Some childhood fantasies linger into adulthood. Ever since he was a teenager, Nashville native Benjamin Sohr had dreamed of living on Stanford Drive, a residential street that winds through picturesque woods on the outskirts of town. So when he and his wife, Genifer Goodman Sohr, started looking for a new house for their family—which includes their son, Oden, 4, and Benjamin's daughter from a previous marriage, Lucy, 10—his old obsession with the street resurfaced. The only place available on it, however, was a log cabin that the selling agent was embarrassed to show them.
"She was like, 'No, no, no, this is not for you,'" says Benjamin. The dark, cavelike home had actually been a series of five log cabins, built in the 1800s. The original owner, whom Genifer describes as "very into wood," had transported them from Kentucky and joined them together in the 1950s. "Every wall that wasn't log was covered by awful wood paneling," she says. The Sohrs, both of whom have backgrounds in retail design, decided they could make it work.
Almost two years later, they click through "before" pictures on their laptop in the kitchen, surrounded by the shockingly different "after." What was once a fluorescent-lit, low-ceilinged nightmare could now be a cheerful IKEA ad, with its gleaming white cabinets and row of simple metal ceiling lights. Oden, justifying his Batman cape, perches at a 13-foot-long kitchen island that serves as both craft-project central and family dinner table. This is the room where Benjamin, who trained as an architect and oversaw the renovation, made the most changes. Even so, "had we realized how much time we would spend in this room, we would have focused even more of our efforts on it," Genifer says.
In the rest of the house, the couple tore down most of the wood paneling, but decided to keep many of the log walls and beamed ceilings intact and let their decor brighten the place up. The furnishings, most of which they've accumulated over the years, clearly reflect their individual tastes. Minimalist Benjamin is responsible for the living room's Eames chairs and Cappellini sofa; Genifer, a thrift-store junkie and a big fan of pattern, is behind the collections of vintage white pottery and the toile fabric that covers said sofa. Add in the kids' artwork, which the couple frame and display in every room of the house, and the overall effect is modern and restrained, personal and homespun.
"That we're both visual people was part of the connection between us, and I think we balance each other out style-wise," says Genifer, who met Benjamin when the two were working for Old Navy together in San Francisco. (She currently designs her own clothing line, called Favorite, while he works as a design consultant.) "But there are times along the way where decorating is painful, because we have to agree on everything."
Next Page: Oden's Decorating Input
