Welcome back to the Green Hills House! In case you missed it, you can catch up with these blog posts:

Before & During

Master Bathroom During

Exterior After

Today, let’s take our tour inside (it is nearly 100 degrees outside after all) to the living room. If you click on the “Before & During” link above, you can see the stages this living room has taken on. A few relatively straightforward changes made all the difference here!

We had all the popcorn ceilings scraped in this house, which is when I learned that drywall dust is forever. We had the house professionally cleaned twice after the builders did their initial cleanup, and I was still finding traces of it tucked into hidden corners and settling in the ducts. Word to the wise: do the popcorn ceilings FIRST, before anything else, to avoid having drywall dust take over your entire life.

The floors in here are original, and we laced in new red oak to match in the kitchen, but here we just refinished them. They’re much less yellow now. In most luxury homes in Nashville like this, you’ll see hardwoods, and I LOVE them. Especially when the original hardwoods can be saved in a renovation!

The railings were done by Hamilton May, who did a great job with the front porch railings and french door Juliet balcony on the front of the house as well. This was something that we went back and forth about doing, but I’m so glad we did, since it makes the whole space so much more modern. There was a bullnose trim on the wall beneath the stairs, but we switched it out for a more modern, simple 1×3 trim .

Ah, the mantle. Possibly my favorite part about this room–the dramatic black floor to ceiling fireplace with the beautiful organic wood mantle from Good Wood Nashville. Our contractor sent me to them to pick out the mantle, and I highly recommend them–they were so great to work with, and the mantle came out perfect. This house was built in 1940, and I definitely wanted to keep some of those classic original elements (the hardwoods, the brick) while giving the whole place a more mid-century modern cottage-style feel.

The couch and chairs are from Article, and though this was my first time ordering from them, it definitely won’t be my last. The quality for the price is unbeatable, and since we were originally going to use this as a Sober Living House (see backstory post above) I wanted something more masculine, comfortable, and durable than something I might normally choose for my own house. This couch was all of the above!

This coffee table from World Market ties in the organic shape of the mantle with the rest of the room, and this pretty blue rug from West Elm adds just the right amount of color here.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this tour–I’ll keep sharing each room with you every week or so! Thanks for reading, and coming along on our renovation journey.

Stain Color: Early American

Paint (walls & trim): Alabaster by Sherwin Williams

Mantle Paint: Green Black by Sherwin Williams

Mantle: Good Wood Nashville

New Railings Fabrication: Hamilton May

GC: Eric Jones with Radnor House and Home

Photos: Sarah Nichole Photography

Design: Grace Wagenman (me!)