One of our favorite houses in the book is called The Lemmon-Dixon House.  We call it that because of the original owners’ last names-although they were married, Mammie kept her maiden name which I think is actually kind of adorable. Check her out on her bicycle.

She was an amazing woman who owned her own store in downtown Payson and made her husband, Hyrum, sell his sheep herd so she could buy it.  They were very successful and she even owned the first car in Payson.  She would take her “shop girls” on rides up the canyon on the weekend. They built this house, the “Big House” as they called it, in 1890 and lived there their whole lives until they passed it on to their niece Jenny.  

I don’t know why, but almost every house we have was built for strong, independent women. Go figure ;)

Jenny also lived there her whole life and the home has only had one other owner besides us! It’s incredible and we feel honored that we got to get it ready for its next 130 years.

 

Sad side story: These original street signs were so charming and I really wanted to steal them.  I decided that it wasn’t a good idea and next thing you know, the city replaced them and trashed the old ones. 😭 

I had ambitions to divide this up into several posts, but we have been invited to participate in the One Room Challenge, and if I don’t post it all now, it’s likely not going to happen ever, sooo…

When we bought the house, it had been updated some time in the 1970’s. I am really not a fan of the 70’s but I’m sure you already know that about me if you’re reading this blog. I would also like to apologize for the AWFUL before photos, they were evidently taken on a potato.

The first parlor, which is the room to the right as you walk in, is an almost duplicate of the second parlor on the left.  I think that it is so cool to have such massive bay windows!! We used this room as our dining room and left everything original.  We took down the 1970’s paneling and recreated the original trim in that one spot where it was removed. We also removed the radiators, pressure tested and fixed them and then put them back in place.  The heat from those things is unreal and we love it! The light was not original, but still old, so we kept it for another project and replaced it with a chandelier from Gallery.

(Don’t mind the cars parked across the street, we weren’t too picky about everything being perfect…it’s real life. And by real life, I mean that there’s actually no food in those Chinese to-go boxes, but we pretended to eat them. #booklife

Above shows the doorway to the vestibule and my fancy Kate Spade bag.  The hall tree belonged to my great-grandma, as did the piano-which has been passed down from daughter to daughter to daughter and now ready for Kit. The paper is from Sandberg and the trim color is Benjamin Moore Horizon Gray. I would have called it Horizon Green. All trim is original and plaster has been repaired.

The other parlor had severe water damage and A LOT of work had to be done to get it back to normal.

These were the only original floors in the downstairs, and while I’m not the biggest fan of this color of finish, we tried to stay as true to original as we could.  I should also point out that the woodwork from this house was painted from the day it was constructed.  In Utah a lot of trim was made out of soft pine and painted. We simply painted it again.  I will say that that was the only negative comment we ever got about the show (beside something about Andy’s beard 😂) where a viewer thought we had painted over original stained woodwork….and she was never going to watch my show again…and she doesn’t even know me…so lay off, we’re doing the best we can…!

Anyway.

The couches are placeholders that we got from Ashley, the lamp is from Target, the blanket is from Bohem and I accidentally killed that Ficus tree 3 months later.  I still loose sleep over it.

The sitting room is located in the center of the house and it’s my FAVORITE. Especially now…

This wallpaper from Sandberg is my ALL TIME FAVORITE. This really shows how magnificent the original, functional (after we fixed them) pocket doors are. The taxidermy is from a local museum sale and the green chair is from Ikea.  The other antiques are what we have collected over the years.

Also, who has a sitting room?! This house just blows my mind every time I think about it.

The kitchen. My oh my. It was made from particle board and paneling and the island was so big, you could barely pass by it. About the only thing we kept in here was the pulley lights (and original molding, of course.)

We got to start from scratch and built a wall where the stair railing was. This allowed us to do an expanded galley-type kitchen with sink, dishwasher and fridge on one side and stove on the other.  We always take our cabinets all the way to the ceiling (even if it requires a ladder) because we aren’t big fans of the elusive “plant shelf” that lower cabinets create.

We re-used the pulleys and put some on new lights from Allen + Roth for Lowes. The mural was printed by the amazing Rebel Walls of an antique painting that Meta Coleman curated. The sink and faucet are from Kohler and the tile is a beveled subway tile from Daltile.

In the master bedroom, we removed the crazy 70’s paneling, acoustic tile and vegas carpet (which I actually loved) and added picture frame and crown molding. Then we painted the whole thing Caldwell Green from Clarke + Kensington.

The chandelier was a classified ad find and the tapestry is from a local antique store :)

The boys’ room was completely unfinished when we got the house, it had clothesline hanging and we think they used that room to hang dry their clothes in the winter 100 years ago!

We finished the room and added another amazing mural from Rebel Walls. The lights are from Home Depot-I had been hoarding them for years. The boys absolutely loved this space and we would tell stories every night about the constellations. I made the posters-when I get some free time, I’ll put them on here to download.

And last but not least (for this post, anyway) is Kit’s room! This place was so very strangely walled off like a hallway to the window. We added built-in bunks for two twin beds. I envisioned Kit having sleepovers here with her cousins. We always design a home with what we would want if it were our own house-we never think about a house as a “flip” or just a renovation.

Look at my baby, she’s growing up so fast and I can barely stand it!!

I hope you enjoyed this little house tour. We have more pictures but these are the ones specifically from the book! A very special thanks to Chaunte Vaughn for doing such a fabulous job photographing for us and Meta Coleman who helped produce and style….and thank YOU for being interested in our little lives!

UPDATE: This home is currently for sale! Read more about it here!