend’s family has a huge screened-in porch and one of our favorite things to do when it rained was sit on the front porch and listen to the rain, so I love it when that happens here. It reminds me of my childhood. 

My kids fell in love with the backyard. There was a little baby basketball court [and] my son saw a spot where we could put a batting cage. 

My daughter had this vision, she said, “Mom, I want a soccer field in the backyard.” And I said, “What?” Because it literally was uphill on the side of a hill. Roy Salinas, our business partner, he excavated the backyard, so now we have a soccer field in our backyard. And the University of Texas was getting new turf, so we managed to score some of their old turf. It was like these huge 15-yard, 600-pound rolls, and they go, “You may get a Longhorn in there, you may get a 50 yard line. You don’t know what you’re going to get.” We got a 40 yard line and we got a sideline. 

One of the first things we did, there was a screened-in porch off the courtyard, so we immediately ripped that out and changed it into a third bedroom in the main house.

We renovated the kids’ bathroom, and then we didn’t really have to do that much. I mean, it needs to be updated. I’ve got, like, the two level counters in the kitchen. I have the original granite. But there was so much amazing character in this house. I have long leaf pine floors in the living room and kitchen I love and then Saltillo tile throughout the house, which I also love and is making a comeback.

I actually have several [sanctuaries] because there’s so many in this house. I have this special little courtyard that I love.

My grandfather, he passed away before I was born, he owned bars in Arkansas. One of them was called The Oasis and I have his 1965, huge, metal sign that says The Oasis in my courtyard. The neon’s been broken and one of these days, I’m going to get the neon fixed and really hook it up, so it’s like a memory of my grandfather I never met.

My courtyard gate squeaks [but] that’s special to me because I can hear if my boys are sneaking in girls. It’s right off my bedroom, but also, I just like the creakiness of it. 

I love my living room. It’s so Hill Country. I have a floor-to-ceiling limestone fireplace with a custom mantel made out of cedar with bookshelves on each side. Every single thing on the bookshelves is part of me. I have pictures of my kids and then I have my Nonna’s plate. She had the most beautiful home growing up, it was so elegant. I have just a simple plate that she always had on her fireplace and now it’s on mine, so that’s extremely special to me.

My Nonna always talked about cardinals being good luck and the bluebird of happiness, so I have a little bluebird print. I call my youngest son Poppy and two summers ago my daughter played soccer in Northern Ireland and there was a farmer’s market. There was a piece of art and there [were] little poppies on it so I have that as well. 

I’m very into Biophilic [design], bringing the outdoors in, so I’ve got my Christmas cactus on the shelf next to my cedar bookcase. The cactus was a special gift for me from somebody, and it’s lived two years. I’m very excited about it. 

My bedroom, I feel like it’s pretty classy, classic. I have my childhood furniture that my other grandmother got for me when I was born. I refinished it, and so it’s in my bedroom, too. It’s special. You know, a lot of people have these mega bedroom sets, and mine is just my couch and my nightstand and my dresser.

I have a huge bedroom and I always wanted a couch in my bedroom. [Before] I got divorced last year, my ex was like, “No, we don’t need a couch in our bedroom.” So I found at Habitat for Humanity [ReStores] this amazing couch, it’s velvet, it’s huge. The boys are very messy and dirty so they’re not allowed to sit on my velvet couch in my bedroom. Isabella can, the boys cannot. It’s a girl’s only space for now. 

I found a huge painting to go above it at the Goodwill boutique in Austin, and so I just sit there. I just feel this sense of pride, the fact that not only did I score a good deal, but I changed my life and get to do what I want now.

I’m going to upgrade my couch. We have this huge, ugly, brown leather sectional in my living room. My friend is a [real estate agent] and was selling her staging furniture and she had these two beautiful white couches with this long ottoman from Restoration Hardware. She was selling it last year before I got divorced and my ex said, “We’re not getting white couches. That’s a reason to get divorced if you have white couches.”

Now that I’m divorced, I’m going to get the couches I want in my living room. 

I have 34 drawers and a 14-foot island in my kitchen. I want to level out my island because it’s massive. I just want to get a sleek, white, classic quartz, maybe quartzite [countertop]. Right now, I have paint on the backsplash.

The kitchen I just finished in [a] new listing in Dripping Springs, I got some Ann Sacks white ribbed tile and we have a lot left over, so I’m thinking about reusing that in my house. I would love to renovate my bathroom as well. I want to do a huge rip out.

I am going from early, early, early in the morning until late, late at night. To me, sanctuary is when you’ve had this long day and you come home and there is nothing better than sitting on the couch and seeing that view, sitting on the couch in your bedroom, or sitting out in that courtyard, or sitting out on that deck.

Kristy and I get so much inspiration from the outdoors. We go on walks through the Hill Country constantly, and just to be able to sit in that corner of my deck—my favorite book as a teen was “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” and there’s trees that grow through my deck—I mean, sanctuary means everything to me. 

A perfect day for me would be the fireplace going and a little Christmas in the air and I’d go out and I could look at Mount Baldy. I’d come in, sit on my couches, and college football’s on, so I’m watching college football with my kids surrounding me.

At Christmas, I have Department 56 [ornaments], the whole collection. I grew up with it and now it’s mine. All of us love sitting on the couch, looking out the windows, seeing Mount Baldy, the trees. They love seeing all the pictures and they know everything is special.  

I don’t have a TV in my bedroom, I love to read, so to be able to go sit on my couch in my bedroom and read a book is the perfect way to end the evening. You can create a balance between work and home and all of it if you have those special little touchpoints in your house.