A Total Refresh-- Before and After!

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I was so excited many months ago, when my clients contacted me and told me that they wanted to go forward with a multi-room, multi-phase renovation that would completely update their house and give it a total facelift…

We have now completed Phase One…and here are some of the results. :)

The living room—the first room you see as you enter the house—was given a stronger sense of balance and grounding by adding a new fireplace centered on the room. With that stronger focal point, the room came together beautifully….

with new flooring, a lighter color palette, and cleaner lines.

The original 1990’s kitchen, while amazingly still in fantastic shape in so many ways, also needed a total refresh.

The new flooring from the living room carried into this space and throughout the first floor.

Building from the floor up, we added new sleek cabinets in a new layout, allowing for a larger, more functional island perfect for entertaining.

A new tile backsplash and quartz countertop finish the clean contemporary look of the new space. Lovely!

I look forward to sharing more of this project in the months ahead!

Calm Down...

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I don’t know about you, but at this time of year—after all the hustle and bustle of the holidays—I really long for simplicity and CALM.

The feeling of calm is something that can be in short supply in our busy lives--and it is the feeling that most of us long to create in our homes. 

Should be easy, right? 

HOWEVER, the mistake we often make is thinking that to improve a room, we have to ADD something to it.

But in this case what is missing is CALM, and to create this much sought after feeling, we most often need to take something away. 

Because we are such busy people, we often have a lot of STUFF out in our homes and don't realize how this changes how we feel each day. 

You see, when we have a lot of stuff sitting out, it is almost like having a group of people all talking at us at the same time. You may not really "see" all of those items on the shelf or stuck on the refrigerator anymore --it may have become white noise to you--but trust me, they are still trying to get your attention and causing a commotion every time your eye glances over them....

What things around your home can be taken down, donated, thrown out, put in a drawer, or stored in such a way that it gives you some visual rest? 

Having less on the surfaces in our homes automatically makes it feel more settled. It helps us to feel more calm. 

And peace and calm is what I wish for you, dear friends! 

A Maine Cottage Tour...

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It is so exciting to be going into the new year with so many fabulous projects...including the ongoing work on the cottage up in Maine!

This week I wanted to share the full tour of all the new spaces up there, including the new guest quarters, THE ELEVATOR (how cool!), the brand new handicapped-accessible bathroom, kitchen annex, and more!


I have shared snippets of this before, but this video shows both upstairs and down, and highlights some of the big changes we put in place.


Kids & Sofas & Shoes & Old Houses...OH MY! (BEFORE & AFTER)

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Life is busy, especially when you have three small children.

Life is messy, especially when you have three small children…and NO entry closet, and NO mudroom, and nowhere really to store any toys…

Life is complicated, especially when you have three small children, an old house, and a room that doesn’t fit a conventionally sized sectional sofa—something that is necessary to accommodate all the seating you need.

Life is all of these things…and also wonderful!

Especially when you get to reimagine such a lovely space and create all kinds of new possibility for the people who live there!

When I first met with my clients more than a year ago now, they were considering a large addition to their early 1900’s house. They just felt they didn’t have the space they needed, or the storage.

But an addition would be expensive…and may still not be the answer they were looking for.

We looked at the house holistically and talked about how to better utilize the existing space they already had.

This living room redo was only a small part of the transformation this house is now going through…but it was a meaningful and great place to make some important changes.

For starters, their furniture was a bit worn out—but it had been difficult to find a new sofa that would fit the dimensions they needed.

Utilizing the family-owned furniture company I work with out of North Carolina, we were able to have a new sectional made to the measurements that fit the space—all for a reasonable price.

AND it is upholstered in a performance fabric!! So now spills and other messes that come with family life are not as big a deal!

The entry did not have space for us to create a true closet (—but we did carve out space for one in the new kitchen entry!! More on this in the future…. :) ), so we repurposed an existing credenza and added another one for the adjacent wall, so that there would be space for mail, papers, gloves, hats…all the STUFF of life!

On the opposite end of the space, we also added small shelves flanking the fireplace for additional storage and display…as well as two new comfy chairs for that end of the room!

Stay tuned for more on how we are recreating this house so that it really serves the family that lives in it with new coziness, beauty and comfort!