Where 1902 meets 2023
Victorian house’s modern makeover highlights its old-school craftsmanship
After Leticia “Letty” Najera’s divorce several years ago, the 48-year-old restaurant owner felt as if she’d been given a “new beginning,” one that would free her to do things she never thought she could. Things like buying a small, ramshackle house in the Karnes County burg of Gillett and transforming it into a showplace that cleverly mixes old and new.
When she first saw the threebedroom, two-bathroom Victorian-style house, which was built in 1902, she was taken aback by its condition. The paint was peeling and the lot was overgrown. She also soon learned that the electric, plumbing, insulation and roof all needed to be replaced.
“But I really liked it anyway,” said Najera, who owns La Enchiladita restaurant in nearby Nixon. “I thought it had a lot of potential. I also wanted to leave as much of its history in place because I think that’s really cool.”
Although she’d never renovated an old house, she had a clear vision of what she wanted. That required salvaging and restoring as much of the original house — doors, furnishings, even the shiplap walls — as possible while updating and modernizing the rest.
Shortly after moving in, she also discovered a treasure trove of vintage odds and ends, such as tables, chairs, plates, books and even a Bible, left by the previous owners in the house and two sheds. Instead of selling it all, she put many of the items to good use throughout the house. Combined with pieces she purchased during the antiques fair at Round Top, Najera has created a light and open residence that retains much of the original craftsmanship that makes it special.
The project took about seven months to complete. Najera declined to reveal the cost.
Perhaps the most dramatic decorating decision was in the front entryway and down the central hallway, where she decided to retain the original wooden shiplap walls and ceiling.
“The walls used to be painted white and the ceiling was blue,” she said, gesturing to the narrow boards, which look like railroad tracks running into the distance. “I told the guys, let’s strip it all and see what it looks like. And when they were done I said, ‘Oh, I love this.’”
They didn’t remove all the paint, however. Instead, some remains, giving the area a timeworn yet fashionable, shabby chic look.
She also had a light coating of shellac applied to the wood, giving it a slight gloss.
Najera designed the kitchen more to encourage conviviality than food preparation because, since she owns a restaurant, she doesn’t do much cooking at home.
“Let me tell you something,” she explained. “I’m a Mexican and when you come to my house — when my family from Mexico, my friends and my two children come to my house — I want everybody to be in the kitchen, talking, all in the same space. I like when there are a lot of people in my kitchen.”
The kitchen’s aesthetic also sets the tone for much of the rest of the house, with almost everything — cabinets, granite countertops, walls and ceiling — pure white.
“I like white because I feel like it’s clean,” she explained. “The people who come to my restaurant say it’s so clean. That’s because I’m picky about cleanliness.”
While much of the kitchen, including the appliances and the laminate flooring, is new, she also used several older pieces for contrast.
The most eye-catching feature in the kitchen are the two wooden doors with a large, old-style bolt lock and vertical bars running through two open panels. Najera had the painted wood roughly scraped, resulting in a rustic look that melds with the more polished wood ceiling beams and the open metal chandeliers above the kitchen and nearby dining tables.
“I like the way the natural looks against the white,” she said.
Those kitchen doors lead to a butler’s pantry, where friends built Najera a wall display case out of found wood and pressed metal ceiling tiles. Najera uses it to showcase several small vintage plates she discovered in one of the backyard sheds.
Back in the kitchen and adjacent dining area, and in the midst of all this
natural wood and white, is a bright turquoise couch, also abandoned by the previous owners. Najera was astute enough to understand how that bracing splash of color would shake up the otherwise sedate rooms.
Najera made another discovery during the renovation. The pocket doors leading to the front salon were not only extra tall, about 7 feet, they were handsomely paneled, a detail that previously had been hidden.
So she had the doors removed from their pockets, roughly scraped and installed as a pair of barn doors.
“I told the workers I want to be able to see those doors,” she said.
She expanded what had been a tiny powder room by combining it with an enclosed patio to*
create a full bathroom, complete with a double sink and a large, walk-in shower with frosted glass doors. And once again, Najera found the perfect final touch in one of the sheds — delicate cabinet hardware she thinks may have been original.
“I discovered a lot of these things only after I moved into the house,” she said.
The primary bedroom and bath suite take up the entire second floor. Here, she painted the shiplap walls and ceiling white and enlarged the one small window overlooking the backyard to let in more light. Under the window, she had a seating bench built using wood reclaimed from elsewhere in the house.