Contemporary makeover
Redesigned kitchen and keeping room create wide-open feel in Sugar Land home
The story of Laxmi and Ravi Thota’s home renovation is one that’s often heard: They began with plans to do a little work and ended up changing nearly everything.
Built in 1983 in Sugar Land, the 5,000-square-foot house had plenty of room for the Thotas and their three children. But Ravi Thota wanted something more contemporary and less traditional.
It was difficult to find a contemporary home on the market, and they didn’t want to take the time to build, so they shopped for a home in the right location and figured they could fix whatever they didn’t like.
Their Sugar Lakes house has quick access to the freeway and is in close proximity to the family’s friends.
They moved to Houston from California, where they had a nice view of the mountains, so finding this home on a small natural lake felt like a sweet slice of nature.
Inside, a staircase was an obstacle to an open floor plan and brick planters were oddly placed on each end of a breakfast area, making it impossible to enlarge the kitchen.
They bought the place in the summer of 2018 — when they moved to the Houston area — and work began a year later. They finally moved in last summer.
They’re still filling the house with furniture, delayed by manufacturing and shipping backlogs throughout the design industry. In the meantime, they’re working on landscaping, adding new plantings but also replacing things that died in the February freeze.
Now, though, their kitchen and bathrooms are done, and soon, they’ll move on to collecting art for the walls.
The team of Greg Swedberg from 2Scale Architects, contractor Conor Thompson of Southland Homes and Jacob Medina of Jacob Medina Interior
Design worked together to create a plan to reinvent the Thotas’ home from the inside out.
“It was a challenge because we wanted it to be light, but at the same time, we also wanted it to be warm, so it had to have some colors that are darker,” Thota said. “In the kitchen, especially, we cook quite a bit, so we needed materials that can take heavy cooking and don’t stain.”
One of the biggest changes was moving the stairs, opening up the possibility of a larger kitchen and a keeping room, a space that’s not really a breakfast room and not really a family room — just a place to hang out near the kitchen.
The team added skylights to bring in natural light, built a new master suite and created a yoga room for Laxmi. All along the back of the home, large windows were added so the family can always see the lake.
“The back of the house fully faces water, even on the side. We had windows and lots of walls. Now, everywhere there’s water, we have glass,” Ravi Thota said.
Some of the kitchen area had a cathedral ceiling, which they closed off to create a media room upstairs. Shifting the stairs was another major move that enabled them to enlarge the island to be an area both for working and for seating.
To keep the home light they used a creamy white large-format porcelain tile for flooring; it’s easy to take care of and completely neutral. In the kitchen-keeping room area, they used light neutral paint — Sherwin-Williams’ “Agreeable Gray,” an on-trend light taupe.
The island is a now gathering place, thanks to an island/table combination Medina designed that features an L-shaped walnut counter that wraps around two sides of the Neolith-covered island — the Estatuario pattern, installed waterfall style — allowing five people to sit at the island and using the wood to warm up an otherwise light neutral space.
“The architect had drawn a very large island with a good amount of seating, but Ravi was particular about not having a seam and grout line in the middle of two slabs,” Medina said. “I created an asymmetrical island with the counter being the functional space and walnut being the seating area. That option gave us the ability of having a large island and not using slabs with a seam.”
Just a few steps away is the keeping room, with its comfortable, casual seating and built-in bar, which will come in handy when the Thotas can entertain again.
“It’s really good for quick meals, breakfast. We don’t have to go to the dining table, we can sit here and eat,” Thota said. “It’s also a great place to sit and hang out with friends. We want to have lots of people in the house, but because of COVID, it’s limited. I can see one day it will become a very active area where we make stuff, and the bar is right there to grab drinks and people talk to us while we make stuff.”
A wall of walnut planks sits on the far side of the keeping room, repeating the warm wood one more time.
The nearby powder bathroom was functional but didn’t look nice, and it’s face-lift is a dramatic change.
To Thota, it’s an interesting and artistic spot showcasing the contemporary style he leans toward.
Medina combined a concrete vessel sink and wall-mount brass faucet with a walnut cabinet and floating walnut shelves, topping it off with a bold black-and-white wallpaper (York’s Geometric book).
“I am so happy that people are taking homes that have good bones and updating them versus always looking for a new construction townhome or whatever that might be,” Medina said. “I was happy he wasn’t so tied to what the home should look like for the area and instead create something that would look right for his family.”