Oak Branch Cottage: Renovation Updates {Bringing Back the Charm}

Things are officially moving along at Oak Branch Cottage, and we’ve reached that crucial, highly satisfying milestone: prep work for paint day! If you’ve ever taken on a historic or older home, you know that 80% of a great paint job is the invisible work that happens long before a brush ever touches the wall. Next week, the color finally goes on, but getting here took a whole lot of elbow grease—especially in the dining room and guest bedroom.

Undoing the '90s in the Dining Room

The dining room needed serious intervention. Back in the 1990s, a previous owner decided to try a very specific faux finish trend: a paper bag wall treatment intended to emulate the crinkled, rich look of tobacco leaves. While I can appreciate the creative endeavor of the era, it certainly had its day!

Stripping off layers of torn, glued-down craft paper was only step one. The heavy adhesive and rough texture meant the drywall underneath was severely damaged. The crew had to completely skim-coat and resurface the walls to get them smooth again. It was messy, labor-intensive work, but seeing a clean, level surface in that room makes every bit of plaster dust worth it.

Listing Photo

Smoothing Out the Guest Bedroom

Over in the guest bedroom, we faced a different kind of wall texture issue. A previous update involved painting directly over older wallpaper. While painting over paper can sometimes be a quick fix, time is rarely kind to that shortcut. Over the years, the wallpaper began to shift and buckle, creating visible seams and folds under the paint layer.

That bumpy, uneven texture just didn't jive with the clean, serene aesthetic I’m building for Oak Branch Cottage. Guest rooms should feel crisp, airy, and inviting. So, out came the scraper tools and joint compound to strip back the damage and restore a smooth, seamless backdrop.

Listing Photo

What’s Next?

With the walls fully prepped, repaired, and sanded down, the canvas is officially clear. Next week, the real magic happens as we start rolling on the paint and bringing color, light, and personality back into these spaces.

Stay tuned for the reveal—I can’t wait to show you the transformation!

Walls, y'all!

Oak Branch Cottage: Finding Fabrics and Trims

Yesterday afternoon was one of those deeply satisfying days where a house truly starts feeling like a home. J and I headed over to Fairfax Fabrics on Magazine Street for a long-awaited appointment with Patricia to hunt down fabrics and trims for our upcoming window treatments, a cozy window seat, and a custom shower curtain.

There is something endlessly inspiring about pulling bolts of cloth, feeling textures, and watching patterns come alive under good lighting. While perusing the endless selections is a dream in itself, having Patricia’s expert eye in the room made all the difference in turning a sea of options into a cohesive design vision.

By the time our session wrapped up, we had made some serious progress and nailed down selections for four key spaces:

• Living Room: Settled on both the primary window fabric and trim, along with a perfectly complementary fabric for the living room window seat.
  

  
  
  
  

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• Dining Room: Chosen a stunning fabric and trim pairing to set the mood for future dinner parties.

  
  
  
  
  
  

• Guest Bathroom: Selected the fabric and trim for a custom shower curtain that brings just the right touch of warmth to the space.

  
  
  
  
  
  

• Guest Bedroom: Instead of starting from scratch, we are repurposing the beloved drapes from our current sunroom. To accommodate the higher ceilings at the cottage, Patricia helped us select a gorgeous bullion fringe that will elongate the panels with a rich, deliberate finish.

  
  
  
  
  
  

• Master Bathroom: Luckily, I am also able to reuse the current shower curtain and Roman shade for the bath in the new home.

  
  
  

• Kitchen: Fabric for the kitchen cafe' curtain was also selected.

  
  
  

Piece by piece, the vision is coming together. I hope you will continue to follow along as we transform and refresh so many corners here at Oak Branch Cottage! 

Follow along @oakbranchcottage

Fairfax Fabrics, y'all!

Oak Branch Cottage: A Sourcing Trip to Gulf Coast Home

There is a distinct kind of magic in shopping for a house that is still waiting to be lived in. Last weekend, J and I made our way to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, on a targeted mission to source key pieces for Oak Branch Cottage. We kicked off the day with lunch at our absolute favorite spot, Thorny Oyster, before spending the afternoon immersed in design details with Wendy and Theresa, the talented owners of the remarkably well-appointed Gulf Coast Home.

Moving into a space defined by light, open air, and soaring 12-foot ceilings changes the rules of decorating. Scale is everything. Small, low-profile pieces get swallowed whole by high walls, so every find on our list had to hold its own weight while matching the relaxed, coastal-cottage aesthetic we love.

After hours of cross-referencing our measurements and exploring their curated inventory, we checked off several major items:

• Front Porch Living: To match the generous scale of the front porch, we selected a outdoor sofa, two armchairs, and a matching ottoman from Kingsley Bate. The high-quality teak and classic lines will ground the porch perfectly. 

  
  
  
  
  
  

• Architectural Lighting: We ordered two Monterey-style gas lanterns through Carroll by Design. Gas lighting brings an immediate, warm intimacy to tall outdoor entryways, framing the front door with classic Southern charm.

  
  
  

• Grounding the Floorplan: We selected three distinct rugs from the Jaipur Collection to anchor the living room, dining room, and main hallway, defining each zone within the open layout.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Reflecting the Light: A classic Louis Philippe mirror will hang in the dining room, drawing the eye upward and bouncing light across the high ceilings.

  
  
  

• The Master Suite: We sourced a king-sized headboard with enough height to stand proudly against the bedroom walls without feeling lost. I adore any piece with cane.

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Beyond the shop, the visual board for the cottage keeps growing. I am finalizing an order for rich grasscloth wallpaper to bring texture and warmth to the bar area. Next on the agenda, J and I are meeting with Patricia at Fairfax Fabrics to select custom window treatments to frame those beautiful, tall windows.

Decorating a space with room to breathe is standard-shifting, and watching Oak Branch Cottage come together piece by deliberate piece makes the process worth every single decision.

Decorating & Sourcing, y'all!