Tennessee

   Our daughter, Danielle, recently moved to Nashville. We spent a week at the end of April with her and traveled to see other family nearby. What an adventure it was!

DAY 1: SUNDAY....LANDED IN NASHVILLE AROUND 9PM

   

Danielle met us at our Airbnb, that we rented near her home. She had local beers and t-shirts laid out for us, along with groceries that I requested for our stay.                                She's quite the hostess :) 

Well, no time to waste~!!! We head out for dinner and drinks (which turned into shots) at The Red Door Saloon. Followed by a cruise down the wild side of Nashville: Broadway Street. 

DAY 2: MONDAY....we hit the ground running..... busy day.

      Visit Danielle's place first. She has such a cute Boho vintage Vibe going on. 

Breakfast at the Frothy Monkey in the nearby community of 12 South was a great start to our day. This was followed by a 3.2 mile walk around Radnor Lake. Honestly, felt so good to do this walk. 

 This is south of Nashville, close to Brentwood, TN.

I loved this place....would do it again and try to take some of the side trails. 

On our way back to Nashville Danny mentioned he 

wanted to check out a few local vintage guitar stores. 

Carter Vintage Guitars

Carter Guitars is close to Music Row, in what they call "The Gulch" community. 

Back to our places and meet up in an hour for another great meal:

Danielle's friend suggested the Fable Lounge...said it would be 'classy' for us. 

This is in West Nashville by Centennial Park, near the Vanderbilt Stadium.

It was so classy.....highly recommend this place. We started outdoors with a charcuterie board, and bottle of wine. Moved indoors for a nice dinner, with a 2nd bottle of wine..... then back out on patio with the fire pits for cigar (Danny) and more wine :) 

They have a full bar, delicious menu, excellent wines and a cigar humidor. Primo! 

                       28 year old                       
 

   vs: 58 year old

long day....but don't stop me now! :)  

Checked out the Local Bar NA next door for a nightcap and some live music. The band was great....The Sam Banks and Will Jones Band, if you care to look 'em up. 

Fable Lounge

the Local Bar, Nashville

DAY 3: TUESDAY

     Moving slow this morning making our way to see family in Seymour, near Knoxville. 

Derek met us at Danny's sister, Melanie's home, where we had great conversions about family, old times and new adventures. Enjoyed a great local BBQ dinner, then moved on to the front porch for some music by Dani and Derek. Cousins harmonizing and sharing their love of music was a real treat. 

DAY 4: WEDNESDAY 

   Met up with Danny's brother in law, Larry and Carol for lunch and then drove to a lookout spot of the Smokey's Mts. 

Sipping on some blackberry Wine from Larry. 

Amazing views of the Smokey Mts from Cades Cove.

Then back to Nashville and had a dinner on our own, at Barcelona Bar, giving Danielle a little break: lol.

And then she surprises us by picking up the tab!!!! What a sweetheart... did not expect that.

We had dinner Tapa style, where you get small plates and just sort of nibble your way through dinner, rather than getting served a large plate of food. I really like this way of eating. 

A good Pinot

Barcelona Wine Bar

DAY 5: THURSDAY, another very full day.  It was a rainy day, so we changed our plans a bit. We had wanted to go to the Arington Winery, but that'll wait until next time. 

     

 Nashville Jam Co. for breakfast close to Music Row was good relaxing start to our day. 

Danielle has to go to work today, so we make plans of our own ;) 

Moonshine Harley Davidson shop in Franklin, TN. to get some memorable and a few gifts from our trip. We also end up speaking with the 'greeter' of the store and she's the mother of Julia Michaels, country and pop singer/songwriter. She was very sweet and we enjoyed a good talk about the music industry and being the parent of an artist. They're also from CA. moving here for her career. Small world. Danielle was bummed she missed out on meeting her. Fan of Julia

   

Me, planning and maybe 'orchestrating' our 

next move sitting outside in the rain while Danny enjoys a stogy. 

 LOL 

  

Back to Nashville; I take a quick stop in  Draper James, Reese Witherspoon's store, bought a few trinkets to take home. It is located in the busy area of 12 South. She has good quality clothing and lots of southern charm and memorabilia like bags and t-shirts. 

After this we met up with a high school classmate, Dave Furrer at the Edley BBQ who invited us for drinks. Where he and Danny found a common interest of dirt bikes and reminisced of the good ole days of motocross racing. 

RH Cafe

     My choice for being spoiled. What a fabulous place. But, I'll warn you, it's not cheap, even if you don't buy furniture ....haha 

They encourage you to walk all through the showroom after dinner. This is the upper deck with the outdoor furniture. Oooolala.

Day 6: FRIDAY

      I took a walk for coffee by myself to the Frothy Monkey in 12 South, where we're becoming regulars...haha. 

      The walk is easy and surrounded by lush green lawns and big trees all along the way. There's one signal to cross right by the rental, but nothing too busy. 

Danielle wanted to show us the Parthenon Art Museum. 

It was very cool, with some good history, and much needed for a slower paced day. 

Athena 

   We picked the other Red Door Saloon on the east side for a late lunch. 

This community is called East Nashville

Danielle has plans for tonight, so we enjoyed relaxing evening in with a little music and tv. 

Also, preparing for leaving for home the next day :(

I'll mention our Airbnb which I booked through True Avenue (Booking.com). It was intended to sleep  

4-6 people, but the location and price was too ideal to pass it up for just the 2 of us. I liked that it was in a quiet residential neighborhood, walking distance to food and Danielle. 

See our Airbnb here.

Caught the sunset driving back from Danielle's home. 

DAY 7: SATURDAY.

     Getting ready to head home today, but first we need to ship out Danny's new guitar at the UPS store....of yah, he found a vintage Gibson Explorer. 

  Breakfast: We drove by this place and it turned out to be great. We have the best luck.

 

  This community is Berry Hill. 

      

 The Big Machine

Great breakfast, the perfect Bloody and live music all day. 

Indoor and outdoor dining. 

Thank you Nashville you've been good to us. 

We love the TN southern charm, and thankful Danielle is finding a good home here. 

I would encourage visitors to stay off the main downtown areas

 and visit the small surrounding communities like we did.

 I'm starting my list for our next visit to TN. 

 

SMALL, BUT MIGHTY, MASTER BATH REMODEL (the final remodel)

On another episode of this old house....

     We've lived in our 1950's home since 1993....that's 27 years. We've wanted to update our bath for awhile, but have just done minor things to it, like hardware and paint. But, finally, at this (st)age we had to something about that darn bath. It's deep entry into the shower was becoming a real issue. 

Old shower/tub combo was such a curious set up.

The picture doesn't show the entry height, but 

it was about 20" off the floor to get into the tub.... "like why?"

       This remodel took us about 5 weeks to complete, but then we waited on Lowes for our vanity top until Sept 29th!....  Working every weekend, and most evenings, we did the majority of the work ourselves. We hired out a few jobs: like sheet-rock, electrical and painting. But, did demo, tiling, install and remodeling ourselves. We've made at least 50 trips to Home Depot and Lowes, but in the end, it turned out like we envisioned and planned. 

      ** This was done during the COVID so, our plans to have custom cabinets was not a possibility...at least, we didn't get any calls back for months. Seems we weren't the only ones remodeling.

                                                         Here are some inspiration pictures:

or look at my

Pinterest Board

We wanted a modern, but warm bathroom.  " Modern Farmhouse". The key is to bring warmth into this modern color scheme with greige toned carpet in bedroom and painting walls the S.W. Agreeable Grey in both bed and bath with Dover White on woodwork and trim.

My dream counter (above) was not going to happen....this granite is only available as a full slab :(

                                                    

After deciding on the color scheme, we needed to decide where to put the colors: it could've gone either way...Black floor, white shower , but we did the reverse, with a slate looking tile on the shower walls. So glad we did. 

June, 2020....Let the Demo begin!!!

    Danny started hitting the tile walls, thinking it would all crumble. But, it was all stubborn and made to last. We were pleased to find very little water damage. 

I knew this was how it would start.....one day Danny would just start
 to demo the shower and tub enclosure. BANG!

Replacing with lighted Halo mirror. 
I may miss those side mirrors.

Originally a water heater closet, currently we have 
make-shift shelving and removed door. 
PLanning for open shelving and lights.

First the dirty work

Emptying the tub that collected the tile from the shower walls demo. 

We opened up our bathroom window and threw all rubble out into a wheelbarrow. 

Demolition was over, but we had some plaster in need of repairs. As it turned out the plaster that was covering the original Sheetrock would take an expert to make it look right, so instead Danny hired someone to remove all the plaster walls and replace with all new Sheetrock.
Good time to replace all insulation, too. 

Danny's able to work with the original plumbing. He did all the plumbing, didn't need to hire out. 👍

The redwood and nails they used over 50 years ago were made to last a long time.

Let's do this!

(one last time)

Making a clean cut in the Vinyl floor to tile over.
It's close to impossible to remove all the old flooring, and not necessary. 

Widening the wall by the toilet just a few inches to allow more view & light into the room.

Instagram post....I was a bit proud of
my organization skills.😀
 It truly helped.

The Vanity and Closet area before new Sheetrock is installed.

Now the Prep Work




Getting the shower floor ready. You can see the
walls are ready for plaster and tile.

Next....Installing

It took us a few days to fully tile the shower. By the way....Large tiles are heavy! Danny decided half way to add the portion of floor tile as a border....good decision. It makes for a really nice contrast. We chose "Cascade Ridge" tile from Home Depot for the shower walls with Charcoal Grout.

This dark grout scared the crap out of me to do. I didn't apply it properly, 

when I would wipe it, it just spread all over the place. It needed to be dryer, and I kept it wet.

 Danny did the shower floor. 

We now know the difference between sanded and non-sanded grout. 😄

Floor tile was also very large and heavy to install.

 We chose Daltile's "Hamilton Lineargray" for the floor with the Charcoal grout. 

                                  Time to paint....hired Ron Brown for this job.

bathroom completed

Blushing Ivory quartz counter top by Allen+Roth from Lowes, square modern
sink and Moen single faucet in brushed nickel. Counter accessories from Target. 
 Thomspon Vanity Cabinet in dark grey is from Build.com.
And, of course, the Haushcen LED lighted Vanity Mirror. 

Waiting for the vanity and sink top for almost 2 months was annoying, 
but really happy with our choices. The quartz was thicker than expected and the modern sink and faucet are a great look. 

 

Custom insert by Danny with lighted shelves. He did a beautiful job.

Toilets are important....taller, and yes, that's a bidet. 😉

Highly recommend these dispensers...
eliminate the messy bottles.

Moen showerhead with magnetic wand.

Modern Wall Art from Homegoods

The slate black shower with marble accents and penny flooring 
look great, but the flooring feels so good, too.
Oh...and what about that Vigo shower door in matte black?! Danny's find.

It's sophisticated, but not over the top for our small bathroom. Modern, yet cozy, don't you think?
Someone said it was "spa-like".... I love that. 

Now for some real figures....this stuff is hard work and not cheap, but doing it ourselves definitely saved us at least10K. We paid too much for a few items, just due to availability, but that's how it goes sometimes.  

We spent about $8400 on the bathroom remodel. But, our professional 

quotes were all over $20,000, so we did good. 

Some of the cost breakdowns: 

Labor:

    $1600 - sheetrock replacement on all walls and ceiling. 

     $985 -  7 recessed lights in bedroom and bath. New exhaust fan and update all electrical                   outlets/switches--Tyler Trull Electrician

     $720 Painters; Primer and paint -- Ron Brown

Large items:

     $1200 - Dark Grey Vanity (Build.com)

     $1200 - Vanity top and sink (Lowes)

     $730 - Halo Mirror

     $930 - Shower Door 

View from our bedroom where we also installed new carpet and fresh paint. Still haven't decided on an area rug, but I know I'll find it. Kind of fun to drag it out a little longer :) 

  ** SPECIAL NOTE

          This was done during the COVID virus pandemic. Made it more difficult to purchase items, low supply and contractors were busier than usual.  It was a very busy DIY time for homeowners and contractors were extremely busy.