NEW HOME? NEW PLAN! – Home Sweet Home in Nashville!
Recently, my husband John and I flew down to Nashville, TN. It was not our usual vacation visit as we helped our daughter, Kelsey, get settled into her first house, an adorable 2-bedroom, 1-bath, Craftsman-style bungalow in East Nashville.
Kelsey moved to Nashville a couple years ago on a Rose Architectural Fellowship through Enterprise Community Partners, an organization that connects emerging architects and designers with non-profit affordable housing organizations in cities across the US to add design capacity to the development process. Kelsey was paired with Urban Housing Solutions, Nashville’s leading non-profit provider of affordable housing, and the Nashville Civic Design Center (more on Kelsey’s work and the affordable housing crisis in another blog).
We are so proud of Kelsey and her passion to help others. We are also proud of her initiative to purchase a starter home and continue to build her new life in Nashville. We’ve been down there several times to visit, but this time we knew we were going to be in work mode with helping her get situated in her new home. In other words, we brought our work clothes and tools – checked baggage was a must!
It can be incredibly daunting to move into a new home! Taking your “old stuff” and working it into a cohesive design in your new home is truly overwhelming for most people. So besides hanging window shades (typically a first priority!) I helped Kelsey come up with an action plan which included the basics:
Kelsey’s Floor Plan
1. WHAT GOES WHERE? A basic floor plan is a necessity. What is the best layout for our existing furniture, and what additional pieces (future purchases) should be the top priority in making this design plan a reality? In my daughter’s case it was easy to move the furniture, she has mostly hand-me-downs and the living room of her Craftsman-style bungalow still has the original wood floors so if you have moving pads it’s really quite easy. (I did it myself.)
Most often people will assume the largest wall is the best for the largest piece of furniture (typically the sofa) but in reality you need to consider what should be the focal point of the room – what do you want to be the statement wall when you walk into your space? Another thing to consider when you are doing your furniture layout is what you want to hide – what furniture elements would you like to replace in the future, but can’t just yet.
In Kelsey’s case, she had repurposed an old pine armoire that we had given her and made it into a cool bar cabinet. This in conjunction with a few great pieces of art from her travels spoke far more about her vibrant personality than the old sofa that she had inherited. So I switched the furniture around, knowing that she could purchase two new funky arm chairs much sooner than replacing the sofa and mismatched loveseat. Now you walk into her front door and see an amazing statement wall, and placing the larger pieces of furniture off to the side or behind you makes the room feel bigger.
2. LIGHTING. Let’s face it, most older homes are severely lacking in good lighting! Kelsey is fortunate that her 1940’s bungalow has center ceiling fixtures or fan/lights in each room, but these offer only one level of lighting. If you are looking for something more intimate or functional (ie task lighting) you may need another solution. In Kelsey’s case the “master” bedroom needed some additional lighting as she likes to read in bed, but the wall where her queen bed fit (the only option for the room layout) was not big enough for even one standard bedside table. She had asked if wall sconces were possible, but because we were dealing with an original exterior wall (before the back porch was added and enclosed) it would have been a real challenge installing junction boxes and switching controls into that exterior surface.
My solution: plug-in track lighting. We mounted a 4’ length of track to the ceiling and then ran wire mold down the corner wall – which Kelsey can paint and camouflage later. The convenient thumbswitch dimmer control allows her to dim the lights, too. We are starting out with two adjustable spot lights – one to read by and the other to highlight the colorful painting one of her colleagues had done for her. The great thing about track is its flexibility (more details in another blog). Because she is using LED bulbs Kelsey can add more fixtures later, as she feels the need. I also mentioned to her the idea of adding pendants for a little more light and drama. This non-invasive lighting solution is not high tech – but simple, affordable and efficient!
To solve the nightstand dilemma we installed a 5” wide natural oak plank low along the adjacent bedside wall hung from underneath with basic L-brackets. A power cord offers her the ability to charge a phone, play music, etc. Again, simple and affordable.
3. COLOR. The more elements you add to express your own personality and style the better! In Kelsey’s case that included color. Her existing color choices included the cobalt blue from her armoire (which she also used as an accent wall at her headboard) and a beautiful coral she picked as an accent for the center all vestibule. I suggested one additional color to complete her palette, a retro aqua that she will use for the kitchen walls above her existing beadboard wainscoting. Creating a color palette is paramount to making good purchasing decision down the road – think of it as a road map! Especially when design smaller homes where each room is visible from the next, it’s a great way to have a cohesive space while letting each room have its own personality.
This Nashville visit was different from the rest, a lot of hard work on a tight schedule. But we did manage to squeeze in some fun, a couple of great brunches with Kelsey’s friends, an amazing concert at Nashville’s Ascend Amphitheater and even a spin class at Verticity. But the joy of seeing our daughter in her first house was the high point! It also made me realize that the ability to “envision the potential” in a space is a real gift – and I love it!