Made for entertaining
From the time Nick and Claire Petree moved into their Heights home, they knew they wanted to make changes.
It’s the first home the young married couple bought together, a nearly 2,700-square-foot townhouse with three bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms.
Nick, 34, a lawyer at Akin Gump, and Claire, 35, the sales and marketing manager at Tea Sip in the Heights, bought the townhouse in 2016 and lived in it for a few years as they contemplated what they wanted to do.
The kitchen felt dark and closed off from the rest of the first floor, and they found themselves spending most of their time living in just a tiny portion of it — the kitchen and a breakfast area that they used more like a family room since they put an L-shaped sofa in there.
The couple had been friends with interior designer Lindsey Herod of Lindsey Herod Interiors since their days as students at Texas A&M University, so she’d already been to their home many times when they told her they were finally ready.
“When we bought the house, we knew we needed to make some changes,” Nick said. “We figured the cabinetry and some light construction, but we knew we needed completely different furniture to decorate the place. We were basically a clean slate for furniture because of the stuff we had; we didn’t truly love any of it.”
Claire liked color and patterns but didn’t have the design confidence to put things together on her own.
In the fall of 2019, they started gathering bids for the work and met with contractors early in 2020. The pandemic set in, but as soon as they were comfortable letting workers in their home — May 2020 — the work began.
Herod knew the couple’s taste and style so knew exactly what to do.
The townhouse had details that fit the charm of a neighborhood of bungalows but also had heavy Mediterranean accents. Those were stripped away, adding simplified built-in bookcases in the living room and installing a shorter marble fireplace.
The kitchen got new paint and hardware on the cabinets, quartz counters and a smaller range hood that allows for gorgeous pale-blue-green backsplash tile to stand out.
Removing an elevated edge on a side counter made the whole space feel like one. No longer do they feel like they’re in a different room because they’re in the kitchen.
They can cook together or entertain friends while finishing up a meal.
The breakfast area is now a lounge. It’s where the Petrees go for a morning cup of coffee or a cocktail or glass of wine at the end of the day. Herod took a blank wall and created a bar with cabinets, drawers for storing liquor and a center wall space for floating shelves that hold barware. One side cabinet is a coffee and tea station.
During the pandemic, the Petrees started making more cocktails at home, as Claire experimented with tea-based cocktails she and her cousin — Jessica Boyd, founder of Tea Sip — could use to promote the shop.
Their living room was transformed with a sisal rug, a new sofa and a pair of teal chairs. A couple of stools give them a little extra seating.
And a Samsung Frame TV was another purchase worth the money. It shows artwork instead of a plain black screen when they’re not using it.
Finding the right colors was tricky because Nick is color
blind, so all blues sort of look alike to him. He finally just trusted the choices of Lindsey and Claire.
They never used the living room unless friends came over, but now they’re in it every evening, after their cocktail in their new lounge, making dinner in the kitchen and enjoying a meal in the dining room.
“I’m really excited to have a place where we can sit for a long time and have a nice dinner. I cannot believe our little bubble of people can sit here for hours and eat and talk,” Claire said of the dining room.
A Logan Ledford painting from Dimmitt Contemporary Art makes a statement in the dining room, where a new table is surrounded by caneback chairs with green cushions, and a brass-ring chandelier tops it overhead.
The powder bath now features colorful light fixtures, a new sink and base and wallpaper that seems to glow in the dark.
“I’m sure this is how everyone is after remodeling. I didn’t realize how much we needed it until after it was done,” Nick said. “I’m a creature of comfort. I could have kept living in our house the way it was, but now we really enjoy our home.”
Heights couple’s townhome makeover wows during cocktail hour — or any time