WILMORE HOUSE TOUR – DAY ONE

Hello friends!

Today, I wanted to share the first post of several taking a tour of our Wilmore house!  I am so excited about this!

For anyone new here, we bought this fixer upper, (although most people called it a “tear down,) back the late fall of 2018.  We bought it as a “flip house” that we could work on together, sell, and make money off of. 

Here is a picture of the home’s exterior when we bought it…

We started working on it and got it about halfway finished when we decided to move to Tennessee.  At that point, we decided not to sell it so that we would have a “home base” to come back to when visiting family and friends. 

Here is the front porch currently…

We added those cute little house numbers from Lowe’s a couple weeks ago.  You can find them HERE.

Then we worked on it remotely from Tennessee for the next year which definitely slowed the process down.  Then covid hit in March of 2020, which brought the renovation to a halt for many months. 

During this time, we thought we would finish the renovation, use it as “home base,” but also rent it out as an Airbnb when were were not staying there.

Before…

But the more we worked on this sweet little house, the more we fell in love with it.  And the more it felt like “home.”  It didn’t feel like an Airbnb or a place we would rent to strangers.  So we changed our mind and decided it would just be a special place for our family to stay when visiting Kentucky.

 

FRONT PORCH BEFORE…

Of course, we will let extended family stay there as well when needed.  But for the most part, it’s our little slick of Heaven in Kentucky.

 

 

It’s our happy place!

 

 

It’s hard to believe how far this house has come until I look at the before pictures.  What were we thinking?!  haha!

Here is a video the day we started gutting the whole house…

This is a picture of the front room when you walked through the front door…

Same view three years later….

The ceilings were low and falling in, the floor was slanted and wood was rotted.  And did I mention the smell?!  It was in bad shape!

Behind the wall with the fireplace was the kitchen.  I’ll share that space in my next post on this tour.

We decided to vault the ceilings and remove the wall in the middle of the room to open the space up.  Everything got a fresh coat of paint, and man, does it look so much bigger and brighter!

We hung all new drywall on the walls, installed new windows, added new trim, and installed new flooring…

We kept the original 100 year old ceiling joists that ran the length of the house, and bunched them into groups of three to create the look of “beams” in the house.  I love the contrast of the old brown wood against the new white wood planks on the ceiling.

Almost all of the furniture in the front room was left over from our Kentucky house, and we have been able to use it at the Wilmore house.  The large faux tree is one of my favorite, and I have it in our Tennessee home too!  You can find it at Target HERE.

The only new items are the rug, pillows, throw, curtain, lamp (thrift store,) and the round side table.  (The pillows, throw, and round side table are from Home Goods, so I couldn’t find links.)

The rug is from boutique rugs and is linked HERE.    Use code: TRACI60 for 60% off!

The white coffee table and side tables are what I used in our Kentucky home, but they were all old and beat up from our moves and years of wear and tear.  So I gave them all a new coat of white paint to bring them back to life!

    

The chandelier is from Kichler.  You can find it HERE.

 

The floor lamp is from Wayfair.  I got it years ago for our Kentucky house, and you can find it HERE.

The fern is from Target.  It is SO real looking that I want another one for our Tennessee home.  You can find it HERE.

I cannot tell you how peaceful this home is.  No wifi, no tv.  Just peace. 

I found this “stay awhile” sign at Target, and I love it above my vintage folding chairs.  This home surely does make you want to stay awhile. :)   You can find that sign HERE.

The church print is from Kirklands.  I got it years ago, and it reminded me of my mom because she used to love to take pictures of church steeples.  

We call Wilmore the “Holy City” because Asbury Seminary and Asbury University are in our little town.  It has a wonderful Christian heritage and feels like a real life Mayberry.  We are just so grateful and thankful for our little Wilmore House, and in my next post on this tour, I will share with you the kitchen!

CLICK HERE TO SEE DAY TWO OF OUR WILMORE HOUSE TOUR

Have a blessed weekend, friends!

xoxo

Traci