I’ve been busy this winter and spring with remodeling projects and I am sharing one of those today. These will be coming together this summer and fall, but I thought you might want to see some of what’s been cooking!
I have one full house remodel, this house is getting the works from a revamp of the exterior with new windows, columns, paint color, etc. to everything in the interior. We’re moving some walls, reconfiguring a bit, doing all new finishes, cabinetry, updating lighting, electrical, even adding a bathroom and closet upstairs.
It is just the kind of project I love to sink my teeth into, and all this is with a former client of mine. We are reusing furniture from the existing home that I worked with them on 8 years ago, so I’m working with furnishings I know I love. We’ll be adding a few bits and pieces that are needed in this new space, of course, and doing some window treatments, wallcoverings, etc.
This project started out with a few problem spots that were less-than-desired. Come and see the progress so far.
That’s the living room, above, coming in through the front entry. Check out the “interesting” floor pattern.
We think the entry and the hallways were original to the house and that the living room had carpet, as there was a slight bump up in that space and some obviously different wood flooring.
You can see there are lots of traditional mouldings here. This house is more of a colonial style on the front, but my clients prefer a more modern look overall, so we are modifying the mouldings while trying not to obliterate the overall style.
The dentil mouldings had to go, but we kept the lower section of the crown and the baseboards, adding a simpler cove moulding at the top.
Here’s a view back toward the entrance with the dining room there, all boxed in with the heavy soffit and big column. Yes, it was structural, and even though we committed to minimimizing it trying to work with it, during demo, it was determined that it could be removed, reworking the support in the ceiling.
I’m so glad my clients chose to remove the column as it just feels so much more up to date. This living and dining are still totally separated off from the kitchen and family room, so it is not like a big, totally open plan.
Honestly, if you know this area and have been in as many houses built in the 90’s as I have around here, you’d know this was a typical 90’s builder detail. I really don’t want this home to be stuck in any one time period, especially not one from 30 years ago!
The shape of the dining room was basically square too, which meant we might need to get a new dining table to fit the space better.
Opening up this area by removing the column and soffit gave us much more flexibility.
BEFORE - See that odd floor pattern? This boxed in dining room felt dated and heavy.
One of the problems you have when you remove a column (with due diligence always for removing load-bearing columns and walls) is the floor.
It is really hard to reuse existing wood flooring like this (an engineered product where no flooring was underneath the column) unless you are installing new flooring. Patching it is nearly impossible. We were replacing the floor, so that was not a problem here.
I didn’t get a pic of this area after sheetrock, but boy, does this room look more spacious and great for entertaining now. We moved that wall in the dining room back 2’ and are creating a new butler’s pantry in the room beyond there. The arched openings connect the two spaces and the big opening in the middle is for a beautiful, custom walnut wine cabinet. It has a window on one side and glass doors on the other so you can see through, past the wine bottles, into the bar beyond.
Those front windows will change too, to a more modern, squared off look.
Looking toward the new butler’s pantry, through the dining room, from the entry.
Here’s the concept sketch I did of the cabinet with a view from the butler’s pantry.
Let’s move into the living room.
There was a really long rather empty hallway behind the fireplace that only had some closets.
BEFORE - Layout before the remodel with a long hallway behind the fireplace.
After reworking the powder bath and opening up the study at the front to the entry, we shortened the hallway and made much better use of the space.
Floor Plan - Opened the study to the entry with double doors there, added a roomy closet and a larger powder bath and shortened the hallway.
BEFORE - LR fireplace with dentil and fluted mouldings. Hallway opening down the wall.
BEFORE - Hallway looking from one end through to the bedroom beyond. See two different wood flooring materials from the hall to the bedroom.
Below is the photo looking from the bedroom down the long hall with yet another hall beyond that took you to the study and powder bath.
Small hallway from the long hallway looking into the very small powder room.
With this layout I could change the openings to flank the fireplace for the shorter hallway and arch them to match the dining room openings.
I’m adding sconces in the hallway too, along with some picture frame moulding and wallpaper. It should definitely be a more interesting hallway and a more interesting living room wall too.
I’m so pleased with how this is turning out.
We’ve got a new marble fireplace that will be replacing this one, with cleaner lines but still a classic feel.
The arches.
If it is one thing that bothers me to no end, it is several different types of arches in a house. The front windows had those eyebrow arches but luckily they were getting replaced with taller straight top windows (no transom).
Colonial architecture doesn’t really use Roman arches like this, but there was something in this house that dictated I work with the arched shape I chose to repeat.
The kitchen barrel vault ceiling.
BEFORE - Kitchen
We could not change this ceiling or modify the windows except to replace them, it would have been a big expense and we were already doing so much. So, we kept this arch.
That pushed me to use similar arches in other parts of the home and then move the details in a more clean lined direction. I think it will all flow nicely and make sense for the house and the project.
I’ll share more about the kitchen and other spaces another day, along with the shining jewel in this home, the butler’s pantry. :-)
Kudos to the contractor on this job, Shaun Bain and Gus Bruno of CA Design Build for all their continued hard work.
I’m looking forward to seeing our beautiful custom wine cabinet, built by Vinyard Wine Cellars.
Thanks to Staci Nugent of Staci Nugent Design for reading my sketches and turning them into most of the CAD drawings on this job.