For Adam Ford and Rachel Modahl, Nashville is much more than the center of country music or one of the fastest growing cities in the country. It is the hometown they chose. Having grown up elsewhere—Adam in Texas, Rachel in Chicago—they moved to Nashville for the quality of life and the culture the city is known for. Now, with two young children, Oscar, 5, and Greta, 3, they are here to stay, in their newly renovated 1929 brick cottage, in the historic East Nashville neighborhood of Lockeland Springs.
The feeling of coming home to this house is amazing,” says Adam. Adds Rachel: “We’re extremely lucky to be able to walk to Oscar’s school and it has made us already more connected to the neighborhood and our neighbors.”
The couple bought the house knowing it needed work—from the cramped no-storage kitchen, sole bathroom, and primary bedroom with no HVAC to the front yard made bare by a tornado before they owned the house.
Less than a year ago, they turned to husband-wife general contractors Javier Gutierrez and Lyn Bowman and architect Kaitlyn Smous for a makeover, which TOH TV documented for its 46th season. While staying within the house’s footprint and maintaining the integrity of the main façade for historic preservation reasons, the house grew from 1,900 square feet to 3,400 square feet, thanks to an innovative design that transformed the attic and basement and created an open-plan layout for the back half of the first floor.
“I like the size of this project and the fact that they kept the front of the house historic and wanted to keep the old house charm,” says TOH general contractor Tom Silva.
Keeping Original Elements in Front
While leaving the front of the house untouched, they worked to retain as many original interior elements as possible. Indeed, every one of the first-floor’s front rooms—the dining room (now a music room), living room, and a porch that they had been using as their primary bedroom (now the office)—still has vintage appeal.
When the demo team removed paneling from the walls of the porch, they discovered original brick exterior walls, which Rachel and Adam chose to leave exposed. In that same room, they reused the kitchen’s original pine back door and installed it as a hallway door. They also kept the porch’s quirky jalousie-style windows with their louvered slats and crank hardware. In the living room, they chose to remove paint to reveal the original stone fireplace surround.
They pitched in and did much of the salvaging work themselves. For example, they stripped the paint off the dining room’s original French doors (“We both worked way too many hours doing that,” says Rachel) and reused old pine paneling from the attic as wainscoting. Adam himself cleaned and refurbished all the old mortise locks and door hardware throughout the house.
New Open-Plan Living
On the first floor, the biggest impact in living space came at the back of the house, when the contractors removed walls to create an all-new open-plan kitchen-dining area, which is now the heart of the house. “The kitchen is one of the main reasons we renovated the house,” says Adam. “We really wanted a space where we could cook together and hang out.” The kitchen area includes a center island with sink, prep surface, and bar stools—pulled up to a soapstone overhang supported by cedar posts salvaged by Adam with Tom Silva’s help.
The kitchen’s perimeter is lined with a mix of floor-to-ceiling cabinetry and counter-height open shelving that emphatically ended the couple’s no-storage woes. For a distinctive look, Rachel and Adam chose black for the kitchen cabinetry color and they lined the perimeter wall with a black floral wallpaper. The adjacent dining area offers room for a large gathering table. Big sliding doors along the exterior wall lead from the kitchen-dining area to a porch stretching the full length of the house.
“The open plan really turns the house into a whole different place, ready for the family and showing a lot of personality with some unusual choices,” says TOH host Kevin O’Connor.
Second-Floor Expansion
For sleeping spaces, the builders transformed the formerly unusable attic into a full second floor with the addition of a full-length rear dormer. The dormer addition enabled the ceiling height to be raised to 8 feet and provided floor space for two kids’ bedrooms, a hallway bath for the kids, an open play area, and a primary suite.
A pocket door, installed by contractor Lyn Bowman with an assist from Tom, makes it easy to close off the primary suite from the rest of the second floor. Throughout the second floor, extra storage space is found in kneewall niches accessed by strategically placed doors. A small laundry area is located near the kids’ bedrooms for convenience.
A Better Basement
To TOH plumbing and heating expert Richard Trethewey, the biggest transformation is the basement. “You could make an argument that the new foundation created the biggest change of all,” says Richard. Indeed, the precast 10-foot-high foundation walls—which replaced the original crumbling foundation after the house was temporarily moved into the backyard—created a brand-new, properly insulated and conditioned, 1,000-square-foot space with plenty of headroom.
“The possibilities are endless,” adds Richard, who noted that the smart new HVAC system featured reusing an existing gas-fired hot water heater and an existing gas-fired unit to heat and cool the basement and first floor, while adding a new heat pump to condition the new second floor. Functional spaces in the new basement include a utility sink, bathroom, and laundry area that are in place already and rough-ins for a future in-law suite. They also built a safe room in the basement to provide a haven in case of a tornado or other weather emergency.
Adding Modern Materials
Their love of the house’s historic character didn’t stop Rachel and Adam from adding a new look to the exterior with modern materials and an updated color scheme. New windows for the entire house (except the former porch) are painted black. They chose a medium gray for the front façade’s existing clapboard siding to provide a color contrast with the brick that makes up most of the façade.
Out back, where the façade is entirely new, they chose composite rice hull siding left unpainted in a bold contrast to the black window trim and a cable railing for the first-floor porch off the kitchen-dining area. The new roof is charcoal gray. “We were glad there weren’t any historic district restrictions about exterior color,” says Rachel.
Outdoor Spaces for Enjoying the Neighborhood
With many young families in the area, Rachel and Adam wanted to make sure they incorporated beauty in their outdoor spaces where they could be part of the action. In front, TOH landscape contractor Jenn Nawada liked their choices for smooth concrete walkways bordered by hydrangea, ornamental grasses, salvia, lavender, and catnip, plus foundation plantings including azalea and juniper. “These plants and a new shade tree all create a perfect spot where they can sit and chat with neighbors,” says Jenn, who helped plant a serviceberry tree in front.
Home, At Last
After the long renovation and the hard work, Rachel and Adam see the project as a fresh beginning for the entire family. “We’re loving the layout of the house—and getting our leg workouts in, going up and down three floors,” says Adam.
Having projects to look forward to keeps them motivated: “We’ve already started clearing out some of the brush in the back so we can implement some landscaping back there,” says Rachel. But most of all, it’s the time spent together that matters most, now and for the future. Says Rachel: “We’ve already had some family dinners eating on the back deck and can’t wait to do this more, here in our home.”
Directory and Resources
Builder: GTZ Construction; (615) 394-1035. Architect: nine12architects.com. Landscape design: gardensofbabylon.com. Kitchen cabinets: Hunter & Son Custom Cabinets; facebook.com/HunterandSonCabinets. Painting contractor: harpethpaintingllc.com. Roofing, underlayment: gaf.com. Porch decking: Azek; timbertech.com. Tile waterproofing: schluter.com.
Plumbing fixtures: kohler.com. Electrical components: Schneider Electric, se.com/us/en. Pocket door hardware: cavitysliders.com.