This log cabin once looked like it was right out of a horror movie. Set back on ten wooded acres, the home had been vacant for months. The shrubs and grass were all overgrown. Inside, furniture left behind by the previous owners was dusty and covered in spiderwebs while snakeskins littered the floor. “It was a big, scary cabin in the woods,” laughs Laura Eliasson. “The house was really dark on the outside and inside. From a design aspect, it was truly the ugliest house.”
Designer Lauren DeBello kept the log cabin’s original terra-cotta flooring in the sunroom to warm the white walls and add a dose of color. In lieu of painting the original stone fireplace surround, the designer opted to clean it up and keep it natural “because it adds dimension to the room,” she says.
But Laura and her husband Erik loved the idea of owning a property just fifteen minutes from downtown Nashville. So they bought the home and the land with every intention of razing the log cabin despite inspections showing that the house was, in fact, “a really solid home all around. Every contractor we brought in to look at the house, though, said it was a tear down,” says Laura. But the thought of building new when the home’s foundation and bones were strong didn’t make sense for the Eliassons. “My brother is a graphic designer, so he started playing with the design of the home to see what we could do with it and we realized there was a lot of potential here,” says Laura.
It was when the couple enlisted designer Lauren DeBello that their vision of a lighter, brighter cabin in the woods felt possible for their then family of three. “We needed to find someone who knew what they were doing,” says Laura. “I think Lauren is amazing at what she does. She really listened to what we wanted. We’re just simple people who wanted a well-designed home but didn’t know how to get there and she took it to the next level.”
DeBello saw the project as a welcomed challenge. “I loved the exterior, the structure, all of the architectural details,” says the designer. “There was so much potential. They loved the log cabin but didn’t love the rustic feel of it.” DeBello reconfigured the existing kitchen to make it more open and then went to work updating the interiors by first painting the dark-brown log cabin walls and ceilings a fresh white coupled with new engineered hardwoods throughout. DeBello wanted to merge the couple’s style preferences in the aesthetic. While Erik leaned midcentury modern, Laura skewed Scandinavian (a nod to her husband’s Swedish background). “We knew we wanted that simple, clean look without being too detailed,” explains Laura. “We wanted it to be light and cozy but with character.”
With a blank canvas in front of her, DeBello began layering the home with a variety of midcentury modern–leaning pieces such as the dining table and coffee table. The Scandinavian aspect came into play by refreshing the existing stone fireplace surround in the family room, adding a functional wood burning stove in the sunroom, and incorporating overall white with black accents throughout. Even the facade of the cabin received an upgrade with a fresh coat of black paint.
The end result of DeBello’s makeover was a cozy, modernized home that truly accommodated the growing family without sacrificing style. “We really had no idea where to start with the interior design but we knew what we wanted,” says Laura. “Lauren came in and really showed us what was possible and transformed this scary cabin into something better than we could’ve ever imagined.” Adds DeBello, “They were so shocked when they finally saw it all installed. It was one of my favorite projects I’ve ever done. It’s such a cool space; unique and homey and cozy. It’s a really special place.”
Layered accents modernize the home. The primary bedroom is the homeowners’ sanctuary. The nursery was added to the existing first-floor footprint.
