Tour Tennessee Reno Husbands PJ and Thomas McKay's Restored Family Craftsman Home

"Property Lovers" couple PJ and Thomas McKay fell in love with the past and set out to make one of the biggest future decisions a couple could make: purchase and renovate the family home that Thomas grew up in, together. After surprise tear-downs, tons of termites, flash floods and fights about light switches, the two now get to watch their kids grow up in the same home filled with all new family memories.

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July 21, 2023

By: Rachael Jones

Show: HGTV Handmade

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Photo By: Tomas Espinoza

Photo By: Courtesy of PJ and Thomas McKay

Photo By: Courtesy of PJ and Thomas McKay

Photo By: Courtesy of PJ and Thomas McKay

Photo By: Courtesy of PJ and Thomas McKay

Photo By: Courtesy of PJ and Thomas McKay

Photo By: Courtesy of PJ and Thomas McKay

Photo By: Courtesy of PJ and Thomas McKay

Photo By: Tomas Espinoza

Photo By: Tomas Espinoza

Photo By: Tomas Espinoza

Photo By: Tomas Espinoza

Photo By: Courtesy of PJ and Thomas McKay

Photo By: Tomas Espinoza

Photo By: Tomas Espinoza

Photo By: Tomas Espinoza

Photo By: Tomas Espinoza

Photo By: Tomas Espinoza

Photo By: Tomas Espinoza

Photo By: Courtesy of PJ and Thomas McKay

Photo By: Tomas Espinoza

Photo By: Courtesy of PJ and Thomas McKay

Photo By: Courtesy of PJ and Thomas McKay

Photo By: Courtesy of PJ and Thomas McKay

Photo By: Courtesy of PJ and Thomas McKay

Photo By: Tomas Espinoza

Photo By: Tomas Espinoza

Photo By: Tomas Espinoza

Photo By: Tomas Espinoza

Photo By: Courtesy of PJ and Thomas McKay

If Walls Could Talk

Real estate duo, husbands for 13 years and dads of three, PJ and Thomas McKay live in a beautiful 1924 Craftsman home in Cleveland, Tennessee, with their kids Allan, Zechariah and Ariana — but this is present day. Rewind to 1985, when the home was Thomas’ childhood paradise and a DIY playground for his parents’ never-ending renovation adventures. Several decades later, the home itself fell into complete shambles and desperately needed new, nurturing homeowners. Cue the McKays. "We met back in 2009 at a mutual friends’ get together and we just hit it off," Thomas says. "We both grew up in the same small town, and we bonded over that [and] over our love of homes and family. And the rest is history."

Family Traits

"I think the biggest reason why we wanted to buy [this] home is because it's the house I grew up in," Thomas continues. "My mom and dad bought the house in 1985 [and] renovated it themselves." By the time he was a teenager, the DIY bug had already bit him. "My family would come home to find that I had rearranged the rooms again."

Thomas Was Here

PJ adds, "And there’s just so much history of his family being here." Thomas' childhood handprints are in the pavement right out front in concrete, along with his siblings' prints, too.

Following Footsteps

A vintage photo of Thomas' mom, Lila, standing proudly beside the sold sign gave the two inspiration to proudly recreate the moment and proclaim their intent to restore the family home to its former glory.

Bought and Sold

"After [his parents] went through tough times and lost the house, we were able to buy it back," PJ says. But somewhere in between, the house became a home to a few different types of disruptive inhabitants, from house party occupants to hungry termites, which left the house in complete disarray.

Rundown Relics

"When we bought [the home], it was a complete wreck," PJ says. "The doors were all off the hinges. There was not a single window in the house that wasn’t busted out. It was a party house and it was destroyed."

"I will admit," Thomas adds, "it was kind of sad to see my childhood home in that state."

Down the the Studs

With one renovation under their belts prior to purchasing Thomas' family home, the two still had to rely on the foundation of their long-term partnership to work through all the gritty details. "We knew it was bad, but I don’t think we knew that it was going to get to the point where we ended up gutting everything," PJ recalls. "So we took it down to the studs. We redid all the plumbing, electrical, insulation, drywall and molding, and then we had a shell of the exterior of the house that’s original. Everything else is basically new."

Before: Lead Paint and Broken Glass

"When we were renovating the house, we knew that we wanted to try and keep the original windows," PJ says. "Some of the glass was broken, so we had to pull glass from windows that we didn’t use from the back of the house. [The original home] also had the [built-in bookcases], and we knew that we wanted to keep them, but they were painted in lead paint and were in really bad shape, so we had to replace them."

After: PJ's Place

The brand new den is the first room guests walk into and also happens to be PJ's favorite room to enjoy coffee. "This room is cozy," Thomas says. "I feel like it sets the tone for our house. The old windows mixed with the old floors and books, it just kind of creates an atmosphere as soon as you walk through the door."

The Perfect Display

"And then, of course, the hutch," Thomas continues. "We found it at an estate sale — I think we both agree, this is definitely our favorite piece." The vintage hutch is used to display books and trinkets, plus stones and shells collected by the kids while on travels with their dads.

Renovate a Home Together, They Said

"But there were lots that we disagreed on when redesigning [this] home," PJ says. "And I remember what our biggest, we’ll say, discussion was …"

"It was the light switches," Thomas interjects. "We got into this humongous fight about the placement of the light switches in the dining room — and who won?"

"You won." PJ replies. "Basically, if you want to test your relationship, do a renovation together. That'll do it."

Needed for Family Dinners

"One of the first things I told Thomas was [that] I want to be able to see through the house whenever you walk into it," PJ says.

"There used to be French doors here that separated the living room and the dining room," Thomas adds. "We're one of those families that actually uses their dining room — and I know dining rooms are becoming one of those rooms that are almost obsolete. But we eat every night and every morning here."

Before: Dark, Dated and Definitely '80s

"[The kitchen] looks nothing like it did whenever we bought the house," Thomas says. "Before, it was this L-shaped kitchen that my parents did in the 1980s [with] dark, stained cabinets that didn’t go all the way to the ceiling. There was wallpaper, laminate countertops and a built-in desk that every kitchen had in the '80s and '90s. So PJ came up with layout of the new kitchen, which is basically an oversized galley kitchen."

After: Oversized Orders

"The finishes that we chose kind of borrow from different elements of the 1920s and '30s to create a whole space that feels old but is definitely a very new kitchen," PJ says. "The kitchen island is a thrift store find that I DIY’ed and redid. So, it’s got a metal base and a nice, thick butcher block top."

Don't Take Granite for Granted

"We used granite for the countertops," PJ continues. "We really wanted to use a soapstone, but the maintenance with soapstone is so hard. We did granite, but had it honed so it really gives the appearance of a soapstone countertop."

"When you hear 'granite,' you think 2000s granite,' which is shiny and speckled — and that's fine — but that's not the look we wanted for this house," Thomas explains. "Plus, granite is so durable. I'll take a hot pan right out of the oven and just set it right on the counter. There's no staining."

Bonus Room of Requirement

"Originally, [our living room] was a small back porch that had a laundry room and a half bath in it. And it was eaten up with termites," PJ says. "We knew that we were going to have to tear it off. So when we tore it off, we decided that we were just going to build an addition." The original plan was for a sunroom, but then the space served as a dining room before becoming a living room.

Home Office Homework Station

"When we first moved in, we used [the home office] as our living room," Thomas says. "The 9-foot desk used to be our dining room table and this is where [the kids] do homework. This is also where we do our emails and do our other work. It is nice, because it is big enough [that we can] fit a couple of people."

Vintage Gallery Wall

"We are always on the lookout for different art pieces, and so we found these [paintings] at yard sales, on Facebook marketplace and antique stores, and it’s really neat once you get them all together," PJ says.

"What I’ll do is just lay [the art] out on the floor directly above the wall in the pattern that I want them to be," Thomas adds. "I don’t like them to be perfect."

Dutch-Inspired Laundry Room

When we originally finished the house, we actually never finished [the laundry] room, it was just a white room with a washer and dryer and junk everywhere. So we decided we were going to renovate it," PJ says. "We had traveled to Amsterdam a few times and there's this dark, moody green that you see on doors and shutters and we fell in love with it. So we tried to get as close to that color as we could to paint the laundry room, which is Nocturnal Green."

Thomas adds, "A lot of the [framed art] above the washer and dryer are from [art books], a study on Dutch oil paintings. It's a great way to get good art for relatively cheap." And if that's not enough, PJ and Thomas even handmade the faux concrete lamp that brightens up the room.

Before: Stairs to Nowhere

"These old Craftsman homes had these skinny, very steep stairs that would normally have just gone to an attic," Thomas says. "Back then, they didn’t really use the upstairs as a living space as it was mostly just for storage."

After: But Wait, There's More

"We redid the staircase, added a new newel post, opened up the bottom portion and closed off the rest," PJ says. The new steps lead to two bonus rooms, a bath and a whole new floor. If only that was the ending of this staircase story.

New Level Unlocked

"We knew that we were going to renovate the second floor and that we wanted to add [bedrooms], but by the time that we got to it, the roof had been neglected so bad that we ended up having to rip off the entire second floor of the house," PJ recalls. "When we were standing on the first floor you could look up and see clouds."

Pool Day

"The day after we ripped off the whole upper story, it started pouring," PJ continues. "At the time, we were trying to save the original hardwood floors throughout the house and there was no roof. So we bought a $300 tarp to cover the house, but the opening for the staircase was still open. As it rained, the tarp started to fill up like a pool in the staircase until it ripped and just flooded the whole house."

Soak It Up

"It was like a waterpark in our house," Thomas adds. "It was so awful. But a positive surprise was that we were able to save the hardwood floors." Yet, there was one gnarly feature both guys were eager to leave behind.

In the Dog House

"My dad ripped off the original 1924 Dormer that was on the house and he put in this awful, dog house-shaped dormer that my mom still talks about it to this day," Thomas recalls. "She [said] the whole neighborhood was talking about how bad it looked, and it looked like that until we bought it back and then renovated it."

Daughter's Pick

"After we adopted our kids, our daughter had just a plain white room and we wanted to do something for her that was special," PJ says. "We asked her what color she wanted her room to be, and we gave her a complete room makeover. [The] room is this nice, warm moody pink called Venetian Portico. The day bed was a DIY project we found online and brought it home and redid it."

Guests Are Best

"Outside of Ariana’s room, you can walk towards the end of the hall and that is our guest room,” Thomas says. “It gets the most beautiful, blinding light first thing in the morning … and I love the slope of the ceilings. It just feels like you’re tucked away in a little attic."

“It is a dark green color, Vintage Vogue," PJ adds. Thomas specifically chose a cozy, dark color to help guests fall asleep.

Bedroom Becomes Bathroom

"Whenever we were renovating this house, we fell in love with the idea of turning an old bedroom into a bathroom," PJ says.

"We call this the [upstairs] kids bathroom, but it’s also just the bathroom that if guests come over this is the one they use." Thomas adds, "It’s actually one of the largest rooms in our home."

The Go-To Color

"We wanted the floor to look like slate tile, but we went with the ceramic just for durability and maintenance," PJ continues. "We tried to choose more time period appropriate lights, so we have the school house lights, the pendants in here and the sconces above the sink."

Thomas adds, "This room is also painted White Dove, our favorite white paint. It’s not stark. It’s not yellow. It’s this perfect middle ground, and it just highlights every room."

Home Is Where You Remake It

"I’m always inspired by the before and after [of our home]," PJ says. "I love taking something that has just been let go and really putting time and love into it, whether it’s a piece of furniture or a living room or an entire house."

"I've only not lived in this house eight years of my whole life," Thomas adds, "but I’m so happy to be raising our kids in the same house that I was raised in. And when people walk through our front door, I hope they feel comfortable, cozy and warm, like this is a safe space — and that they feel welcomed and accepted here."

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