Houzz Tour: A Fresh Start in a Midcentury Ranch House

Hannah Crowell and James Wilson’s friends thought they were crazy. That’s because when the couple showed photos of the home they had just bought to their friends, people couldn’t get past the home’s terrible condition. The house hadn’t been touched since it was built in 1960, and it had urine-soaked floors from previous renters with dogs, asbestos-filled linoleum in the kitchen and wood paneling everywhere. “It was a disaster — disgusting and awful,” Crowell says.

But when Crowell first walked into the midcentury ranch-style home, in Nashville, she knew it was meant for her and her family. Crowell and Wilson, both interior designers, were up for the challenge. They gutted the home, taking out a wall in the kitchen to open it to the family room, and absorbed a hallway powder room into their new master bathroom. New floors, all-white walls and plenty of art and knickknacks transformed the space too — and now the couple doesn’t seem so crazy after all.

Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: Designers Hannah Crowell and James Wilson and their daughters, Iris (age 7) and Adeline (8)
Location: Nashville
Size: 2,400 square feet; 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
That’s interesting: Crowell’s grandfather was country music icon Johnny Cash.

BEFORE: Wood paneling defined most of the rooms in the house, and the couple had to pull up two layers of asbestos-filled linoleum flooring in the original kitchen.


AFTER: The couple took the home down to the studs, with Wilson doing almost all of the work himself except for the electrical, plumbing and drywall. “It really came down to nothing,” Crowell says. “And then you put it back together.”

They didn’t add any square footage but instead worked to open up the floor plan and repurpose rooms into more useful spaces. In the kitchen they added new appliances and cabinets but left the uppers off, because they felt they made the room too claustrophobic. A new eating area has a cushion-topped bench with storage underneath.

The art piece on the right is by folk artist Howard Finster; it depicts country musician Hank Williams.

Table: Blu Dot





The stove, sink and fridge stayed in the same location. The countertop is honed statuary marble, and the backsplash is made of honed 3-inch by 6-inch Carrara marble tiles. Marble shows up a lot in the home; it’s Crowell’s favorite material for countertops and tile. “I just like how it’s bright and soft,” she says. “A lot of my clients will not put marble in the kitchen because they’re afraid it will get damaged. But I’ve had marble in several kitchens, and you can pour a glass of red wine on it and wipe it right off. … Half of Italy is marble, and it’s beautiful,” she says. The only thing that will ruin it, she adds, is lemon juice.

Five Bocci outlets sit flush with the backsplash and are one of the couple’s favorite things in the house. “They are ridiculously expensive — it’s so stupid. We could only afford five of them,” says Crowell. “If we did them in the whole house, we would have had to sell a kidney. And they’re a pain to put in and get right, but we love them. They are the first thing we make people look at when they come into the house.”

Wilson built the floating shelves from reclaimed wood.


BEFORE: A wood-paneled family room just off the kitchen felt a bit too compartmentalized, so the couple knocked down the wall on the right to connect the space with the kitchen’s eating area.





AFTER: Crowell chose Decorators White by Benjamin Moore for the wall, ceiling and trim paint throughout the home. “It’s just a nice, bright white,” she says. “I use a lot of creamier whites for my clients, but we just wanted something completely stark.”

They use the fireplace in the family room for wood storage; there’s another working fireplace in the living room that they use.

Wilson made the coffee table and side table. The plant is a fiddle leaf fig.

Ceiling light: Serge Mouille; sofa: Lee Industries; chair: Joinery; art: Jay Murphree; lamp: Ikea





For the living room, the couple chose a crisp white palette to make their collection of knickknacks and art look a little less busy. “We are like hoarders of weird, small things,” Crowell says. “So it needed to be a clean slate for all of our stuff.”

The floors are pine with an ebony stain. Wilson built the floating shelves bookcase.

The chair is an old piece that Wilson has had for a long time. The couple used a blanket to cover a couple of old Ikea pillows for the cushions. The stuffed bunny rabbit, a gift to daughter Adeline from her godfather, has become a family mascot, Crowell says. “It always sits somewhere of prominence,” she says.

Art: Jay Murphree; coffee table: Nouveau Living; rug: eBay


The collections throughout the home are a mix of flea market finds and things each family member has discovered outdoors. “There are constantly giant sticks in our house for odd reasons,” Crowell says. “Between my husband and 7-year-old daughter, it’s a forest inside sometimes.”


The piano had been left behind in a former house that Crowell and Wilson lived in. “The previous homeowners didn’t feel like moving it. Now it’s probably one of my favorite things I own,” Crowell says.

Here Iris (left) and Adeline practice a tune.



The arrangements of the collections are compromises between Crowell and Wilson. Crowell says she’ll place an object on a table or shelf, then walk through the room later and notice that her husband has moved it. She might then move it somewhere else, and so on. “Eventually everything settles into a spot that we’re both happy with,” she says.

On top of the piano is one of Crowell’s favorite photographs. It’s of her father with country music icon Johnny Cash, who was Crowell’s grandfather, playing guitar. “It was just such a happy day for the two of them to be playing together,” she says.


Though the couple doesn’t drink, a bar cart from West Elm displays liquor bottles in the living room for when they have guests over. “Plus it just really kind of looks pretty,” Crowell says.





Crowell runs her interior design business from the home office she shares with Wilson.


Wilson collects vintage cameras and design magazines. (He has every issue of Monacle ever published.)


BEFORE: Pink tile, a pink tub and pink sinks dominate the daughters’ and guest bathroom. Here too everything came down to the studs and was rebuilt.


AFTER: Fresher finishes, like a honed Carrara marble countertop and concrete floor tiles, have updated the space. To save money, the couple went with simple white wall tile from Lowe’s with black grout.

Lights: Alto Sconce, Cedar & Moss; faucets: Delta






Adeline’s room gets a dose of color from window treatments and bedding. The trunk belonged to Crowell’s mother.

Window treatments: Christopher Farr; bedding: Nandini; lights: West Elm


In Iris’ room (she’s the one jumping on the bed), Hygge & West’s Daydream wallpaper adds a graphic element.





The goal in the master bedroom was to make it “clean, simple, bright and white,” says Crowell.

Wilson built the bedside tables and even cut the bed down so it fit beneath the window frame. The framed pieces are vintage indigo fabrics.

Lights: CB2


The shower used to be a tiny powder room off the hallway; the couple absorbed it into their master bathroom. Six- by 12-inch honed Carrara marble tiles cover the walls, while polished Carrara marble in a herringbone pattern makes up the floor.

Fixtures: Grohe


Honed Carrara marble countertops set the soft and bright tone of the vanity area in the master bathroom.

Crowell says she and Wilson spent about $100,000 on the remodel, which was a deeply discounted amount because Wilson did a lot of the work and the labor was contracted at friendly rates through Crowell’s design business.

“It should have cost at least $200,000,” she says. “We saved at least $50,000 with James doing that work. And we did it all in four months. It was insane. The day we closed on the house at the end of April, James asked me to marry him in the kitchen, which we took a sledgehammer to the next day, and then on October 13 we were married on our back patio. So this house is so much more than that to us. We literally have designed and built every inch, and so much of us as a couple and a family is in it. We would get every penny and more back if we sold it, but we will die in this house.”

Medicine cabinets: Restoration Hardware; lights: Schoolhouse Electric; faucets: Kohler

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