Published on: 05/17/07 Carmen Johnson leans against the doorway in her living room and lets out a deep sigh. Like a mother who has just given birth, she’s exhausted, yet proud of her beautiful new “baby.”

The bundle of joy is actually a 4,300-square-foot historic home in historic Druid Hills. Johnson bought it nine months ago, gutted it down to the studs and orchestrated a major renovation to enlarge and modernize the house to her standards.

place, the window treatments are up, Johnson’s extensive art collection hugs the walls and there’s not a moving box in sight. Her new addition is picture perfect and ready to receive visitors.

If this all sounds pretty amazing, it is — but not for Carmen Johnson.

As a real estate broker, custom home builder and co-owner of Coldwell Banker Five Star Properties, Johnson knows how to transform homes fast. The Druid Hills house is the fifth house in five years she’s renovated and lived in.

“I buy them, I fix them up, and when it’s finished I’m like, ‘I need another project,’ ” she says.

But this home is different. Johnson’s had her eye on Druid Hills ever since she moved to Atlanta from Los Angeles 17 years ago, so this is one house she won’t be flipping.

“I plan on living here. This reminds me of Hancock Park in Los Angeles,” she says. “I’ve always wanted a beautiful home I could restore. This is my dream come true.”

When Johnson did her first walk-through of the house last August, it needed a lot of TLC. The lot was so overgrown the facade was barely visible from the street.

Built in 1925, the house had about 2,500 square feet of living space, an unimpressive foyer with a dinky staircase leading upstairs, an outdated galley kitchen, an enclosed sunroom that didn’t get much sun and relatively small bedrooms. Nothing had been updated since 1950, when the previous owner added a family room.

As soon as she closed on the property in late August, Johnson hired an architect to draw plans based on her vision for the home. She also brought in interior designer Jack Poles, whom she’s worked with on other projects, to design the interior living spaces. Kitchen consultant Louie McClure helped Johnson design a stylish kitchen that opens into the family room.

By October the renovation plans, which maintained the original facade and called for additions on the rear of the house, were completed. In November, Johnson presented them to the DeKalb County Historic Preservation Committee for approval, because the home is in a historic area. The plans were approved on the first go, and renovations began in December.

Now that the work is finished, Johnson is ready to kick back and enjoy her nearly new historic home that cost about $1 million to buy, renovate and decorate. It was well worth it, she says, because the home is now valued around $1.4 million.

So what’s next?

“I’ll do other renovations,” Johnson says, “but I won’t live in them.”

That’s because she doesn’t plan on leaving Druid Hills anytime soon.