For the past year, literally every week, I have thought “I really need to blog a tour of our farmhouse.” Each week I have pushed it back on my To Do list because… well… life happens.  Mothering consumes my every energy and between running my photography business and my Young Living essential oils business, I get way too tired to tackle taking photos of my own house.  Plus taking photos of the house requires it to be clean long enough to take the photos. And that’s a whole other ordeal…

But alas… Bara Faith napped long enough for me to accomplish all of the above.

This farmhouse was definitely a “fixer upper” project to make it more our style. It all started one day last year by binge watching “Fixer Upper” and my inner Joanna Gaines jumped on Trulia to see if there were any old farmhouses for sale in the area.  Turns out there was, and my heart skipped a beat, and the next day we had an appointment to check it out.

“I’m just not feeling it,” Stephen said when he first walked through the house.  “Doesn’t seem our style.”

“Just trust me,” I told his inner Chip Gaines. “I have a vision (Insert here layover blueprint drawings popping up on your screen). Take away all these bold bright paint colors, and I’m going to go all white and clean. Rip out this old bathroom vanity and take down these cabinets to hang new lighting sconces and a new mirror to open up this space more. A chandelier here in this room, a chandelier there in that room, picture… farmhouse meets glam.  I totally see it, don’t you?”

Slowly it grew on him, and he trusted me.  And we put in an offer, thinking there was no way we would get it, and if we did, if we were crazy to be moving RIGHT BEFORE adopting our baby coming soon on the way. But as much as wanted it, we put it in God’s hands and surrendered it in prayer… and then He gave it back to us on Valentine’s Day when we found out they accepted our offer.  Like, wait, whaaaaat?

All in the span of a month last April, I had a new but old home to renovate, a big move from one house to another, and a newborn to care for. Life was… a whirlwind.  Were we crazy to move and become parents all at the same time?  Yes, absolutely every bit of crazy.

Then just as we were feeling settled, Hurricane Matthew hit us hard in October, and I thought I was about to lose this new but old home of my dreams. Though this house had survived 65 years of hurricanes before, Matthew really worried us as it approached closer and stronger on the radar. The day before the hurricane hit, I took the essential oils I had in my home and went around and anointed every window and doorway and prayed Psalm 91 as a prayer of protection around this home. And while neighbors homes had trees fall through their roofs, the two huge 250 year old oak trees that fell in our backyard fell only inches away from touching our home, not leaving one scratch on our home itself.  Our water well pump system was another story and had to be repaired and repiped… but that’s another story.

But this past year, this home has been everything we have prayed for it to be.  A community home. We wanted this to be a home that served others in love, and with each event we’ve hosted, it has been so fulfilling seeing so much love swirl around this new but old farmhouse of ours.

Are you ready to see our fixer upper? (Ok, I couldn’t resist saying that like my girl Joanna.)

Welcome to our 1951 Farmhome!

Each week I’m going to post different rooms inside and show some before and afters, so stay tuned.  First, join me for a walk around the property! Welcome guests!

The previous owners did not use their front door, and there was no driving path to do so. So one day Stephen and I got out there with a land tiller and created this dirt path so we could welcome our guests through the front door instead of the back kitchen door.

I mean, I couldn’t resist this front door mat I found at Hobby Lobby!

This screen door from Lowes was something I added on.  And I painted all the shutters black.  They were previously green as you’ll see in the before photo at the end of this post. I also love the old school door bell!

Enjoying some coffee on my front porch.  The rockers are from Lowes and the side table is from World Market.

My little Rhett is never far from my side!

I never thought  would ever get so into gardening.  That was always my mom’s thing and I did not grow up with the green thumb she had.  But something changed with this house, and now I have a new pride in getting my hands dirty out there to bring color and life to the outside of this home.

Butterflies were a symbolic thing between my dad and I before he passed away.  So it’s always so special to see them fluttering around my garden.

It’s that time of year when the Azaleas are starting to bloom and I of course love that they are pink!

I love all the hanging spanish moss in the trees! And I love this old wooden swing set that came with the house that our baby girl can grow up using with her friends!

Representing this amazing country we live in and the American style farmhouse. The rusty ladder was something that was used as a movie prop in the TV movie with Julia Roberts’ brother Eric that was filmed at this house in the 90s.

This vintage bird cage was another movie prop left with the house that I love to display.

One of my favorite things about this house, it came with two huge lemon trees in our backyard! We love using fresh lemons in our cooking!

I gotta admit, the squirrels eat more from here than the birds do.  Good thing I like squirrels!

Behind this flag and bucket there used to be a cute children’s play fort.  But unfortunately, when the two 250 year old oak trees uprooted and came crashing down during Hurricane Matthew, the play fort got crushed by the trees.  As sad as I was to see it go, because I envisioned our daughter playing on it growing up, better the play fort than our house.  And now I have plenty of room for my future chicken coop!

These pentas have survived everything, including the hurricane, and my forgetfulness in keeping up watering the flowers. Best low maintenance flowers ever!

My current chickens until we can add on a chicken coop and have some real life cluckers around the yard!

Our home’s mission verse.

My ever faithful watch dog! We added the cafe lights and painted the previous green porch to black.

Now to show you below how far it has all come, here’s what the front of the house used to look like when we bought it! It doesn’t even feel like the same house to me! Lots of primary colors everywhere inside and out.  Some of the main updates I did were painting all the shutters black, adding a screen door, adding some rocking chairs, and lots of landscaping! Can y’all believe the difference from the photos above? Good thing Stephen trusted my vision for it all!  ha!

So that’s a little tour around the property!  Y’all come back next week as I start to show you the inside room by room!

To celebrate Bara Faith’s adoption, I threw a belated baby shower for her as a way for our closest friends and family to all come meet her and to welcome her into our family. I drew from the colors in her nursery (those pics to come soon!), but was also really inspired by Kate Spade’s overall branding and colors as I began to discover in all  my Pinterest searching.  I don’t know how I actually planned this in the midst of moving and adjusting to life with a newborn with little sleep, but somehow I pulled it off with the amazing help of my mother-in-law watching Bara Faith while I worked on planning, girlfriends helping to make the treats and food, Etsy, and lots of coffee! Getting this glimpse of party planning gets me so excited for all the birthday parties to come!

One fun thing I had was a hairbow station!  I provided separate bows to choose for headbands, hot glue, and tags for everyone’s name to make her her own custom hairbow she can wear as she gets bigger. It was fun to have something interactive people could do at the shower that had a lasting effect. Now it’s so fun using the homemade creations to coordinate with her outfits of the day.  Which by the way, if you are on Instagram, Bara Faith has her own Instagram account for all her outfits of the day, because after all, I was shopping in faith all these years for a baby girl, and I want to remember all the cuteness.  Watch her grow outfit by outfit by following along here!

Links are at the end of this post below the photos for where I got all the cutesy details!

Here’s the links to where I got a lot of her shower decor. All I have to say is, praise Jesus for the wonderful creation called Etsy! ha!

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Diaper Cake

“It’s A Girl” Banner

Custom Onesie Cookies

Gold Tablecloth

Pink Table Runner

Table Tassels

Confetti

[/wc_column][wc_column size=”one-half” position=”last”]Chandelier Cupcake Holders

Cupcake Bow Toppers

Cupcakes

Dairy Glass Bottles & Straws & Gold Doilies

Water Bottle Design

Celebrate Coasters

Custom Baby Shower Sign Design (printed separately @ Uline.com)

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Tomorrow, Stephen and I celebrate our 5-year wedding anniversary, but we are giving each other our anniversary gift a day early, because today, that gift is, we are closing on our forever home.  Today, we bought a farmhouse!

With our baby girl on the way in May, the last thing we imagined doing… again… was moving. Even though we’ve been in a temporary rental, I was good where we were, already had her room waiting, and the closet full of an overflow of pink tutus. Not to mention, the fundraising we’ve been doing for our adoption, the last thing I wanted to add on top of remaining adoption fees were now moving expenses. Siiiiiigh….

But what’s that saying, when you make plans, God laughs.  And over the past few years, I’ve realized He loves taking us out of our comfort zones. With this now being our 4th move in 3 years, some days I feel like the Israelites taking 40 years to get to the Promised Land, when it should have been a 3 day trip, with my grumbly “Are we there yet?” whine. And although I knew the current house we were in was only a transition home, I’ve just been ready to get to our own Promised Land and finally call a house a “home.”  A forever home, to be specific.  That place where we can plant roots that becomes “our” family home over the decades. We’ve been bouncing around from home to home the past few years, and I’m happy to say THIS farmhouse is where I see us growing old together creating our family history. And this home already comes with so much history because it’s a historic 1951 farmhouse on an acre and a half of land that we look forward to soon welcoming people at…

THE KNUTH FARM

Est. 2016

Who out there is a HGTV “Fixer Upper” fan of Magnolia Farms?  Yeah, me too.  I’m a bit obsessed.  And what started as a daydream of “ohhhh let me just go look on Trulia and see if I can find a farmhouse for sale in the area as cute as Joanna Gaines’ house” turned into, oh my gosh, there’s one available, on my favorite hanging Spanish Moss Oak Tree covered street I always wanted to live on.  But knowing our baby girl was on the way, the last thing I wanted to do was move… again. So I put the daydream aside and continued watching Fixer Upper obsessing over all things shiplap and barn doors and repurposed wood.

Ok, back up… yes, in my past homes, my style has been NONE of the above. When I told my cousin about our farmhouse, even she laughed with “You? A farmhouse? Would have never guessed that one!”  But honestly, there are so many different sides of me, and the foundation of who I am and where my roots come from, as my dad used to always answer when I asked what our family nationality was, “Your bloodline is Southern, that’s all you need to know!” (hence being named after the greatest Southern heroine of them all, Scarlett O’Hara, ha!) And because of it, I’ve always wanted a very Southern home with charm and character beyond the usual Florida stucco cookie cutter home, which has been so hard to find in our area.

And so, though I tried to stop thinking of it, I couldn’t get the farmhouse for sale out of my head and I decided to go check it out one day. One showing led to another and led to putting an offer in knowing there were other offers and we probably wouldn’t get it, but next thing we know, they accepted our offer and oh my gosh did that really just happen?!?!?!?  Paging Joanna Gaines… gonna need some help here to merge my glam sparkly decor into “Farmhouse Chic” as I’m calling it! Hahahaha! Though our past few homes have been ultra girly glam with bold colors, and I loved it for that younger season of my life, this new house will be mostly be lots of clean white, black and pastels. Like our back country kitchen door, I’m turning pastel pink. Because, you know… I still need my pop of pink after all (and trust me, baby girl’s nursery will be abundantly pink to have one room in the house for my obsession). But after years of lots of pops of color, as I’ve grown older, I just want more simple, and I love the look of simple and clean as in these inspiration Pinterest Faves I have pinned.

Y’all… I honestly did. not. think. we would actually get this farmhouse.  There were so many God parting the Red Sea moments involved with purchasing this house that from day one, I have been telling everyone that this house is a true reminder of how God turns the impossible into possible.

I’m not sharing any photos of our house yet because, well, it is somewhat of a fixer upper and needs to be “Scarlettized” over time. Because my first priority is our upcoming adoption and BECOMING A MOM NEXT MONTH! Ahhhhh….  But as I finish projects, I’m sure I’ll be posting some sneak peeks on Instagram and here on the blog as our life unfolds in the farmhouse. (Stay tuned also for a new blog design update I’m working on too to better reflect and share our farm life!)

Some things I’m really looking forward to about this house… after I get used to having a newborn… ha… is having more animals!  I am a huge animal lover and really want to grow a flock of animals to add to our family. For the longest time, Stephen and I have wanted chickens… I specifically want Silkie chickens, or as I call them, the poodle of chickens.  I also want bunnies… and dwarf goats… and maybe a pig… 

And Stephen wants a big dog.  Now that we have the yard for a bigger dog, I just might let Poodle Child have a dog sibling… eventually.  Having been stuck in HOA neighborhoods that didn’t allow us to expand our animal family beyond the ducks and geese I would feed bird seed to every morning out on the lake, I’m excited to now have a piece of property that would allow us to grow our animal family, and for our baby girl to grow up learning to care for animals and grow a vegetable garden with her on The Knuth Farm.

I’m also looking forward to fostering community at our new house.  We’ve always loved entertaining, and our new home came with an in-ground bonfire pit, a basketball court, a trampoline, a built in playground and swing set, and I’m adding a porch swing to the front for long chats with girlfriends over sweet tea or homemade lemonade (because our house also came with 2 huge lemon trees draping over the backyard that I love!)  We are excited for it to be a place we can have friends and their kids over to simply do life together, host bible studies, play, and grow old in. It’s now time to plant to family roots.

Another fun fact… we found out our house was in a movie starring Julia Roberts’ brother Eric. Granted it was a cheesy TV movie in the 90s, but when I heard that, I couldn’t help but laugh. Of course, the house I would pick out, was in a movie. That was just God’s sense of humor right there as He knows my love of watching movies, and uh, being extras in movies and TV shows along my growing up.  ha!

As Helen Keller so famously said, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all…” And with all the different houses we’ve lived in over the years, that it indeed has been… an adventure. But I’m looking forward to Stephen and I walking in the door later today, and our hearts finally saying “Welcome… home.”

Though I am super excited to get back to the warm weather and sand between my toes in Florida, one thing I’m sad to leave behind is the decor job in our Nashville house.  It was the first time I worked with a professional designer, and she really opened my eyes to a lot of fun things like wallpaper which I had never used before.  If you are in the Nashville area looking for an interior decorator or designer, I highly recommend you check out Vickie with VM Designs.  So before we pack up and move in a week, I wanted to give you a tour of some of the rooms in our Nashville house.  I sure will miss the decor in this house… but onto new decor projects in Florida!  If only I could take my custom closet…. the hardest thing for me to leave behind!  Ahhhhh c’est la vie!