Saturday was the first anniversary of closing on our home! We have loved living in our 1912 Georgian cottage and making it our own. Before we moved in last spring, we had a team remove wallpaper and paint and replace some of the flooring. In buying an old house, you never quite know what repairs you might face, but thankfully in one year, we have not had major problems other than getting the furnace repaired right before Thanksgiving.
Below are photos from before we moved in and what each room looks like now! It’s still a work in progress, and we have a growing list of projects we want to do, but it’s been the perfect house for us.
*First photo credit: Audrey Grace Photography
Exterior in December 2020 March 2021On the exterior of the house, we removed some shrubs to open up the front of the house. We also added some wicker furniture (some from Garner’s family) to the front porch. I hope to paint the shutters this summer (in Benjamin Moore’s Palace Green).December 2020I like the grandmillenial style, but that red, floral wallpaper was a bit too much for me. It took the painting crew a whole day to get it down, too. The paint color here is Benjamin Moore’s Palace Green. We have many family pieces in the house; the secretary desk was my grandfather’s, and the prints are historic photos of Clover (my tiny hometown).In the living room, we lightened up the walls (Benjamin Moore Capitol White) and went with painted trim (Benjamin Moore Palace Green) to play up the woodwork and the colonial revival style of the house. The rug is meaningful to us since it’s the rug we stood on when we exchanged our vows at our wedding. Garner’s aunt and uncle, Karen and David McIntyre, have a fabulous fine rug business and have helped us find the perfect rugs for some of our spaces. You can find Karen on Instagram at @gallimorefinerugs!The dining room is one of my favorite rooms in the house. Garner’s parents, Mark and Paula, helped us add the beadbord during the summer. We also did painted trim in here (Benjamin Moore Williamsburg Wythe Blue), which makes the room feel grand, especially with my maternal grandmother’s dining set and china cabinet. My paternal grandmother’s piano also sits in the corner, and it’s been fun to have it and rediscover practicing playing it. We were able to fit another table in here at Thanksgiving and have 12 people at the table!We figured out that the kitchen was original to the house, but because it’s from 1912, it’s on the smaller side. We’ve made it work for us, though! It got a facelift in 2001. The cabinets are the same color in the dining room. I love color in the kitchen. Eventually, we would like to redo the kitchen to make it more functional. In the short term, I want to switch out the hardware and fixtures for copper fixtures to contrast against the blue.The front bedroom serves as Garner’s office/guest room. We put my old twin bed (that was originally my grandfather’s) in this room along with Garner’s desk and bookcases. Garner picked out the color for this room and went with Benjamin Moore’s York Gray.The middle bedroom serves as a guest room/my office. We still have the big storage unit, but it went to the basement. The wall color in this room is Benjamin Moore Livingston Green and the trim (for everywhere we have white trim) is Capitol White. The dresser in the third picture was my great-grandmother’s, but we need to have the glass placed back in the mirror frame.This is the central hallway with the guest bathroom in the middle door (we didn’t change this bathroom). We painted it the same York Gray and added a little linen cabinet in addition to a needlepoint of my grandparents’ home, Holly Hill, that my grandmother did. All of the photos above are in the original part of the house; the next photos were part of the addition in 2001. This is our laundry room/pantry, located between the kitchen and the original central hallway. We decided to paint it to make the tile pop a little more. We went with Benjamin Moore Raleigh Peach, which is the opposite of the Williamsburg Wythe Blue that’s in the kitchen, so they pair well visually.This room (our primary bedroom) received the largest transformation by far! The circa 1993 Best Western ballroom-style carpet came up, and we put down new hardwood floors. The wall color is Williamsburg Wythe Blue, and it looks so beautiful with all of the light we get in the mornings. We have an eclectic mix of furniture, but the cedar chest at the end of the bed belonged to my step-grandmother. We also got the magnolia water color framed specially, since it was one of my grandmother’s paintings. 90% of the art hanging in our house were her pieces.We didn’t do much in the primary bathroom other than add a rug and some artwork. Eventually, we want to redo the bathroom to enlarge the shower a bit, but we have plenty of room!In the basement, we added LVT over the tile to make it a bit more cozy, since we plan to turn it into a den/family room. We want to get a sectional sleeper sofa to increase sleeping room for guests. We also want to add more cabinetry for storage, too. Right now, it works great as a fitness studio and art/craft studio! I have my grandmother’s art table set up in the corner, and I plan to keep it there as part of the family room. Eventually, it may need to include an office set up, but it’s such a big space, it can be multipurpose.Lastly, some pictures from the yard from last summer! We were so lucky to buy the house from a lady who loved to garden.
Emily Martin Cochran 