CBB 3.0 – Update: FINISHED!

07/06/2011

The last month and a half of construction on our friends’ home build was such a flurry of progress that I didn’t get any pictorial updates in the middle of it. I did, however, insist that they give me 5 minutes to take these photos on the morning of moving day before we started dropping boxes and clothes everywhere.

The stairway up from the garage:

The dining area, with huge windows overlooking the woods of Shelby Park:

The kitchen:

This doorway between the kitchen and dining area leads into the living room:

Straight on is the coat closet at the top of the steps coming up from the garage. Pantry on the right:

A tile backsplash was put in a few days after these photos were taken:

Front door entryway (which probably won’t get used much):

Living room:

Guest room:

Hall bathroom. I love having natural light in the shower:

Hallway looking back toward the living room, dining room and kitchen:

Laundry room:

Nursery:

Master bedroom:

Master bathroom:

Through the master bathroom to get to the huge closet. The floors in the bathrooms and this closet are heated, stained concrete:

Hall closet:

Bonus room that will become an office and music room:

Jeremy took this picture of the back of the house the day they got the keys:

Jason has been helping them with their landscaping the past couple weeks:

Moving Day was bittersweet. We worked hard and I didn’t get a lot of time to reflect on it with Leila and Jeremy but for me, memories of May 1, 2010 kept flooding back to me. (Pun intentional.) Their new home is wonderful and beautiful and shiny. It’s HOME. After living out of suitcases, moving from borrowed space to borrowed space for the past 13 months, they’re finally home.. That part of it is wonderful.

What I wasn’t prepared for was how different this was than a traditional move. Nothing was packed and organized like it should have been. Clothes and computers were at Leila’s brother’s house and were moved in piles, shopping bags and suitcases. Antique furniture was in another friend’s basement and was muddy with river water, cracked, dirty. Their TV (which survived being half submerged in water) was at another friend’s house. The bulk of it was in a storage warehouse, mostly outdoor tools, Christmas decorations and some clothing. An oil changing pan slipped out of my hand and liquid splashed against the concrete floor. I scrambled to find some paper towels, thinking I’d be soaking up motor oil. It was muddy, putrid river water. At one point, I picked up a box to load into the silver bullet and recognized my own handwriting on it. When I’m packing, I always label boxes as specifically as I can. It said: “Light bulbs, socks, misc.” I remember packing that box. We had been wiping mud off of dishes and glasses all afternoon in the May sunshine and packing them carefully away. There were a lot of random bits and pieces at the end of the day so I did my best to pack and label them. I can’t remember was “misc” was… a battery, a lid, some keys, perhaps. Cleaning off broken belongings, finding things thought to be gone forever, wondering where certain items ended up… the process of unpacking and moving in to this beautiful new house may be harder for our friends than I expected.

A new chapter has started for Leila and J. Thank God they’re not overly sentimental about “stuff.” They lost almost all their material possessions last year but they’ve come out stronger and wiser. I’m excited to see what wonderful things lie ahead for them and I’m proud to call these fighters my friends.

(Picture from my niece’s birth day, February 24.)

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4 Comments | Art, Art: CBB 3.0, Art: interior design, Art: modern design, Family, Family: Extended Family and Friends | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

CBB 3.0 – Update (Walls, Floors, Paint, Cabinets)

05/04/2011

I’ve had a very busy week. My husband is home on a break from traveling so we’ve been in full-force project mode at home. That means I have blog material but no time to blog. 🙂 So this is an update on our friend’s post-flood reconstruction house with photos and lazy captions. Click here to watch a video update from one of our local news channels that aired on the 1 year anniversary of the 2010 Nashville Flood. It recaps Jeremy and Leila’s freshly renovated house being flooded, their rental house getting robbed, the demolition of their flooded house and where they’re at with the construction of their new house. Here are my pictures from a couple weeks ago…

From the dining room, facing the kitchen:

Jason and Jeremy in the living room:

Living room with high sloped ceilings since it’s at the back of the house and paper covering up the finished wood floors:

Hallway from the living room. Master bedroom is at the end to the right. Full bath on the right. Guest room, laundry room and nursery on the left, which is toward the front of the house:

Guest room:

Nursery:

Master bedroom:

Deck off the dining room:

Maggie Moo, the cow-dog:

Bonus room (office):

Bonus room looking toward the kitchen. Lucy inhaled construction dust to the point of vomiting. Fun times:

Kitchen:

Dining room shot from the kitchen. (Leila, Jeremy, Jason):

OK, all of those were my pictures. The rest of them are Jeremy’s pictures that I snagged off facebook.

Tile, countertop and vanity consideration for master bathroom:

Wood flooring installation:

Finished wood floors. Solid white oak with a stain mix of 50% jacobean and 50% dark walnut. Semi-gloss oil poly on top:

Full overlay style cabinets in the kitchen, oak with espresso stain:

Granite choice for kitchen countertops, “white sands”:

Radiant heat for concrete bathroom floors:

Master bath vanity in cherry wood with espresso stain, with finished “permacrete” concrete floors:

Same in the hall full bath:

Master bedroom accent wall in a brownish, copper color. (I’m not sure what is going on with the color in this photo. The foreground walls are either white or light gray…not blue. I didn’t take this photo but I think the orange is pretty accurate.):

That’s it for now. As you can tell, it’s very close to completion. Hopefully just another week or two and they’ll be moving in! Which should be pretty easy considering they lost 80-90% of their belongings in the flood… They have a mattress, clothes, dishes and kitchen items that could be salvaged, a few boxes of personal items, and some electronics that either weren’t in the house during the flood, have been recently purchased or survived. (Can you believe their LCD TV was submerged half way in floodwater and still works?!)

1 Comment | Art, Art: CBB 3.0, Art: interior design, Art: mid-century design, Art: modern design, Family, Family: Extended Family and Friends | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

CBB 3.0 — Update (exterior)

04/26/2011

Sorry it’s been a whole month since I’ve last updated you on the progress of CBB 3.0 – the reconstruction of our friends’ fully remodeled house that was destroyed in the Nashville flood of May 2010. The siding was put up, inspired by the design of Shelby Bottoms Nature Center.

Garage is below the house with a double door at the back.

Deck off the back of the house.

Front left corner of the house.

Triple window is in the dining room with a door that leads out to the deck. The next room over to the left is the living room.

Choosing paint colors. They wanted a light gray. The one they chose is Sherwin Williams First Star.

In daylight… it just looks like white. There will be decking leading up to the front door. Right now it looks kind of funny with the front door (set back) just hanging out up there.

I LOVE how the back of the house looks!

LOTS of people have been slowing down on their way past and lots of nosey neighbors has been showing themselves around the property. (Seriously, who does that?!) One fella even stopped and asked, “What kind of house is that?” Jeremy was a little offended. A house that people live in. A family house? Jason answered, “A modern house.” To which the guy replied, “I like it!”

1 Comment | Art, Art: CBB 3.0, Art: interior design, Art: modern design | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt