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To the average person, the third structure on Beau Ciolino and Matt Armato’s East Tennessee property might simply look like an inconveniently placed two-car garage. But to the DIY design duo behind Probably This, it was the starting point for their first rental house—now a 950-square-foot fairytale cottage. Between Armato’s large Italian family (where “there was a rotating party every single week”) and a shared hospitality background, the pair’s ultimate goal for the 10-acre property, complete with a main house and barn, is to create a mini resort, driven not by their love of renovating, but hosting.
An experience at a California bed and breakfast sealed the vision. “We stayed there for one night, and I felt so welcome and at home and I just really want to do that for people,” says Ciolino.
Initially, they planned a “light renovation” to transform the blank slate into a cabin. But it quickly became: “This can just be a small, really nice home.” The project—officially dubbed Chanterelle Cottage—required installing septic, plumbing, and electric, as well as two small foundation additions and a new roofline to accommodate the two-bedroom, two-bath layout that sleeps six.
The 18-month project was a series of firsts: their first renovation outside New Orleans, their first time not collaborating on design (Ciolino led while Armato played tool master), and their first time setting a budget ($80,000)—which they almost doubled.
“I totally messed up,” Ciolino confesses. “We didn’t have money for cabinets.” It’s something no renovator wants to hear, but Armato didn’t miss a beat. Luckily, the previous homeowner had stashed solid wood 1950s cabinets in the basement after a main-house reno. The duo hauled them downhill, and Armato “chopped them up and Frankensteined them together” on site.
Ciolino had long imagined the kitchen’s look.“I already knew I wanted the roof lines to be sloped and for there to be a big, arched wooden doorway and these other whimsical pieces,” he says. Still, he struggled with the functional elements—until he decided to customize Delft-style backsplash tiles. An Etsy maker used Ciolino’s sketches of animals spotted on the property as inspiration. The result, he says, was a design “domino effect.”
Laying the tile became a full production. “We were like, ‘Oh, this is gonna be in this corner. And are there too many ducks over here? Too many chanterelle mushrooms over here? The light’s gonna cover this really cool one. We need to put a blank one there,’” says Ciolino.
The yellow kitchen cabinets were a final flourish—an homage to the patch of chanterelles that grow near the home and inspired its name. “It’s not like you’ll be able to see them every time you come and visit, so I wanted there to be a visual nod to them,” says Armato.
Whimsy was the guiding force. “I’m a big daydreamer. I get lost in the clouds often. And I think it’s really fun when you can bring that into a space and encourage it,” says Ciolino. “At dusk every day the property’s blinking with fireflies. The whole property borders the national forest. It feels like you’re in a fairytale. And so to me, the cottage really needed to just fully capture that.”
Their mutual favorite room is the upstairs “canopy” bedroom, wallpapered in Divine Savages’ Where The Wildflowers Grow print. “I really wanted you to feel like you were in a treehouse,” says Ciolino. “Having the wallpaper on the walls and the ceilings means that when you’re laying in bed, it’s all you see. And then out the window, it’s all green, so it feels like a dreamy way to make that come to life.”
To help guests feel at home, the pair stocks the fridge with fresh eggs laid by their ducks. You’ll find a vintage picnic basket filled with glassware, cutlery, and a blanket by the door. And of course, there’s a map of the property so you can easily locate the meadow for stargazing and entry points to hike the forest. Fairytale, achieved.