It has been really busy at Heather Scott Home & Design over the past two weeks.  We have been unpacking loads of new inventory at the store, I just got back from a quick trip to meet with Tobi Fairley and team in Little Rock (more on that later) and Scott and I are headed to Montana tomorrow for an entire house install.

The project has been going on for over a year.  This is a photo from my first trip to the site in April of last year.  Looks chilly, doesn’t it!  Did I tell you I can’t drive in the snow…..? You can see the house staked out on the ground.  It was pretty hard to tell anything traipsing through the snow, but I did the best I could with the builder and architect.

The house is being built in Ennis, MT.  Ennis is a fly fishing town, not a ski resort area.  The town is in the valley and looks at the Big Sky Mountain range.   The first time I came to visit I got snowed in and stayed at the local El Western Motel.  I don’t think it has been changed since the 1950s.  It is like stepping into a time warp.  It is a really neat experience, though, and I highly recommend it.  It is so peaceful and fresh.  This is a picture of the room I stayed in.  I texted it to my husband when I was there because I didn’t think he could really picture the room I described.

I took another trip up in September when it was supposedly warmer.  I can’t find any of my photos from that visit, but I will say it was pretty windy and very cold.  The house was framed, but didn’t have any windows in it and that frigid wind just blew through.   I ended up coming down with the worst cold by the time I got back to Texas, where it was still over 100 degrees.

By my next visit in January, the house was starting to take more shape. 

The front of the house

The back of the house

Inside the great room

The best part of the house: the view out the back

This was a quick trip, but there was a lot to be accomplished.   My client’s brief was a comfortable, traditional home that would allow for them to entertain numerous summer guests.  They weren’t specific about a style but both husband and wife emphatically said they did not want a ‘”log cabin”.  No antlers here.  I did propose a few birch base lamps and deer prints but they were a ‘no go’.  They were serious about staying away from the ‘mountain theme’. 

The focus of this trip was to pick the flooring, tile and countertops for the kitchen and six bathrooms.  We found a great selection of tiles at Montana Tile & Stone.  One of the fun things about working in a different area is getting to see some unique tiles and materials that aren’t usually used in your area.

We organized the bedrooms by color: gray, blue, green, brown and cream.

Here is a sneak peak at some of our selections:

Master (Gray) Bath with an amazing carrera marble listello

“Blue” Guest Bedroom- 3×6 subway tile with marble mosaic dots

The “Green” Guest bathroom

It’s early on here, but I already know  this is going to be one of my favorite bedrooms, with a sloped ceiling that has a wood beam and planks.

Here is the room starting to come together in March. Check out those ceiling heights!  There is actually a building height code which caused a lot of angst to meet and required creative use of room placement and ceiling slopes to allow for all the beds to fit where visitors would not hit their heads on the ceiling every day!

It was really neat to see the beginnings of the ceiling beams being installed in the great room.  The ceiling is about 25 ft high.  It is an amazing feat to see these beams go up with just 3 guys lifting them up.

Spring was coming by this time and you can begin to see how beautiful it will be to sit out back and watch the sunset in the evenings.

So, this is where we will be by tomorrow afternoon with a couple of truckloads of new furniture, rugs, drapes and art.  All the decisions have been made, the materials have arrived and now the stress is, surprisingly, off.   It should be a great time.  I’ll be sure to share some photos of the completed project in the coming month.