MARYVILLE, Tenn — It was love at first sight or at least love at first lock.
"When I came to look at the house I opened the key box and there was a skeleton key," Jackie Mills said. "I have never opened a door with a an actual skeleton key that has been with this house since the 1970s. So that got me super pumped about this house."
Jackie Milles is a Realtor. She and her husband bought the house themselves last month and planned to do a typical remodel.
But a blue bathroom changed that.
"We saw that countertop and that sparkle blue and thought, huh, what if we just don't change it and we fit the whole rest of the house to that style. Make it mid-modern and go with it," Tony Mills said.
Jackie and Tony Mills named the house Memaw's a Southern She Shed.
"Everybody had a grandmother. Everybody had a Granny, or a Grandma, or a Memaw and a Mamaw," Jackie said.
Tony said, "When people walk it in it's like oh this is so cool. This reminds me of my grandmother's house or this reminds me of my Aunt Bessie's house."
How to capture the spirit of Memaw? They turned to a modern source for advice: Facebook.
"My husband and I couldn't make decisions without calling somebody or that do you thin or calling our aunts or uncles. So I said why don't we just go to social media and let them make decisions," Jackie said.
As renovation work continues, Facebook followers weigh in on design elements. Jackie and Tony usually give a few options then people vote with 'likes.'
So far people have picked the colors for the mailbox, the kitchen backsplash and the front door. They also determined the specific wallpaper pattern for one room.
"The decisions that have been made by the social media, they've all been great, and most of them line up with what we think anyway. But is we don't agree we're going with what they pick," he said.
The posts will continue until the house is completed and they welcome guests to MeMaw's a Southern She Shed.