An East Nashville Cottage Renovation

Back in the fall, we ended a major chapter of our lives and began a new one. After a 3 year renovation on our little house in East Nashville, we sold it and moved outside the city and into the “burbs”.

We loved living in our first home together in the heart of the city, and we added so many personal touches and updates over the last few years to make it something we were really proud of.

I will be real with you guys, on HGTV Chip and Joanna make this stuff look so easy and IT IS TRULY NOT. But it’s incredibly rewarding to make a house a home with your own blood, sweat and tears. Peep the photos below and let me know what you think!

An East Nashville Cottage Renovation

Before and Afters

It was super important to us that the exterior of the home get a little bit of an update without spending an arm and a leg to do it. The answer? A little paint and some new landscaping!

 

Before
An East Nashville Renovation - Abbyflynn.com
After

Looking through these living room photos, it’s pretty hard to believe that this is even the same house! We kept the original hardwood flooring, switched out a lot of the lighting and hardware, and painted one million coats of white paint on the walls. Success!

Before
Before
An East Nashville Renovation - Abbyflynn.com
After
An East Nashville Renovation - Abbyflynn.com
After
An East Nashville Cottage Renovation
After

Okay I’ll be honest – the theme of this renovation was basically WHITE EVERYTHING. The house was very small and there’s no hiding that, but we figured we could at least make it feel super light and airy so you don’t think about it as much.

We made the “Master” bedroom look a whole lot larger simply by using daintier furniture, and choosing items that you could see under and around. Coupled with lighter colors and an unexpected chandelier, we had ourselves a win.

master bedroom
Before
An East Nashville Cottage Renovation - Abbyflynn.com
After

The dining room is the only place that we really opted for color on the wall. It just felt right to do something a little jazzier for this room with color and a fancy light fixture to break up the calm easiness of the rest of the house. (By the way, all light fixtures in the house are courtesy of our dear friends at Ikea!)

Before
An East Nashville Cottage Renovation - Abbyflynn.com
After
An East Nashville Cottage Renovation - Abbyflynn.com
After

The kitchen was SO bad when we got this house. WHEW. Huge clunky wooden boxes instead of shelving and inexplicable metal poles running from floor to ceiling. Not to mention there was virtually no storage. We went with an “everything exposed” approach, and then added a standalone bookshelf from Ikea as an alternative to a pantry. (Not shown here.) The result was budget-friendly but totally useable space.

Kitchen
Before
An East Nashville Cottage Renovation - Abbyflynn.com
After

The bathroom was tiny, so it was hard to get good photos. But all you need to know is that horrible blue paint, those blinds and that flooring were removed. Whew! My favorite part of the bathroom was probably the custom built sink. We found a guy at the Nashville Flea Market who made us a really shallow table with some shelving underneath. (For only $100!) Then Cole found a sink bowl and all the plumbing stuff on Amazon and hooked it all together. I do really miss that sink…

Before
An East Nashville Cottage Renovation - Abbyflynn.com
After

Our second bedroom had many iterations in our 3 years at the house. First it was my home office, then a guest bedroom, and finally it became a baby room for Jayden! The end set up turned out perfect for getting us through those late nights and early mornings with a newborn baby.

An East Nashville Cottage Renovation - Abbyflynn.com
Before
An East Nashville Cottage Renovation - Abbyflynn.com
After

We learned so many lessons throughout the process of fixing up this house, not to mention Cole and I learned so much about each other! And if you know anything about the Nashville housing market these days, it was definitely a profitable venture that we got in on at just the right time. And we’re so incredibly thankful for that.

What Comes Next?

So what does the future hold for us next in terms of housing? We’re currently renting an apartment super close to both of our jobs. It seemed like the right thing to do for this season of life that we’re in. Not to mention the amount of money we’ve saved on gas and the amount of time we’ve gotten back together each day has been amazing. (Maybe that’s a post for another day?)

But let’s be honest… I don’t think we can go super long without a project. So stay tuned, because who knows where we’ll end up next!

Peace and hair grease,

<3 Abby

2 Comments

  1. Wow! Your little (former) house was beautiful! I only saw mostly the finished product, so now having seen the redo, I’m even more impressed. (So glad I got to enjoy 2 weeks there when Jayden was born! It was really a special time!)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.