The Uptown Acorn: renovations

Showing posts with label renovations. Show all posts

Monday, September 14, 2026

Oak Branch Cottage: Progress continues...

Major progress is happening all around Oak Branch Cottage this week, bringing us another step closer to the finished product. From the front yard to the interior trim, every corner is starting to feel refreshed and full of life.

Outside in the Garden

The exterior transformation is officially underway. Our landscaper has started working on the irrigation plans, ensuring the yard will be easy to maintain for years to come. Even better, a huge delivery of landscape plants arrived at the cottage. Seeing all that greenery lined up and ready to go into the ground is making the outdoor vision feel real.

Inside Color & Paint Updates

Inside, the painters are keeping the momentum going with some stunning color choices:

Closet Doors: Got a crisp, fresh coat of Benjamin Moore's White Dove—the ultimate versatile neutral.
Hallway: We opted for color-drenching in Sherwin-Williams Rain, wrapping the walls and trim in a calming, cohesive blue.
Accent Pieces: A vintage bamboo accent chair is getting the same Sherwin-Williams Rain treatment, and its cushion is currently off being recovered to complete the look.

A Window-Cleaning Trick

One of the coolest parts of the process this week has been the window cleanup. Instead of the tedious, time-consuming work of taping off every single windowpane before painting, the team painted freely and is now cleaning the glass by scraping off the excess paint. Watching the dried paint peel right off the glass leaves behind razor-sharp edges and spotless panes. It is such a satisfying and clever trick!

Renovations are always a journey, but watching these layer-by-layer changes makes every bit of dust worth it. Stay tuned for more updates as the garden goes in and the interior details come together!

Updates, y'all!

Tuesday, September 1, 2026

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!

Sunday, August 30, 2026

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.
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!

Friday, August 28, 2026

Oak Branch Cottage: Landscape Demolition

Work is officially underway at Oak Branch Cottage, and this week brought a major milestone: full yard demolition.

Lackluster maintenance as of late had left the front, side, and back yards completely overgrown. To make way for a fresh vision, everything had to go. Trees, bushes, and outdated plantings were all cleared out, effectively creating a clean slate for the next chapter.

The Design Vision

The upcoming landscape design keeps things classic, elegant, and timeless:

Structured Boxwoods: Creating strong, clean lines and evergreen framework throughout the property.
A Crisp Palette: Dominated by rich greens and bright whites for a tailored, serene feel.

With the help of AI, I have collected some images to present to our landscaper. Remember, these are only ideas, not reality.

A project like this requires serious heavy lifting, and enormous thanks go to Jorge from JC Landscaping. Jorge has been managing the our current property’s lawn care since 2018, and he didn't hesitate to tackle this massive clearing job. Having a trusted partner on-site makes all the difference when executing a large-scale redesign.

The groundwork is officially laid, and the build-out phase is right around the corner. Stay tuned for the next update as the new plantings go in!

Demolished Landscaping, y'all!

Monday, August 24, 2026

Oak Branch Cottage: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly?

At the very beginning of this journey, I promised to keep you posted on the renovations of Oak Branch Cottage—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Well, it turns out you really do have to push through the ugly to get to the fun stuff!

The Heavy Lifting

Last week was all about the gritty, essential updates. We officially kicked off the week by tackling the ancient knob-and-tube wiring. Done and check!

Before: Furnace

After: Repaired

Before: Laundry floor rotten wood

After

Living Room floors

From there, the focus shifted to the original hardwood floors. The crew got to work cleaning, sanding, and restaining them to bring their natural character back to life. In areas where the wood was rotted, fresh boards were woven in, and we finally removed an old, bulky furnace, patching up the flooring where it once stood. Meanwhile, plumbing work is well underway. You couldn’t pay me enough money to crawl under the house, so I am endlessly grateful for the team taking that on!

Looking Ahead

J and I meet with our contractor every Sunday morning to map out the strategy for the week ahead. This coming week is all about prepping the canvas:

Removing various old doors throughout the house
Prepping and cleaning up the interior walls
Diving headfirst into paint, paint, and more paint

Even when the daily progress feels minor, I absolutely love watching the cottage transform bit by bit.

Exterior & Finishes

Outdoors, things are moving just as fast. I'm meeting with the cloth awning specialists this afternoon to finalize those details, and the landscaping crew arrives tomorrow morning to clear out overgrown brush and remove a few problem trees.

Best of all, we got to squeeze in some of the fun design work this past weekend! On Saturday, J and I took a trip to Gulf Coast Home in Bay St. Louis to meet with the owners, Wendy and Theresa. We spent the day selecting and ordering rugs, a Louis Phillipe mirror, a new bed, and outdoor furniture for the porch. {Photos to come....}

Seeing the design elements come together makes all the dust, noise, and rewiring entirely worth it. Stay tuned—the best is yet to come.

Work, work, work, y'all!

Thursday, August 17, 2023

My Classroom Theme {Classic Pennants}

For those of you who did not know or did not remember, our school received quite amount of damage from Hurricane Ida back in 2021, so this summer after much planning, the science lab has received a much needed and long overdue renovation. I was fortunate to be asked my opinions on many of the needs and wants. The area of the space did not change, but just about everything that went into the lab is brand spanking new. All lab stations are new, and I love that each has electrical outlets as well as ample storage. All cabinetry is new. The addition of tall cabinets is a plus to me. A vented hood will allow the safe mixture of chemicals, and a shower and eye wash ensures safety in case of spills and burns.

Since the lab is painted in the school colors of blue and green, I opted for a more classic theme for the school year. Vintage-style felt pennants in various headings make for a classic design. I ordered each from NoxEmber on etsy. I love how each turned out. I also used the newly painted upper glass cabinets as display cabinets and for glassware.

Again, I teach Middle School Science - 6th grade Earth Science, 7th grade Physical Science, 8th grade Life Science. This is year 14 at St. Paul's Episcopal.

Take a look at this year's theme.