Busy family perfects renovated space
It started as a whim. My cousin Anne has three daughters who would soon be out of the nest. Why not sell their large family home and downsize into a fixerupper she could renovate?
“It sounded so fun,” Anne remembers with an eye roll and a laugh. “Looking at pictures and finding what you want is fun. But living through it isn’t as much fun.”
Their home sold lightning-fast, their busy family of five had to move in with her sister-in-law for nine months, and the renovation turned out to be a lot more work than she had anticipated.
But now that she and her family are settling into their new home, Anne knows she made the right call. This beautiful, bright, happy and inviting home fits their family to a T. She worked nothing short of a miracle in the kitchen and dining room.
A bright, open kitchen
The floorplan of the old kitchen, long and narrow and divided by a stairwell to the basement, was not going to work for this active family that depended on their kitchen as the center of their life. So they moved the stairwell, rejected the dated cherry-laminate cabinets and bumped up the ceiling by taking advantage of unused attic space above.
Anne knew she wanted a bright, white country kitchen. She covered the cabinets in a clean white paint and extended the subway tile up the wall around the range, pairing it with a charcoal grout so each tile would pop. Since the family spends a lot of time gathering around their kitchen island, Anne wanted to rim it with comfortable seating. She picked a great bench and slip-covered it in a Sunbrella fabric so spills would not be a problem.
Anne’s contractor discovered some reclaimed wood that they turned into display shelves in the kitchen. Anne really likes warm metals, so she perched the rugged wood on gold brackets. You can see her design talents come to life in the display she created on the shelves, which will change with each season.
In addition to cabinets and cupboards, Anne likes to use free-standing furniture as storage in her kitchen. A large-scale buffet serves as the perfect place to store her china. She used baskets to collect small pieces such as cups and saucers, and to weave in some texture. Anne says that it wasn’t until she added her accents, layer by layer, that the new house began to feel like home.
An inviting dining room
This is what Anne was faced with when imagining what the dining room could be. A small, awkwardly situated fireplace. Low ceilings. A floor that had seen better days.
To open up the room and give it more light and life, they bumped up the ceiling into unused attic space, covered the wall in shiplap, accented the fireplace with hand-painted tiles and used a piece of reclaimed wood as the mantel.
Anne echoed the blue from the new fireplace tiles in her centerpiece.