Container Garden at #intownmountainhome

The remodeling process is still in the boring decision making/waiting phase, so I thought I would share a photo of my "garden." I put it in quotes because I only have things in containers - waiting until after the exterior overhaul to do any other kind of garden.

Some of my containers have had...some problems. Mainly rodents or deer - I can't figure out which. I had this great idea to do ombre geraniums. Here's all the cute plants lined up a the nursery:

Well this was a fantastic idea and I put these plants in two planters that were already the home to some bright green creeping jenny.

It looked really cute and I got this super cute arrangement out of it in the first few weeks:

But alas, the container holding the lighter side of the ombre was completely destroyed 2 weeks ago. Whatever got it (squirrel? chipmonk? rabbit? deer?) dug so deep into the container and ate most of the plants (roots, leaves, flowers, everything). So now these containers are looking very sparse. I'll spare you the photos. What's strange is that I planted geraniums in the same containers last year and never had any problems. Oh well.

Fortunately I have some other containers that have filled out. My favorite are some urns I have on the front porch. I filled it with coleus and some teeny petunias.

Here they are on planting day:

And here's what its looking like now:

I love the hot pinks in each plant. It's just too cute. I think pink is a nice complement to brown (in general) and since the outside of our house is very brown, I felt like these pink would be perfect. And it really has been.

While almost all my plants are annuals, I try to choose annuals that can be cut and enjoyed inside. I made this arrangement a few weeks ago with flowers all from my containers:

I was late to planting some containers by the garage, but once those fill in, I'll take some pics of those and 

A Salvage Story and the winner of closet vs. bar

Hey friends. Y'all are so sweet to share your opinions on the things. It's very helpful. So regarding the closet vs. bar debate, your comments have confirmed my decision to ditch the current built-in and create a closet in the den.

Before I jump in, I have a story to tell you that I promise will make sense in a moment.

A few years ago, my in-laws had a neighbor that sold a house. Well, this house was lovely, but was built in 1946 and needed a little updating. There was one big problem with this house that made any renovations impossible: the walls in every room were cinder block, covered with plaster. The original owners had a previous house burn in a fire, so when they built this house, they chose a more fire-resistant building material. So it wasn't really possible to move walls, etc.

The new owners decided to tear the house down. They live in a neighborhood where all of these things have to go before lots of boards, so it was a long process before they could tear down and start building. Meanwhile, we bought our current house and knew we needed to do some renovations. So my mother-in-law contacted the new owners about their plans for fixtures/doors/windows/etc.

They took out all the interior doors and donated those to Habitat for Humanity (yay!) and let us come through and see if there was anything else in the house that we wanted. We ended up with light fixtures, plaster ceiling medallions, window hardware, a front door, 3 leaded glass side lights, a fireplace mantle, and....shutters. My father-in-law, a family friend and I spent a Saturday morning (going into the afternoon) getting all this stuff out of the house (with permission, mind you!) a week before demolition. Salvaging old house parts was REALLY fun.

Now the ceilings in this house were very high so all the first floor windows were very tall and the shutters for these windows wouldn't fit any windows at our house. But we kept them anyway, thinking we could find a use for them at some point. Most of the stuff has currently been stored in our basement, anxiously awaiting their new life in our home after the renovation.

Now back to regularly scheduled programming.

Some of you had some great feedback that the closet doors should have some character. I love the idea of small double doors (The opening about the same size as your average doorway) because they are a little easier to access in tight spaces and I think they have a nice look to them.

The first two ideas I had were: vintage woods doors! or mirrored doors!

My first thought was "I need to find a set of vintage/antique doors STAT." I was thinking that I could find an old pair and strip off the finish/paint and then leave it unfinished and just seal it with a wax coat. This was what I had in mind:

(love the porcelain handles in this one!)

I then started a short-lived internet hunt of old doors until I got distracted and forgot about my search.

THEN, a few nights ago, I was watching Fixer Upper on good ole' HGTV where the usual decorating style is RECLAIMED EVERYTHING. Somehow this reminded me of SHUTTERS! As in SHUTTERS that I ALREADY HAVE! The shutters that we salvaged from the house (now you're wishing you had read the story, aren't you) are about door height. They aren't louvered like most shutters - instead they have carved panels (similar to the third picture, if I remember them correctly)f, which would be perfect for some closet doors.

Depending on their height (and if we can cut them down without them looking funky), I'd love to strip the paint to see what the wood is looking like. If it looks anything like the above pictures, I'm thinking I'll just seal it and hang them. Otherwise, I'll paint them - possibly in a pretty accent color.

If these don't work for whatever reason, then I'm still considering the mirrored doors. I'm going to check on the shutters in the next few days, check their dimensions and see if they will work. Here's hoping the dimensions work!

Kitchen Fixtures: Go for the Gold! (or not)

Alright friends, time to share your thoughts on GOLD(brass) or SILVER (nickel/chrome).

First, I'm making plans and pricing out fixtures for parts of the renovation. My first priority is making decisions that would be appealing to the next buyer. My second priority is that I like it. Personally, I like brass/gold leaf fixtures a lot. BUT I know that's not everyone's taste and when it comes time to sell #intownmountainhome, I want it to be appealing to buyers.

Now if I go with brass, I'm not going with the brass you know from the 80s/90s. Think more like antiqued brass or unlaquered brass. Something like these pics:

Nickel finishes have been so popular for years now, so I'm sure all of you have seen a kitchen with these finishes, but just in case you haven't:

If I did brass fixutres, they would most likely be these or something similar:

If I did nickel fixtures, it would most likely be these or something similar:

So, tell me finish style you prefer. Are you loving brass? Do you shudder at the thought of anything resembling gold? What do you think potential homebuyers would like best? Comment below - I'm super interested to hear your thoughts.

Storage vs. Bar Debate

Posting on Friday afternoon was the way to go. All y'all were up in here so fast on the last post.

So now I will start the blog posts where I tell the story of my decisions and you all can tell me what you think. One thing I'm considering in the remodel is finding ways to add storage, mainly for bigger things that won't fit in cabinets. Things like:

• vacuum/broom/swiffers/etc. (currently stored at the other end of the house)
• cushions for outdoor furniture (currently stored under our sofas)
• bulk storage (paper towels, etc.) (in the hall bathroom)
• a place to put coats for ourselves and for guests (usually strewn upon furniture)
• vases/small gardening supplies, etc. (currently all over, but often landing on the fireplace hearth)
• briefcase/purse, etc.

Most of the storage in our home is in the basement or in bedroom/bathroom closets. There's only one small coat closet at the end of our hallway.

So here's the best solution I've come up with yet:

The first bedroom in our hallway has two closets. The smaller one backs up the "bar" I set up in the den. The bar as it looks today:

In this scenario, this built-in/bar would go and I'd put the closet here and instead you would see a door to the closet:

This is what the den floor plan would look like with the closet.

Currently, I haven't figure out another place to put a designated bar area in the new, open concept addition. All the glasses/cups/etc would be integrated into the kitchen area and I suppose the liquor/wine would be as well.

 So I'm wondering what y'all think. Storage or Bar area (keep in mind there's no plumbing, so there's no sink/ice maker/etc)? If you were buying a house, what would you prefer?

Remodeling Preparation

Hi friends, it's be a while. Here's an update.  We're planning a remodel for later this year. These are the potential projects (some may be cut or altered, depending on cost). If you need a refresher on what some of these rooms are/look like (when we bought the house), this post will help you out.

Exterior

• Shake siding (or something with similar look)
• Replace all the big panel windows with some smaller windows, move window locations slightly
• Add front porch
• Maybe add bay window in front bedroom
• Grey siding, Green door, cream accents (window frames, etc.)

Exterior inspiration:

Kitchen/Den/Dining renovation

• Replace 1 window, cover up other 2 so exterior walls can be used for cabinets
• All new cabinets, most likely painted white or cream
• Open up dining/den/kitchen into one room
• Redo ceiling design to remove load-bearing wall, create vaulted ceiling
• Replace windows, move windows and add some windows

Kitchen inspiration:

Master Bedroom

• Create new master suite by adding new bathroom/closet to front bedroom (currently the guest bedroom)
• walk-in closet
• Double sinks
• Walk-in shower with seat
• Move windows

Master Bath Inspiration:

Update guest room back (currently master bath)

• keep commode
• re-tile shower and floors
• new sink base/sink
• new lighting
• built-in storage cabinet 
• White subway tile in shower, dark tile on floors

Inspiration

Throughout the house:

• Refinish and match Hardwood Floors (yesterday I peeled back the carpet to confirm that we do, in fact, have hardwoods under the other carpeted areas)
• HVAC – new system, update ductwork
• New attic insulation
• Move attic access to hallway

I'm telling y'all about this because I've got LOTS of questions I want to ask the world. So be prepared over the coming weeks to see a lot of posts asking for opinions on floorplans, fixtures, etc.

Nashville people - if you have a GREAT contractor to recommend, please let me know.

Making the Den Pretty, part 2

To continue the list from the previous post, here's the remaining list of things we've done to the den in recent months.

6. I had these pillows made by this fantastic Etsy shop. I highly recommend their work. They are so easy to work with and their work is high quality.

7. Then I took a break on doing anything in the den (or the rest of the house, for that matter). Summer is busy and we went on some fun trips. Beach trip:

and the high school mission trip...where were both leaders. From the square dancing night:

a special western selfie.

8. So back to the den. I've been working on a "Wedding Wall" for a while. I started collecting some wedding family wedding photos (still collecting photos from various family members). For about 2 months, the "wall" was more like a "Wedding floor" in our front room:

Even though I haven't collected all the photos yet, I decided to go ahead and frame the ones I had and hang them. Here's the beginnings of the wall:

9. We FINALLY got a ceiling fan installed. This was so so so so necessary, as the sun sets on this side of the house and it really heats up in the afternoon. 

10. To really help with the sun issues (and make the room feel very real), we installed curtains! I got these curtains from West Elm for only $39/panel during an online special, which was a fantastic deal. I was considering a similar fabric that was $20/yard, so it would have been much more to make them myself. I'm sooooo happy to have curtains on the wall. It really changes the feel of the room. I'm loving it. 

I'm gonna try and take nicer pictures to do a "reveal" like all the fancy bloggers do. We'll see how that goes. I've been doing a lot in the kitchen too, since these rooms share space, it makes the most sense to show them together. I'll get working on that. I'll leave you with this lovely furniture arrangement from the first football games of the season. Phil moved our other TV into the den. It lasted like this for a few days...

Making the Den pretty, part 1

So....some things have happened on the home renovation/decor front, primarily in the den. I've started a list of things I've done since March.

Let me attempt to go in order:

1. We were gifted some chairs from a family member. They are kind of an orangey, muted coral. They swivel and rock and are just small enough to fit in the space. Most armchairs would be too big to fit in the space. So they fit perfectly and were free. FANTASTIC. Also, I had just happened to buy these pillows and they had some orange in them, so they connect the chairs to the rest of the color scheme nicely.

2. I rearranged the den several times trying to find the best configuration with the new chairs. I ended up with pretty much the same layout, but at least I now KNOW the other options wouldn't work. In the first pictures, you can see that I tried to move the table from behind the shorter sofa, but that just didn't work very well.

3. THE SOFAs GOT RECOVERED. After endless posts about this, I think I'll just let the photos do the talking. They look way more intense blue in these photos than in real life. They are more of a navy, but you get the idea.

before:

AND AFTER:

4. Grew my succulent garden

5. I finally got around to painting the back door. I decided to just paint it the same cream color as the rest of the room. Before:

and after (but with all the painters tape still on):

More things have been done in here, but you'll just have to wait for part 2, if I ever get around to writing it (hopefully tomorrow).