Hey guys! We’re thrilled to be here today with some fabulous sites, to share a little of our home for spring! If you’re ready for quite the eye candy behind all things spring inspiration, you’ve come to the right place today. Check them all out here:
Dreaming of Homemaking
My 100 Year old Home
Thistlewood Farms
Maison de Cinq
French Country Cottage
I honestly feel like I’m just one of those people made for warmer weather. I can feel a shift begin to happen when the days lengthen and there’s a little more sun, and everything just feels right.
Spring is our very favorite season. I mean, it’s basically summer. Which means school is basically out. Which means we’re checked out on all things homework front and warmer evenings by the pool.
If you’re not familiar with us, allow us to introduce ourselves! We’re Ashley and Jamin Mills of the Handmade Home. We’re the owners of a design and rehab firm located in Franklin Tennessee, just outside of Nashville. We don’t believe in the dream home, but we believe in your home.
It’s here that you’ll find our work with clients, national brands, and a few of our own antics as we work on our own little money pit. We also love sharing free printables and life in general. Our passion is helping people love where they dwell. We know what it’s like first hand, and couldn’t be more excited to dive into tricky spaces and new builds for awesome people.
We stumbled upon this house three years ago, when we relocated our family and business to the Nashville/Franklin area. We absolutely fell in love. Above is what the house looked like the day we took it on…
I think that we would be amiss to share a spring tour, without including a few of our befores. I think it helps give a bit of perspective to this little house and how far we’ve come! So thanks for stopping by today and we’re thrilled you’re here.
While we still have a little more work on the landscaping side of things, we do love adding fresh flowers and shots of color. A sweet exterior makeover goes a really long way.
So pull up a seat, we’re so thrilled you’re stopping by. We hope it feels like visiting old friends while we give you a little tour, and share how we’re freshening up our home for spring.
Since we’re starting with the outside first, you can definitely catch a glimpse of some of our favorite colorful additions, as well as the hideaway in our back yard.
It’s a great space for imaginations to run wild from nerf gun wars, to pretend everything.
You can see more of our awesome readers creations from our how tos, here!
But let’s get back to the inside.
When we stepped inside our home for the first time, it looked like this. We knew it had great bones and just needed a little love, since it was love at first sight.
So we took on a complete rehab, knocked down some walls and ceilings to open up tiny, cramped spaces into this.
The spaces were once divided into a small entryway, traditional dining area, somewhat of a galley kitchen and a small living room. We were able to remove the walls and ceiling to make it more functional and open for our family. We now refer to this as the great room.
It’s still hard for us to believe that this is the same house.
We recently added a new fun light from Kichler, and are totally smitten by the easy change. We also love freshening up with fresh pillows and hues for the seasons.
The formal dining room/living room area once looked like this – we were really bummed about losing the tiny fan. ;}
It now opens up into the main kitchen area, as well.
We recently gave our old table a quick makeover, and refreshed with a fun rug a-la the flea market. We’ll be sharing more of that, soon but love the mix of colors.
Here, you can catch a glimpse of the before of our kitchen. We loved opening up the walls and adding windows.
To the left side, we plan to have a walk through to our future master addition. That will officially be phase no. 5 for this little house. Or something like that… we’re starting to lose count.
And the right will hold a desk, coming later. Right now, it holds Emerson’s dollhouse – keeping it real.
And the left side holds a china cabinet where we keep a lot of our dishes.
We love fun punches of color in our home, from the dishes to the piano.
Opening up the walls and ceiling were a game changer for letting the light in.
During the rehab, we also replaced all our windows with window world. We scored some fun stained glass windows at the local flea market. Since the sun sets on this side of the house every day, they glow and we adore them.
Photos never quite do them justice, but we do love the way they look with all their beautiful shades.
Once blocked with a wall, we were able to remove this and open it up into the other side of the space.
The original art you see throughout our home, is mine. I’m what you’d refer to as a weekend painter. I love the way it adds so much fun to the walls, in original ways. Unless it’s a vintage piece, most of the art throughout our home is a-la yours truly and some of them can be found here.
A lot of the fabrics throughout can be found here, too.
Upstairs is where you’ll find our bedrooms. With our future addition, the idea is that the kiddos will have the upstairs, while our new master will be found on the main level off the kitchen, as I tried oh so lamely to describe before.
This bedroom will eventually be handed over to our daughter, when our master is complete.
When we moved in, it looked like this…
We were able to bump out the entire bathroom area, and provide a walk through closet for more space all around. I also love how you can spy another sister window to the collection we were able to nab at the flea market. We were pretty thrilled to see the wall to wall carpet go.
It’s so much fun color that we adore waking up to every morning. A sneak peek of the bathroom can be found here.
The art above our bed is a song that we walked back down the aisle to, after our wedding ceremonies. So now it sits above our bed to celebrate 17 years.
When we purchased the house, the kiddos spaces looked like this…
The red was burning my corneas.
Right now, the younger two share this room, and we loved giving it a neutral makeover for both brother and sister.
Our oldest now inhabits this room, after moving out of ‘the sleeping room’, as we’d dubbed it, to give him more space. We all lived on the top level while we’d taken on the basement rehab, and once we were able to spread out more he loved having his own room.
When we moved in, our now existing basement was a full fledged garage.
Complete with deer heads and giant spiders to boot. We divided it up, and now have a nice entertainment area for our elementary aged children. Here’s another peek of the outside so you understand more of what we took on from that perspective…
We loved turning this into more of an entry, because it once looked like this:
And now it’s this: We love that friends and family know to use the side door. Since our home tends to be a revolving door in the summers due to the pool, this definitely simplified all things hosting.
So you can imagine what the inside was like… and it may be our very favorite changeover to date.
We knew the space had to work hard for us, so it also holds our laundry area for now, {see more of our laundry corner here!}
And my little studio office, where I’m able to store a ton of work supplies, samples for clients and more…
Who knew such a scary little clown-in-the-crawlspace corner could have so much potential?
I spend a lot of time down here working on various projects, so I knew that the old stains and scary side door had to go.
The basement also holds that main entry area, which functions hard core on the inside. During the weekdays it holds all things backpacks, boxing gloves and yoga mats, in addition to shoes, jackets and more.
Our outside is definitely in progress… we’re currently working on an our second addition on the back, so stay tuned!
It’s going to be a fabulous gathering room and informal dining area, since we could use more room for entertaining. It will be another space right off our main great room and we couldn’t be more thrilled about it! Just a little sneak peek…
When we moved in, it looked like this…
So while we were thrilled to refresh the pool area, we were glad to say goodbye to 1976.
Definitely a work in progress, but we love every second of being in our element.
Thanks so much for stopping by today, we hope you will again, since we have so many more fun projects coming up!
Be sure to check out our portfolio here, and more details on our own house here! – We’re currently taking design clients, from helping you choose colors for your house, to complete redesigns – nationally and in the Franklin/Nashville area. We’d love to hear from you!
And be sure to check out the rest of the fabulous sites with gawgeous spring decor here: We’re honored to be participating with them! These spaces are amazing.
Have any questions? We’d love to hear from you!
Have an inspired day!
Lynn W says
Love your home and all of the sweat equity you’ve put into this treasure.
I am wondering where the rugs in the basement came from. Would love to have one 🌞. Happy Spring 🌺
ashley @ the handmade home says
Thank you! they’re from Loloi
KariAnne Wood says
Amazing spaces friend! Love the befores and afters. The house is IN LOVE WITH YOU!
Happy spring tour day to you!
karianne
sarah wagner says
I love learning more about you and your husband! This tour was fabulous! I love seeing all the work you put into your home and all the before and afters! So incredible and can’t wait to follow along and see the afters of the addition!
courtney says
Love love love.Your house is so gorgeous!! Thanks for having me on the tour with you!! xo
Sheila says
Oh there is nothing I love better than a good before and after! So fun to learn more about you and see all the details of your house and how far it’s come! And that kid’s playhouse is TDF!!
Happy spring Ashley!
Sheila
xo
Jessica Kol says
Wow…!! What an amazing home. Really loved your house tour. Each and every space has some unique vintage pieces which I loved the most. Also, the after and before effects are awesome.