Our #ProjectLakeLife Renovation - The Kitchen!

I’m traveling to Orlando, Florida this week to attend my favorite trade show of the year - KBIS (Kitchen and Bath Industry Show). They partner with IBS (International Builders Show) for Design and Construction Week. Over 60,000 people are expected to attend this jam packed three day event full of all of our favorite brands, along with new and emerging brands. It’s a great time to discover new products and technology, connect with all of my design besties and attend some awesome seminars.

Throwback to KBIS 2018 with some of my Designhounds Besties!

So this week, I thought I would start talking about my plans for my kitchen in our new #projectlakefront. Everyone knows that the kitchen is the heart of the home, but in our case, the lake really is the heart of our new home. And the bonus is that there is 12’ of glass along the kitchen wall that overlooks that lake. This is the main thing that sold me on this house immediately!

Here’s a shot of the original kitchen. Well, it’s actually probably the second kitchen, because the blueprints show that there was originally a wall where that peninsula is closing off the kitchen from the living space. This house was built well before open-concept living became the norm. There are a few design miscues to note in this before pic. First, the sink is off center along that back wall and lines up almost exactly with the window divider. Who wants to stare at that while doing dishes. Second, when you have windows across the entire back of the house looking out onto the lake, who decides to put a solid door? I have plans to correct both of those issues in our new kitchen design.

There were a few other layout things that I didn’t love about this kitchen. First, I hate a soffit above cabinets when your ceilings are this low (8’). Now that doesn’t mean I hate all soffits. If you have really high ceilings, a soffit is a nice way to create a built-in look without creating a void that too many people filled with dusty fake plants back in the day. If you have dusty fake plants over your cabinets, go throw them away immediately! Second, there are two doors in the corner of this kitchen which take up valuable real estate and prevent me from having the show stopper 48” pro range that my dreams are filled with.

Removal of the soffit revealed the ductwork or the vent hood. But that is easily dealt with by shifting the vent into the wall space and venting it out the back of the house. Removing the doors was part of a bigger shift. The solid door you see above leads to a screened porch on the side of the house (again - why a solid door?). The opening you see is actually a pocket door between the kitchen and the dining room. We closed off the solid door to the screened porch, because immediately around that corner is a larger slider that also leads to the same porch. We’re replacing that slider with a nice set of French doors. We also closed off the doorway to the dining room and now that open corner allows me to create a much more functional area for my new range.

Note the pantry with the door wood door across from the peninsula. This blocky pantry backs up to the bookcases at the bottom of the staircase.

If you go back to my blog post from January 10th, 2022, you’ll see more details about our plans to remove that pantry and open up the view from the stairs out to the lake. By removing the pantry and pulling back the wall, it wasn’t a big deal to lose the door into the dining room from the kitchen. It’s just a short jog around that corner now. And this rendering illustrates the new and improved view when you descend the stairs from the foyer above.

We have to have one column for support purposes, but it’s being wrapped in a really fun sculptured wood. More on that when I share the plans for the rest of the kitchen soon! That sculptured wood makes a big appearance in the kitchen. For now, this is just going to be a little teaser. But check out that countertop material! It’s a work of art for sure.

Follow along on my instagram for all of the fun things I find at KBIS next week. And if you want to follow more from KBIS, follow the hashtags #KBIS2022 and #DesignhoundsKBIS. I’m also a member of a great group of luxury interior designers called Ethos Design Collective. There are going to be 20 of our members attending KBIS and you can follow us at #ethosdesigncollective and #ethoseyeondesign. I need to go pack so bye for now!

Our #ProjectLakeLife Renovation - The Solarium

Another week and more dust at #ProjectLakefront! We’re running out of rooms to hide in and spending a lot of money on Swiffers.

So as you know, the lake view was certainly one of the main reasons that we loved this house, but I was also really drawn to all of the unique architectural features in this quirky house. The glass enclosed solarium on the south end of the house was a big surprise. Check out my video tour from when we first saw the house with our realtor!

Lord I hate my voice on video!

The original owners added this solarium at some point over the past 46 years, presumably because they wanted the luxury of a hot tub outside their master suite. So you’ll see that the space was designed as a two level space with the drop-in hot tub at the top level with a door into the master bedroom. My Netflix brain just imagines all of the swinging hot tub parties that happened in that space over the years. The lower level served as a den space or music room judging from the guitars.

But the reality is that we’re not hot tub people. Our old house came with a hot tub in the back yard and we gave it to our neighbors who dragged it across the street.

The only one who enjoyed this new hot tub was Ranger!

We tucked a couple of chairs in the bottom level which offered a nice view of the lake. Again … Ranger loved it!

So as much as Ranger was perfectly happy with the space as it was designed, I knew that it was at the top of the list for what needed to be gutted and renovated. So we got to work, or rather my contractors at Wateredge Construction, got to work removing the hot tub. I believe it went to a good home with one of the guys. Then we closed off the door from the master bedroom and lowered the floor so that it was all on one level.

Now the question was what were we going to do with the room? There are a lot of challenges in the space. The brick wall is the back of the living room fireplace and there is an ash clean out at the very bottom to contend with. The floors will need to be leveled and the wood from the living room will be carried into this space. The vertical siding you see is the exterior of the entire house. It will all be patched and painted Sherwin Williams Iron Ore along with the rest of the exterior. The concrete block will be framed and finished with drywall.

In the back left corner of the space, below what used to be the door to the master bedroom, is the one and only access to the crawl space, so we needed to find a way to maintain that but hide it. So, we’ve decided to line the back wall with cabinetry that would double as a bar and some library space. We’re going to place a 30”W wine / beverage cooler in front of the access door so that we can pull it out as needed.

The room is on the narrow side, so the furniture layout was tricky. Besides being narrow, the brick wall throws everything out of symmetry. After several different renditions, I finally came up with a plan. Here is a rendering of what I have in mind for the space.

Check out the back wall where the door into the bathroom once stood. I’m going to cover that wall with greenery (probably faux because my thumb is black). I love the look of a living wall and it works so perfectly with our surroundings. And I’m showing a mural from my talented friend Amanda Moody of Bombshelves on the right side of the room. This is one of my faves from her, but I may challenge her to create something brand new and unique for me.

I’m going to refer to the room as our “Library Lounge”. I have a library table at the back of the room with stacks of books and fun collections. And I’ve hinted for an old-school turn table for my birthday (which is coming up if anyone wants to send me presents). We discovered all of my great vinyl from the 80s when we were packing to move, so we’ll have to build on that collection. The chairs will of course be swivel so that we can turn and enjoy the view of the lake while we read a juicy novel and listen to some Morrissey. Of course, we’ll throw the glass sliding doors open when the weather is nice and use the room as an additional entertaining space, as it connects to our deck. And who knows, maybe someday we’ll install a brand new hot tub out on that deck.

Our #ProjectLakeLife Renovation - The Staircase Dilemma

Welcome to our week 2 check-in. When we bought this house, all of our friends and family kept asking “have you started on the renovation?” Does everyone out there believe that real life is the same as HGTV life? Things move much more slowly in real life … and they should! I only want to do this renovation once, so it’s important to get it right the first time. Jumping into a project without taking the proper time to really get to know a space and how it functions, is asking for trouble. We also really need time to investigate a bunch of different options in terms of space planning and materials selections. I spent the first two months playing with Chief Architect, our 3D rendering software, to create hundreds of different versions of what I could do to the house. When we meet with clients, we show them 2 or 3 different options for how to redesign a space, but behind the scenes, we have done many more versions, several of which end up in the virtual recycle bin. We make it look easy, but there’s a lot of time, energy and creative bursts that go into finalizing a renovation plan.

So let’s start at the beginning … or the foyer. As I explained before, it’s a split level house and when you enter the foyer, the focal point is a heavily drywalled staircase. Here is a photo of the foyer as the homeowners before us had it furnished.

For those of you who can understand blueprints, here is a better idea of how this area is laid out.

What’s cropped out of this blueprint image is the kitchen which lies behind the stairwell on the lower level. You can’t see the kitchen or much of the lower level from the foyer and stairwell and that’s one of the first things that we wanted to change. Originally when you walked down the stairs to the lower level, you were met by a wall of cabinetry that formed a hallway back to the tucked away formal dining room.

So why is this such a big deal? This house is a bit of a mullet - business in the front, party in the back! When we first toured this house when it went on the market, I was immediately sold when we walked down those stairs and rounded the corner to see the kitchen behind that wall. Was it because it was some amazing beautiful kitchen? Hardly … it hasn’t been updated in decades and it’s at the top of my renovation list. It’s what lies beyond the kitchen that was the real draw.

That’s 12’ of glass along the back of the kitchen with the gorgeous lake view outside those windows!

So finally we get to knock something down! Or rather, our hard working crew from Wateredge Construction, got to knock something down. But I’m hoping to get in on some demo action with a sledge hammer during the next demo round.

We love how open this makes the whole area feel. It brings light into the stairwell and foyer and immediately draws you back to the great lake views. And don’t worry, the ugly solid wood door on the back of the house is also on the chopping block..

Now the question is what do we do with the drywall curtain walls with the lovely old oak wall caps? My husband actually likes how all of the openings relate to each other and create some architectural interest. But, sometimes I wonder if he’s not just trying to avoid another costly project on our already long list. We considered opening up the drywall and doing a cable rail system. We did this in a downtown loft condo renovation that we completed a few years ago. To see more of that project, you can click on the photo below.

Click HERE to see the rest of this project in our portfolio.

In another recent midcentury modern project, I designed some really great stairwell panels inspired by the brutalist art sculpture associated with this era. Local metal artisans from Small Axe Forge fabricated and installed these panels for us. The original bent wood railings were installed very low (people must have been really short in the 50s). We wanted to keep those railings, so we installed new steel posts and raised the railings to a more acceptable height. But we also needed to protect the small ones (human and furry) from falling through the gap to the basement level below. As a side note, their 24 year old dog, and yes I said 24 and that is not a typo, did actually fall through the original gap twice and managed to survive. She was a tough little chihuahua! Here is the before photo of that staircase.

I love the floating wood stairs, but they aren’t an option for us because the steps to the basement run below our staircase. So just ignore that awesomeness and concentrate on the railings. Here is what we designed for them.

Aren’t these panels gorgeous!?! I love how Byron from Small Axe Forge, burnished that gold finish into the middle of those nail flowers.

I’m not saying that these are the ONLY two options for that railing because you can fall down a Pinterest rabbit hole for days looking at stair railings. But between these two looks, which is your favorite? The cable railing has been done (a LOT), but I still appreciate the simplicity of that look. But the artistry of the brutalist inspired panels is just so unique. But of course, “unique” is more expensive than “simple” and both are more expensive than Jeff’s “leave it alone” plan.

I would love your thoughts, so feel free to share your comments below. Time to go relax by the lake (actually not happening because it’s cold out there!). Hope you’re all staying warm this blustery January day.

Our #ProjectLakeLife Renovation - Where do we start?

During the real estate boom of 2021, my husband and I (now empty nesters) decided to jump on the bandwagon and make a move. We lived in a very nice planned community in the west end of Richmond for 20 years. While the community was great for raising our family with awesome schools and lots of kids running around the neighborhood, Jeff and I were ready for a change. I reached out to my realtor friend and guru, Kristin Krupp of Shaheen, Ruth, Martin & Fonville and asked her to help me find a house that was “interesting”. Our timing was perfect because a house was about the enter the market that was clearly “meant to be”. Within a matter of days, we were touring the house, made an offer and had the offer accepted. I actually felt a little guilty after reading so many tales of woe with people trying to navigate the bidding wars and low inventory of available homes. But this beauty was all ours!

And check out this mac daddy garage for our massive car collection!

We got seriously lucky though because that front image of the house was the ONLY image on Zillow when it went on the market. They were hiding the best part of the house!

The house is a funky 70s split level house and when you walked down into the main living area and kitchen, this is the view!

The house is located on Lake Cherokee which I never even knew existed just south of the James River in Richmond. It’s this hidden gem of an 18 acre stocked lake. And since moving into the house, we’ve discovered that there is a great tight knit community of lake front homeowners who we are getting to know better. These houses do not go on the market often and have been passed down between family members. The seller for our house inherited the home from her parents who were the original owners when they built it in 1976. It was very evident that this home was loved and enjoyed for generations and we wanted to be sure to honor that. So when we put in our offer, I wrote a letter to the sellers and assured them that we intended to love it and share it with our family. The house really hasn’t been renovated, with a few exceptions, since it was built. I shared my intention to renovate the house, but respect the house’s history and architecture.

Over the next year, I intend to share the journey of our renovation and all of the surprises and challenges that we encounter along the way. But just as a sneak peek at what we have planned, here’s a rendering of the planned front elevation. You’ll see that we have an addition planned for the front of the house. More on this later…

We’ve started demo on the inside projects and we’re already seeing a lot of potential. Stay tuned for our weekly check-ins and I’ll share the good, the bag and the ugly that we encounter along the way.