The Year in Review & What's Next in 2026

And just like that, another year has flown by and we look towards what lies ahead in 2026.

But before we bundle up and head into January, we’d like to take a look back at our highlights from 2025, and provide a little preview of what's next in 2026.

Our Favorite Highlights of 2025

This year, Home By Hattan continued to grow and live into our mission to help you ”live beautifully at home," creating homes designed for the way you want to live!

The team of Karen (Owner, lead Designer), Savannah (Assoc Designer), Sandy (Admin), and Mark (GC), along with our amazing trade partners and skilled tradespeople undertook a wide variety of Design and Renovation projects, from cohesive paint palette creations, to challenging multi-room renovations.

Renewing a Primary or Guest Bathroom was a high priority for our clients this year, and for good reason – it's a space you live in every day, so you want it to be welcoming and functional; plus it is a great investment into the ROI value of your home!

We love helping clients make the best use of their spaces - making the spaces beautiful, but also making them work for the way our clients want to live. Sometimes it's updating a space to become more useful and functional, and sometimes that means converting a space from one function to another. This year, we converted a basement/garage into a great place for the family to hang out and watch ball games by adding a family room, mudroom, bathroom, and concrete stain to the floor. In another home, a beautiful oak slab and two navy blue base cabinets turned an empty breezeway into a fun Homework Station that even the dogs love to hang out at. And since we are in Music City, we loved the transformations we did for two clients in turning little-used formal dining rooms into stylish and functional Music Rooms.

Finished basement, reno by Home by Hattan Build

Other projects included a beautiful primary suite redesign, several living areas, and a few home office areas and entries.

2-story Great Room Redesign

2025 Awards

We are always thrilled to get positive feedback from our clients about their new spaces. In addition to being featured in magazines and a local news show, Home By Hattan received a couple of awards based on our positive feedback on Nextdoor and Google. We really appreciate everyone who has taken the time to write a review and referred us to friends!

2025 Trends

Trusting Karen’s color choices always resulted in excitement at the finished look. Some of the moodier, more dramatic colors we loved this year include Ashwood Moss, Vintage Vogue, Sleepy Blue, Anchors Away, and our favorite color name, Mysterious. The moody color palettes will continue into 2026, we predict! See if you can find a favorite in our pics below.

Color Drenched Home Office

But you don’t need a deep color for dramatic effect – in fact, Pantone’s Color of the Year is....drumroll...White. The perfect shade of white has subtle undertones that blend in seamlessly with the room. Our favorite “whites” this year: Greek Villa, Ivory Lace, Drift of Mist, Aesthetic White, and Neutral Ground.

In addition to the right color, a Wall Feature adds a dramatic effect that really elevates what would otherwise be a big empty wall. Our skilled trim carpenters turned out beautiful Board & Batten patterns, Pencil Moldings, Tongue and Groove Panels, and Fluted Panel Walls.

Wallpaper continues to be popular to elevate the look of Dining Rooms, Bathrooms, and Breezeways - even ceilings!

Our Toughest Challenges of 2025

2025 brought its fair share of challenges, unfortunately, too.

Karen's beloved Aunt Nell passed away in September, followed by the unexpectedly quick decline of her dad, Bill. He bravely battled the effects of post-polio syndrome for many years, and passed away in October. We held a beautiful memorial service for him in December.

Our Big Plans & Goals for 2026

We are so excited for 2026, and have big plans! We are looking forward to more family celebrations: one final graduation (yay, no more tuition), a wedding for Karen's sister, and an acting debut/movie premier! We are also excited to start out the year with a large-scale renovation project in Green Hills, and continued transformations of single rooms, special spaces, and entire homes all around middle Tennessee.

Professionally, both Mark and Karen have goals to build our Home by Hattan Team. We are always looking for trusted vendors and trade professionals to elevate the products and services we can offer, and we are so thankful for the relationships we developed this past year.

And, as a husband/wife team, we always strive for balance - to function in rhythm as a business team, as well as a married team and a parenting team -- refining and perfecting our systems and processes to provide you with a more streamlined and enjoyable experience (while keeping our marriage intact, ha!). Please check out our series of informative videos we made this year to learn more about us and how we work (Designer Trust Series, found on YouTube). We love the friendships we form with our clients, and enjoy keeping up with them long after the projects have been completed. And while our awards from NextDoor and Google are nice, our highest honor is receiving your personal referrals to other friends and family who are looking to transform their spaces.

We do not have any plans for our own reality TV show, but we do look forward to creating and sharing many "BIG REVEALS" with you this year! (Could one of them be yours!?!)

Working with You in 2026

We would love to work with you in 2026 on any kind of project, big or small! If you are considering a remodel, a renovation, or just some new decor, please reach out now to get on our schedule for 2026.  Renovation or multi-room projects in particular take time and planning - especially if you want it done right - so let's get started with your plans!

We offer several ways to work with us -- from a one-time design consultation if you just need some advice or a couple of new items -- to full concierge turnkey design and renovation services. Mark and I work together during every aspect of your project, consulting one another to provide you with peace of mind and to ensure you are thrilled with the end result -- so you can live beautifully at home!

It starts by scheduling a free Discovery Call to create your Home Sweet Home!

Here's to the New Year!

Thank you for your support, thank you for your referrals to friends and family, and thank you for being a part of our story! May 2026 be a healthy and happy year for us all!

Warmly,

Mark and Karen Hattan