to hide or not to hide the evidence
We're getting our house ready for a video feature coming up in a few weeks.
Dialing in the backyard, turning it into a true oasis. Buttoning up the interior. So much work but it's also stuff I want to do anyways.
Little fixes and big fixes. Paint touch-ups. Planting trees, juniper, and butterfly bushes. Moving furniture around and swapping out the "meh" pieces.
Testing some fireplace paint alongside my House of Leon Chair
My wife and I chuckle when we talk about this, but much of what we're doing is just removing all evidence of the children.
Which is kind of a bummer, because I'm obsessed with my kids. My life is so much better because of them.
But they're messy. They're creative. Their stuff is everywhere. And it's ultimately their house, meant to facilitate their young, crazy, eccentric, energetic life.
I was with a friend last night who also has young kids, and we got to talking about finding the balance between a clean, beautiful, presentable home and a home that's a complete train wreck run by kids.
There's definitely some freedom in just letting your home be a mess you live in. Kids can play harder, kick balls against the walls, carpet can be stained, and living rooms can be overrun with art projects, sports gear, and books.
That was the house I grew up in. Creativity everywhere. Clutter everywhere. That's what my daughter's room looks like now. Pros and cons.
But right now we're in "the great reveal" mode. Everything has to look a certain way. It will get captured on video and probably professionally photographed soon after. It has me thinking a lot about what story to tell.
I do think there is a place for markers, construction paper, and Spider-Man in design photography. I actually think people are really craving this. A window into how people really live.
The toy room, the final frontier.
I just need to figure out how to do it.
Maybe the answer is that there are seasons for both. Right now, we're in a season of polish because we have to be. We also have our large finished basement set up as a guest apartment, and I'm realizing that turning it into more of a game lounge with a bed is probably the right move.
I'll let you know after the shoot.
the ziggurat house & the value of design
That same friend of mine I was talking to lives in an incredible house. His wife is a designer, and their house is perfect and couldn't be better executed. Easily my favorite house in the neighborhood by a long shot. But there's no garage, and it doesn't really "flex" from the front; it's not immediately apparent from the street how nice or big a place it is.
They needed to build a new house for their growing family and decided to sell and pay cash for the construction. And of course, as you should, try to test the limits of comps in the market. And the market responded by exceeding their "in my wildest dreams" number, which I didn't think they would get in the first place, by a lot.
There's another house I recently saw, in the Little Hollywood neighborhood of Nashville. This is a dream neighborhood; we almost moved here in 2016.
It's a collection of Adobe-style 1930s Western Deco homes set amongst hills on the side of the Shelby Golf course. There aren't that many of them, maybe 30, so it's a very limited supply of this particular style of house.
The house I wanted to talk about is called the Ziggurat House, and it was a recent renovation partnership between architect Jamie Pfeffer of Pfeffer Torode & Lyon Porter, hospitality tastemaker, and owner of Urban Cowboy Hotels.
This is a gut renovation and addition to a beautiful historic 1,400-square-foot house. They were certainly starting strong.
They turned it into a courtyard home, my dream, and went very, very eccentric, especially with tile from Haus Tile and Red Rock Tile Works. Oozing personality, you might say.
But from what I hear through the grapevine, the house is under contract for a record-setting amount for the neighborhood.
And it's because, like my friend's house, you can't buy this anywhere else. It is 1/1. It is art.
If you are talented, have vision, and have the right partners, you can compete on design rather than on an appliance package, square feet, or the size of the garage. You can see and build things that no one else would. And scratch your creative itch while you're at it.
