Designing JMO

Never in a million years would I have ever thought that I would be living in my Grandparent's house & making meals, etc for my family. There is something so lovely and so heartwarming every time I walk through the mudroom door. The nostalgia is at an all time high that's for sure. The first time I baked a cake in Dolly's kitchen, I texted my aunt Betty and definitely teared up a bit. Every time I step into that big pantry it is like stepping back in time when I used to literally shop in there for things I needed and didn't feel like 'driving into town' for in high school and in college.

My Dad offered the home to us as a place to stay while we build our lake home. It is perfectly situated about 2 miles from the building site, 1 mile from my parents, 40 minutes or so from Seth's parents and about a half a field away from Betty. The house has been empty since both Dolly and then Clinton passed away but the memories are still in every nook and cranny. So many wonderful holidays and SO many wonderful meals were shared in that very kitchen. I remember bringing my college friends over almost every Sunday (usually slightly hungover) just for Dolly's famous Sunday lunches which brought us all back to life. We knew it needed a little sprucing up before we could totally move in so about a year ago, we decided to dive right in and start getting some things done. Most of the renovations were cosmetic minus the wall we decided to knock down in a dark hallway to expose the front door and lots more natural light. Things were cleared out and moved, carpet was pulled up, floors were sanded, walls were painted and lots and lots of cleaning was done before we could envision a plan.

We are still working to finalize floor plans for the new build but I will share some inspiration next week for sure. Today, lets take a look at some before and afters I was able to capture during this 'sprucing up' process. We moved in fully in July and it has been the perfect little homestead ever since. We love the out buildings and fields, having our horses there, the creaking in the floors, the interesting upkeep that comes with well water, having to drive your trash to a dump, the banging the furnace makes (think Kevin in Home Alone) and of course, the treasured memories of the life my Grandparent's made here.

Main Kitchen

Eat-in Kitchen

Dining Room

Hallway

Back Hallway

Primary Bath

Primary Bedroon

Crawford's Bedroom

Andi's Bedroom

Living Room

Entryway

Guest Bedroom

Next Phase - Clean and Spruce up!

The famous pantry y'all!

Opening up this wall was literally the BEST move
(this was that super dark hallway if you scroll back up!)

Mudroom Space

Entryway coming together! SO bright!

Floors in living room + paint

Pantry had original floors underneath

Kitchen Today

Dining room which is now the playroom that connects to the girl's bathroom

That opening made the WORLD of difference!

Guest room

Dolly right in front of the kitchen sink

Something tells me they would be proud. We sure do miss them!

(2021 draft I found:) Hello y'all! Long time no see! I need a creative outlet and for me, back in the day, that was blogging. I loved to peruse different home projects and reno reveals on fellow blogger sites over morning coffee and today I decided I need to dive back in. Lots of stuff has gone on since I last wrote and I'm so excited to share with y'all all of the recent happenings. Baby girl #2 was born and she came into our lives a whole month early! (the morning after a random fluke of a super destructive hail storm to be exact) I thought that I still had a month to unpack and nest so to speak in our new home but she had other plans. I joined the hubs and moved to our 1780 home with 5 days to spare before Miss Crawford said "Hey y'all, I'm here!" only 2 days before big Sister's birthday. (Joint bdays for life am I right?!) With that said, finishing up things here in our (old) new home has been a slow but fun process.

UPDATE AGAIN: Now 9/27/24

We finished all of the exciting updates in the 1780s home in Edenton, NC which I will share below. We enjoyed the BEST 3 year chapter there and met some pretty incredible folks. However, home (VA) kept calling our names and my Dad decided to bribe us with a pretty fantastic offer - 81 acres on a 23 acre lake back home approximately 2 miles from my parent's home and about 35 minutes from Seth's parents. We listed the NC house, sold fairly quickly and moved into my Grandparent's farm house where we can now focus on.....drumroll please....OUR FIRST (and forever) NEW BUILD! Things happened pretty quickly and after some 'light' renovations to the farmhouse, we can now dive into securing the right plan for our family. Now keep it mind we have only done historic renovations and never a total new build so ummm this should be interesting. We also now have horses (2 to be exact) a new pup named Bennett and we miss our Emma Jo pup daily.

This new build lake house is precisely the reason I decided to bring the OG blogging back (as well as a few requests from dear friends! Thank y'all for pushing me!) I documented every other renovation and it is so much fun to have and look back on even if not a soul reads this type of thing anymore. I think of it as a public diary of sorts that my kiddos can one day look back on as well. Not sure if I keep this with my entire archive or do a Substack or new website situation or what but here we go for now and I am excited to document this new chapter in this old space!

The girls are doing fabulous - Andi is 9 and Crawford is 3 and life is just wonderful! Andi just finished her last ultrasound and chest x-ray last week and there was no evidence of disease and she was cleared for a full year. God is good! Miss Crawford keeps us on our toes day in and day out with her outrageously funny personality and charm!

While we finalize a floor plan (send prayers, we thought we were set about ~~four or five maybe six~~ more like 7 times now) I'm gathering up some neat projects to share that we've finished thus far! Enjoy and welcome back y'all!