Quick Ways to Make a Lasting Impact

Designer Kate Hougen shares her favorite ways to personalize your home.

“We were thrilled to see we could do a kitchen refresh that completely transformed the space … We hired a fabulous company that refaced our cabinets and drawers and rebuilt our island.” —Chandra Krohl

• DISPLAY PRINTED FABRICS. Printed textiles are an easy way to bring pattern, color and warmth to a room. If you can’t find the right fabric, you can make it! The Roman shade in the kids’ bathroom was a DIY project, a hand-painted watercolor painting I made and printed on fabric via Spoonflower.

• CREATE YOUR OWN ART. Art doesn’t have to be a budget-buster. There are so many affordable art options out there today—and you can paint and make your own! When we wanted to bring pops of color into the dining room, we created four fun, abstract paintings on wood block. And when we couldn’t find the right prints for the dining-room walls, we made them! We searched online for fun quotes, had a merchant on Etsy turn the words into beautiful prints, and then DIY framed them via Framebridge.

• ADD VINTAGE CHARACTER. Vintage pieces are such a great way to add warmth and texture to a space—and make it unique. The bathroom vanity, footstool and dresser in the front entryway were all budget-friendly finds we found shopping at a local antiques market. If you can’t find furniture in the right color, you can paint it! We painted the footstool and dresser in Benjamin Moore’s Hale Navy (high gloss) to complement the wallpaper and flow with the Hale Navy blue walls around the corner in the dining room.

The kitchen was refreshed without the need for a major renovation. “We removed and updated the cabinet trim to give it a more modern look and repainted the original dark cherry wood cabinets to a clean, crisp white,” Kate says. “We gave every cabinet door and drawer a facelift with new pulls and cabinetry hardware. We redid the island: eliminating one end with curved corners; creating a large, one-level, counter-height island in a more modern, rectangular shape; and adding a thicker, more modern white-quartz countertop. We added a new backsplash in a natural stone with matte black accents and a new Roman shade in white linen.”

The other major change in the kitchen was extending the cabinetry via a new built-in workstation, Kate says. “This space was formerly largely unused,” she says. “Integrating it with the new built-ins created a seamless extension of the kitchen and added more storage space and functionality. Now it’s a desk and workstation area, complete with a fun, colorfully upholstered cork board that the family now uses every day.”

THE KEY TO THE FRONT DOOR

The front door of the home was given more than a fresh coat of bright turquoise paint; it became a happy shared memory as a fun family project, with the kids and their dad painting it together. “This is a wonderful, roll-up-your-sleeves, active family of five that took a lot of pride in refreshing their home. It was a true collaboration,” Kate says.

Kate and the homeowners are more than pleased with the outcome. “They trusted my designer’s eye, and together we refreshed their home,” Kate says. “They wanted to be ‘house proud’ and this project makes me ‘design proud.’”

“Prior to the renovation we never used the front family room. Now you can usually find one of us in there taking a break from the family chaos … It’s a great place to entertain family and friends.” —Chandra Krohl

SPICING UP THE KITCHEN. Chandra was delighted to learn that her desired outcome for the kitchen could be achieved without a major renovation. Refaced cabinets and drawers, along with a rebuilt island and an added workspace, give more storage, and a desk comes in very handy since the whole family is working from home and doing online school.

FAMILY-ROOM REFRESH. “The gallery wall captures some of our favorite family moments and doesn’t make the TV the focal point of the wall. The console was custom built and fits the space perfectly, giving us more storage to hide the antiquated DVDs we can’t seem to part with yet.” says Chandra.

|ABOVE| BUILDING UP THE BASEMENT. “When our basement flooded a few years ago, we decided to completely renovate the space,” Chandra says. “Our kids were getting older and no longer needed a playroom but a place to hang out with their friends.” |BELOW LEFT| SPACE TO CREATE. “Our younger kids are still interested in arts and crafts, so I wanted to keep a space [in the basement] for them where they could be creative,” Chandra says. “Kate had a great idea to frame some of their favorite pieces of art and create a gallery wall with them. It’s so fun, and it’s the first thing you see when you walk down to our basement.”

|BELOW RIGHT| BATH TIME. “The entire house renovation started with our kids’ bathroom,” Chandra says. “We have three children that need to share the space. Unfortunately, code wouldn’t let us have three sinks, but Kate found a wonderful antique buffet that fit the space perfectly that could be converted to a sink. The beautiful and simple iron-framed mirror complements the black faucets. The shade is one of my favorite fabric designs of Kate’s that worked perfectly in the space.”