Spring has arrived @ 330 Lynn Drive--Part 2!

I love Spring at our house! I mentioned it previously in this post. I'm IN LOVE with this pink tree in our front yard. I wish, wish, wish that I knew what kind it is because I'm DEFINITELY planting one at our new house when we relocate.

Spring has arrived @ 330 Lynn Drive

I love SPRING...especially @ our house! I'm in LOVE with this tree in our front yard. It has BEAUTIFUL pink blossoms this time of year. Not sure what kind of tree it is. Maybe you can help me figure that out! Also, remember this post when I talked about the flower bed in the backyard? It surprised me our first Spring in the home. The flowers BURST forth out of the ground a couple of weeks ago. The purple hyacinths have finally exploded and are in full bloom. The buttercups WOULD have been in full bloom by now. Do you see the yellow color on the ground behind the hyacinth in this picture? My sweet 2 year old decided to "pick" flowers last week. He picked ALL of the blooms off of the buttercups; they were JUST about to open! Sad that I don't get to enjoy them this year. Did I mention this was the SAME day that my sweet 2 year old "dropped his fishing pole" in the creek? He walks up to me with jeans wet up to the knees. "I dropped my fishing pole and had to get it out," he explained. :) Oh what fun our "big kids" have in the creek!

Reason #738--Why we love our screen porch...

Gloomy, rainy day. Can't play outside, right? Wrong! Picnic lunch on the screen porch with our 2 "big kids" while our new little one enjoys playing in his bouncy seat & breathing in some fresh air. Our poor little winter baby has been outside less than 10 times in his short life. He's squealing and enjoying the fresh, Spring air despite the yucky rain. I love our little screen porch....perfect for days like this!

Old houses = fun, vintage bathroom tile

I remember the day that we first looked at 330 Lynn Drive. My first thought was, "Wow, everything's peach!" No, wait a minute, that wasn't my first thought! My first thought and instinct was to run to the bathroom to check out the bathroom tile. You see, I knew one thing about old houses, particularly those built in the 1950s & 1906s--they all have crazy, funky, vintage tile. Again, these crazy ceramic squares are what I love about the bathrooms in old houses; they add to the character of the home. What fun stories to be remembered and told about them!

When we were first married, we bought a teeny, tiny 2 bedroom house built in the early 1950s. I was as equally attached to that house as I am to 330 Lynn Drive. What fun memories of our little newlywed home. One of our favorite memories about THAT old house was the PEPTO BISMAL PINK bathroom tile. Those of you who've been in or owned a 1950s house know EXACTLY what I'm talking about! We first did not know what to think about the pink tile (especially my "manly" husband), but the black accent tile, which outlined the pink helped the bathroom evolve into a chic, vintage space. Imagine the fun I had filling it with black and white pictures that I took while working overseas!

So, stepping into 330 Lynn Drive--circa 1961--I quickly ran down the hall to the bathroom. I was ecstatic to see the gleam of vintage tile shining & smiling at me. This bathroom was not quite as shocking as the pepto bismal pink! We had two different shades of brown to work with, so I knew we would have fun accenting them! (Can you say, "oil, rubbed bronze"?!?!?) We were able to find a light fixture with Tiffany glass in the same shades of brown and an oil rubbed bronze faucet to spruce up the vanity. What fun to preserve the character of our home and tie in some modern updates. Tear out the vintage tile and start over? No way! No one would recognize our old home with a new bathroom. Well, I guess we could have, but we wanted to maintain as much of her original features as we could.

My husband and I talk about the bathrooms of our old houses like old war stories. We now have had pepto bismal pink and retro brown. We're hoping to find an old house in our new town, so who knows what color we'll have next! Sea Foam Green, Goldenrod, Powder Blue....oh yeah! Those could be next!

How it all began...

My husband and I love old houses. When we moved to Nashville 5 years ago, we left a sweet little old house built in the 50's. We knew we wanted to find another old house to love here in Nashville. Four and a half years ago, we were elated to find another "little old house" to love--330 Lynn Drive.

I think that I love old houses because they have such wonderful stories. Part of the reason that I wanted to have a blog about our house, as we prepare to sell her, is to pass along the wonderful stories that she contains. We love this little old house, and we want her next owners to love her just the same. So, welcome to our blog about 330 Lynn Drive!

"The best commute in Nashville"

The title of this post is a direct quote from my husband. 330 Lynn Drive is located less than 5 minutes from the Harding Place exit on Interstate 65. My husband works near Maryland Farms, which is one exit south (Brentwood/Old Hickory Blvd.) on I-65. So, he enjoys a 15 minute commute each day because he's going and coming from work opposite of the bulk of commuters. When I-65 is blocked or crowded, he can just head to and from work on Franklin Road. Oh the beauty of living at 330 Lynn Drive!

One of the things that we've grown to love about 330 Lynn Drive is that we're 15 minutes from most EVERYTHING in Nashville. Being new to town, we didn't realize this when we bought the house. So, as we ventured out around town, we realized how CONVENIENT everything is to where we live! What a pleasant surprise!

From our house...
*It's less than 5 minutes to Interstate 65
*It's less than 5 minutes to the NASHVILLE ZOO! (wahoo!)
*It's less than 5 minutes to Baja Burrito (can I get another Wahoo??)
*It's less than 5 minutes to Kroger & Aldi. (We're going to miss sweet Mrs. Linda @ Kroger, who gives our boys a handful of suckers and stickers every time we're there!)
*It's less than 10 minutes to Brentwood (and for those of you who, like me, love TARGET, it's about 7 minutes to the Target on Old Hickory Boulevard! There's a short cut to getting there; I'll tell you about it @ the closing, deal?)
*It's less than 10 minutes to Nipper's Corner (Edmonson Pike Library, Wal-Mart Market and yummy Jet's Pizza & Las Palmas!)
*It's less than 15 minutes to Green Hills (an abundance of MORE great shopping & eating venues. Can you say Cheesecake Factory?!?!)
*It's less than 15 minutes to Downtown (Including Belmont, Lipscomb, & Vanderbilt Universities. We're frequent visitors to Storytime & Puppet Shows @ the Downtown Library!!)
*It's less than 15 minutes to Cool Springs (all the shopping you can HANDLE...PLUS, Costco--our favorite!)

330 Lynn Drive affords you a wonderful 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath home (w/a CREEK and SCREEN PORCH!!!), but one of it's other gleaming assets is that she's close to EVERYTHING! You'll love calling her home.

The original owners

330 Lynn Drive was built in the 1960s, and when we bought the house 4+ years ago, we bought it from the ORIGINAL OWNERS! Isn't that amazing?!?! We'll call this family, the original owners, the Smiths. When we closed on the house, Mrs. Smith, who was now a widow in her 90s, came to the closing. It was wonderful!

I think of Mr. and Mrs. Smith often. I wish I had gotten the opportunity to know them and to learn more stories about our house. After living here, though, I've learned a few things about Mr. and Mrs. Smith. First, they built this house well. I often tell my husband that this house is built like a tank! It's held up well these 50+ years. It appears that anytime they had to repair something in the house, they didn't "cut corners." T hey loved their little house. Second, Mrs. Smith LOVED flowers. In the backyard, she has a special flower bed, which is circular and surrounded by bricks, and each Spring purple hyacinths and buttercups burst forth from the ground. I was surprised to meet these beautiful creations our first Spring in the house. They're beautiful, and I was excited to see them bursting forth again as I played with our boys outside today. Finally, they must have loved the color peach. Ever inch of every wall was covered with that paint color when we moved in. We had to part ways with that paint; we weren't that sad about it, though. Hopefully, if Mr. and Mrs. Smith could look at the house now, they would approve of all the many changes that we made when we moved in.

Kitchen

I love my kitchen...for LOTS of reasons actually! I love all of the cabinet space, the 2 glassed cabinets so I can display my china, AND I love that it's a MASSIVE room! I love what our kitchen has become.

Do you remember this post where I mentioned that when we moved in everything in the house was painted peach? Well, the kitchen and her cabinets were no exception! This was one of the last rooms in our house that we tackled. We dreaded painting the cabinets, but it actually was not that difficult. We loved how they turned out and were so glad that we painted them. As I packed up some pictures this week, I found a picture that I had taken of our son shortly after we moved here. The picture was taken in the kitchen, and those GLORIOUS peach cabinets w/BRASS handles were GLEAMING in the background. Speechless was I; really glad we painted those cabinets (and ditched the brass cabinet pulls).

Before my husband and I moved to Nashville, I worked at a university and coordinated service project trips for the students. Most of these trips were over Spring Break, and several of these trips occurred in other countries. I had the privilege of going on two international trips a year. Before taking that job, I actually lived for a year in Egypt. Transitioning to a stay-at-home mom, I wanted some way to see those places and remember them; primarily, I wanted to remember the people that I'd met in the dozens of countries that I saw. I had this CRAZY idea to display my favorite pictures from these international travels; of course, the shots had to be in black and white. I wasn't sure how to "pull off" my crazy idea UNTIL we bought this house! With such a massive kitchen and consequently, massive wall space, my idea became a reality! It helps that my favorite color is gray, so we "grayed" the kitchen, which perfectly coordinated with all of my black and white photos. I love that I can see all of these beautiful places and people each day! I get to relive each trip on a daily basis!

The Creek

One of my OTHER favorite things about 330 Lynn Drive is that there is a CREEK at the back of our property. Just follow this little wooden bridge seen above, and you're there! When we moved here, our oldest son was 6 months old, and I knew immediately that the creek would provide us hours of fun! It DEFINITELY has now that our family has grown to three boys! They love to play in the creek, throw rocks in the creek, go "fishing" in the creek. We've even had ducks stop by for a short visit in our creek! We fed them bread hoping that they would stick around and become the "pets" of our creek, but sadly, they flew on. Who knew that in the HEART of Nashville, you could have a CREEK in your backyard?!?! It's nice to live in the city, but have some amenities of the "country" like this creek.

The Screen Porch

One of my FAVORITE things about 330 Lynn Drive is the SCREEN PORCH! This was definitely one of the reasons that we bought this house! We've enjoyed this "room" of our house so much! It's been a wonderful space to enjoy the cool weather of the Spring and Fall without those pesky mosquitoes! With the ceiling fan, it makes it pleasant even in the midst of these hot Tennessee summers! One of my other favorite things about the screen porch is that it has been a GREAT play area for my kids! They can still "play outside" when it's raining outside--glorious! The screen porch is located right off of the kitchen, so I've been able to easily prepare breakfast, lunch, or dinner and keep my eye on them.

2 1/2 Baths

Here are some shots of the 2 1/2 baths!

Bath #1 (Full Bath off Main Hall)

Bathroom #2 (Half bath--off of Master Bedroom upstairs)
Bathroom #3 (Full Bath off of Downstairs Bedroom)

Four Bedrooms

We've enjoyed ALL four bedrooms of 330 Lynn Drive! There is a Master bedroom with an attached half bath on the main floor. There is also a bedroom downstairs with an attached full bath, which could also be a Master bedroom.

Our current Master Bedroom (w/attached half bath)
Bedroom #2
Bedroom #3
Bedroom #4 (With attached full bath. Currently a guest room. Located downstairs. For the first year that we lived here, we rented out the entire basement)