Welcome to Small Town Cool!- Lee house renovation

This blog is going to be run by a few of us. I’ll be the first to tell my (short version!) story of how I think living in a small town can be “cool”. Hope you like it. -Brian

Our house in East Nashville (after we renovated it!)

My wife and I lived for eight years in East Nashville, TN. During our time there we watched the neighborhood change for the better. Cool restaurants and shops, record stores, music venues, vintage furniture stores and all kinds of exciting things were sprouting up all around us. I was playing guitar and touring professionally, seeing the country, and getting paid to travel. It was incredible. Then, as happens, we had a little girl, then a boy… trips to Grandma’s house were five hours each way…

Our growning family at the Andersen pumpkin patch in Hillsboro — Our growing family at the Anderson pumpkin patch in Hillsboro

On one of our trips home to Hillsboro my wife’s dad and I went to look at a giant downtown building that was for sale for $5 a square foot! (more than 20x cheaper than where we lived!) I could see, that this was our chance to live in a truly unique way and as you can guess, we bought it, moved back and so it began…

The Music studio (Greenville) and Storefront in our building that I got to renovate! (I wouldn’t have gotten jobs like these in Nashville…

(before and after)

Since that move I ran an in-coffee-house vinyl record store for two years, built a great loft apartment for our family, renovated much of our building, put together a great woodworking shop, renovated my friend’s garage into a large, modern music studio where we now record our albums, became friends with many new people and even started to watch friends take on big, cool projects of their own.

Our living room... Jess Bremer used this area to store and work on his amazing car collection. My wife's Grandpa, when he came into our apartment said that he used to be the mechanic! — Our living room… Jess Bremer used this area to store and work on his amazing car collection. My wife’s Grandpa, when he came into our apartment said that he used to be the mechanic!

I love couches in bedrooms! Especially yellow ones! The afghan helps give the room a “lived in” look

A custom built in by Brian Lee Carpentry. The ship model is a gift from my grandfather, Houghton Smith. The chair is from our dentists office! I commented on how I liked the chair and he gave me three of them! Hows that for perks of a small town!

Our kitchen, “in progress” as they say… “mug hunting” is a sort of hobby/ competition in our family. The coffee area is built in to a spot that years ago was an outside window. I love the steel trim on the bottom.

My brother is an artist out in Portland Oregon... We get the — My brother is an artist out in Portland Oregon… We get the “family discount” happily..

Living in Hillsboro for the last four years, I’ve felt a lot of pride in being able to contribute to this town. I hope that maybe we can start to spread the sentiment that Hillsboro is a vibrant place with opportunities for happiness and creative living. –

————————–Small Town Cool————————–

my carpentry page here – https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brian-Lee-Carpentry/112867038739112?ref=hl

my brothers art site – http://www.ericadrianlee.com/

small town cool facebook – https://www.facebook.com/smalltowncool?ref=hl