Our Tennessee Home- As featured on A Beautiful Mess

Posting our full home gallery after seeing it so beautifully featured on A Beautiful Mess has me feeling ALL the ways.

I remember following Emma and Elsie back when I was in college, and I’ve admired them since then. When I submitted our home to potentially be featured, I nearly cried when I got a response saying it had been accepted.

A Beautiful Mess did such an amazing job choosing the images to share, but I wanted to go ahead and share our entire home with you lovely folks. So many of our friends were nice enough to share the feature, which we are still blushing over. THANK YOU so much, friends! Since we are moving to San Francisco this October, and trading our 3,300 square foot home for a 600 square foot studio apartment, I wanted to document our lives and our Tennessee home before we move. As much as I love San Francisco, and truly believe that’s where I belong, I’ll always love our city, and the memories we made in it, and this gorgeous home. I’ll try to explain the pieces and even mention where I got them, but if you have any questions, feel free to reach out!

I won’t lie, when I stepped into this house, it wasn’t exactly our “dream home”. Some walls were purple, others were pink, there was a gold foil (not in a cute way, ladies) collage on what is now my office wall, and I almost couldn’t see past the train wreck state it was in. Thankfully John helped me see that aesthetically, the house was unique and had lovely bones. The open floor plan is what we love most about our home. Even if we’re three “rooms” away from each other, we can still see each other, which is pretty sweet.

I would say both John and I agree that our “office” is our favorite spot in the whole house for several reasons: 1. As wedding photographers, we spend the majority of our time in our office editing, blogging, answering emails, and phone calls. We work extremely hard to be familiar with our couples and we spend time getting to know them and even cultivate friendships with them. So when we look up at our gallery wall in our office, those aren’t strangers, those are friends that graced us with the honor of capturing their special day. 2. Another reason we love our office so much is because of the natural light that pours in. As natural light photographers, John and I are always “chasing the light”, so when I saw the potential this particular room had, I knew it would make for a perfect office. And 3. Tebow, our fur child, likes to sit in between John and me while we’re working. He also frequently nudges us to let us know that it’s “park time”.

The black and white rug is from Pattern Society and the white tables were spray painted (used to be black) and are from Ikea.

I made the taco watercolor print (because don’t we all??) And the See San Francisco book by Victoria Smith can be purchased here.

Both the gorgeous coral chair, and the chandelier were purchased from Estate Sales. We spray painted the chandelier, and found the cute bulbs at Lowes.

I am a tad obsessed with my Stendig wall calendar AND the pop of color from my Bright Lab Lights. The retro clear chair was a gift from my MIL and she purchased it from a thrift store.

My mom is SUPER thrifty, so she scored all these frames at garage sales, and we painted them white. I wanted to make sure the frame didn’t take away from the image.
A friend of ours gifted this giant frame for our wedding back in 2011, and my mom turned it into a giant chalkboard. About two years ago I painted the SF skyline, with my favorite Dylan quote.

We got the giant American flag from Amazon, funny story. We accidentally bought a 40 foot flag first (omg, so huge) I don’t know what we were thinking. We returned it for this one. And our most prized possession, Tebow, who is priceless.

I am sure from the images you can tell I am a collector of all things colorful. There are SO many things in my home that I call my “favorite”. Our honeycomb shelves were a project that both John, my dad and I worked on. I will always love what a statement they make in our home. Our retro-inspired green couch from Urban Outfitters was our splurge piece, and I don’t regret it because it pops with color against our white walls.

I have a little story about this hippo. About eight years ago, John and I went to North Carolina with my family. We went shopping, and I noticed the cutest little crystal hippo. I just HAD to have it. John rolled his eyes, and told me to keep walking. I made a bratty face, and kept walking. Later in the day, John said “I got something for you.” It was a tiny white box, and inside was my adorable hippo. I’m not exactly sure HOW we’ve managed to keep up with it for so long, it’s about the size of a pill, but I’m glad we still have it.

The retro TV was a score from a resale site! I think I only paid $25 for it, and the sweet lady I purchased it from (who just so happened to be an Aunt of a bride of ours) made me promise her I would never plug it in. I promised her I wouldn’t. The awesome canvas image of John and I was gifted to us by Emily Chidester who was kind enough to take photographs of us.

The San Francisco print was a gift from one of our awesome bride and grooms whose wedding we shot in San Francisco! We will always cherish it. Both the bar cart and the vintage globes are all from yard sales.

My neon yellow retro dining table is one thing I’ll never part with. Best $70 at a yard sale I’ve ever spent. Thanks mom for finding it for me!

The white hanging light is from Ikea.

I absolutely adore my colorful collection of vintage pyrex bowls that my mom has so graciously found for me at yard sales. Some of the colors are hard to come by or terribly expensive, so I will always cherish those.

My light blue counter canisters are another yard sale find that I’ll never part with.

One of our sweet brides made this taped “taxidermy” deer head for me, after I told her how much I adored it, and we found the Rattan Peacock chair on a resale site for $25. Heck yes.

My aqua mason jars are my babies. No two are alike. My mom and I have found them for great prices at yard sales. I will cherish these for always. I also got the vintage bar cart at an Estate Sale, along with the floral art.

I love this nook in our home. So much color! I got the “Help wanted” sign at an antique store, and the butterly poster at Urban Outfitters. The silver wall envelope is from Target, I saw a post on A Beautiful Mess where they mentioned that’s where they got it, and I ran there THAT day and got my own.

Almost all the globes have been picked up at garage sales, or gifted by sweet friends!

The blue table was found at a yard sale, and I upgrade the drawer pulls from Anthropologie. The yellow foot stool is vintage and is from a yard sale, as well as both wall arts. John’s mom somehow managed to score the giant print of the Golden Gate Bridge!

And lastly, our eclectic, quirky fireplace. The mosaic stained glass “look” was there when we moved in. A lot of people asked if I was going to take it down. TAKE IT DOWN??!?!? Hell no, it’s so awesome and all of my favorite colors.

We hope you’ve enjoyed a peek into our Tennessee home. I am sure once we move, I’ll post our tiny little SF apartment as well.

xoxo