At Home With Mandy Pellegrin

We are so happy to welcome Mandy Pellegrin to the blog today to share her lovely home with us!

"My husband Michael and I moved into this home last September. We were moving back to Nashville from DC, where we'd lived the last eight years. After sharing a very small condo for years, we weren't terribly picky, but we knew we wanted a place within walking distance of some restaurants and bars. And I had my heart set on an older home. This 1935 Tudor revival sort of had me the minute I saw those open stairs and the archways in the living room, and located in East Nashville, it's within walking distance of a lot of great spots.

"Picking a favorite spot in our home is a very difficult choice. I obviously love my workspace/craft room because it's all mine, and even having one feels like such a luxury, but my favorite is the master bedroom. It's a converted attic and sort of lofted above the living room atop the open stairway that won me over from the beginning. The odd angles required a little creativity—including DIYing the ultimate headboard and hiring out for some custom shelves in a nook where former owners must have situated their beds. Also, when we moved in, the skylights had no coverings on them, so it was about the brightest room on earth—not so great for a bedroom. Once we got shades on those bad boys, it was basically perfection. Overall, despite its eccentricities, openness, and size (it's as big as our entire DC condo), it's surprisingly cozy.

"I'm an avid DIYer—so much so that I co-own an adult craft party business (as we say, "one part workshop, two parts party") called Craftcourse Nashville—so this place is full of projects. Everything from nearly every accent and throw pillow to the refinished dining table and chairs to the living room light fixture to the bedroom headboard and bench are DIY projects, most of which are chronicled on my blog Fabric Paper Glue. My sweet, sweet dad painted every last surface downstairs—including about three coats of the navy paint (on which I had my heart set on) on the heavily-textured living room walls. The man is a saint. I'm also pretty proud of the fact that I hung all of the wallpaper myself.

"I have integrated some older pieces in recognition of the home's age. The Eastlake-style dining room chandelier, for example, was a gift from my in-laws, who used to do a fair amount of antiquing. The menu board in our kitchen was a score from the Nashville Flea Market, and we got our dining room table from a local estate sale shop for a steal.
And maybe my favorite backstory of all—I totally found the chair in our bedroom's reading nook on the side of the road waiting for the garbage truck. After some disinfectant, spray paint, and new DIY cushions, it's the perfect little chair for this nook.

"We've owned the house since last July and lived here since last September. The first project included a total gut job on the kitchen. It's former self was completely bare bones—a single row of cabinets, a stove sort of floating by itself on an empty wall, and a fridge that was in a totally different room. We hired pros to move a doorway to create the needed layout for the perfect little galley kitchen full of light, bright finishes.

"Otherwise, a nice little dose of under-employment and a very clear vision for the place helped me get it all decorated and in order at lightning pace. Since then, the only things that have really evolved have been the workspace, which revealed its shortcomings pretty quickly after, you know, actually working in it, and the addition of a little record player station when my husband took up a new LP hobby."

Thank you for sharing your gorgeous home with us, Mandy! You can find more of Mandy on her blog, Fabric Paper Glue, or her website. xo.
Credits // Author and Photography: Mandy Pellegrin.