About a year ago, I had the opportunity to renovate one of these beautiful homes. It was so much fun redesigning the kitchen to be more functional for the family’s needs.
Having great details and livable spaces doesn’t stop on the inside but it does start back on the drawing board creating the master plan. It’s important to think about how you want the space to feel along with how you want it to actually look.
Here was the existing backyard on our Holladay project:
And here is one possibility that includes three separate living areas: sitting, eating and roasting. However, they can easily combine to accommodate for larger gatherings.
It is so important to make the accessibility easy so its natural for people to use the outdoors. When done correctly its like adding additional square footage to your home. Poorly placed doors or steps makes the backyard uninviting and rarely used.
In progress..
If only I had the space for a laundry room like this in my house…. Great job, Ben!
Check out the rest of the house! Thanks for the pictures!
…. well, it should have been. This beautifully refreshing home is currently featured in the Utah Valley Parade of Homes by Hatfield Homes and in our minds it was clearly the best kitchen.
It’s always refreshing to see designers and builders bringing the traditional East Coast charm to the dreary stucco Utah. But wouldn’t you know it, that our good friend Benjamin Blackwelder had a little something to do with it. Unfortunately, I didn’t find pictures of the laundry room but the cabinetry in there are amazing!! Check out some of our other projects with Ben here, here, and here.
Note the incredible coffered ceiling below also crafted by Ben.
Photos by hiya papaya (the homeowner).
As Steve creates amazing new kitchens for others, I just dream about our big kitchen renovation. This is my kitchen… doesn’t it look ready to be ripped out??
Although I spend a lot of my time dreaming about the end result, I also spend a lot of time thinking about how I’m going to live through the renovation itself. Typically, Steve can remodel a kitchen in 6-8 weeks but for our kitchen, I’m planning on a 6-9 month renovation living without a sink or oven. This is us doing most the work on nights and weekends. (I do not recommend it this way!)
Last remodel, we were living like this:
But this time we have two kids and a business to run plus this remodel will include the kitchen with a pop out and the rest of the main floor. So I need to be much more prepared. Here’s my list of advise mostly for myself and for others ready for a big remodel:
I’m always fascinated by those HGTV shows where they take things like a lamp shade found in a dumpster and turn it into a chic coffee table. I had one of these moments the other day and I wanted to share.
First, it started with a fireplace I had covered a couple months ago to hide dated brick (part of Phase 2 discussed here). You know the kind of dated fireplaces in the basements where we grew up.
We covered it by milling stock pine from Home Depot into ship-lap siding and attaching it to the brick. This gives it a more coastal or country feel rather than 70′s. I like the natural subtle imperfections of the pine. It makes it seem older and more authentic. You can also use mdf to do this. It will save on costs when doing larger areas. As shown here.
For the mantle, I wanted to have an older trestle wood timber post on top of white crisp corbels. The blend of refined and rustic keeps it more Nantucket than rustic cabin.
I didn’t end up going with the old gray beam and went with something a little closer to home…literally. I used wood from our fence that had fallen down.
After:
We are just finishing up was has been Phase 3 of remodeling some of our favorite people’s house.
Phase 1 started out like this:
And it also marked the beginning our a beautiful friendship with this guy. Phase 1 was basically the main floor: kitchen, dinning, powder bath and into the living room. See all pictures here.
Phase 2 went downstairs to completely redesign the guest bathroom and then that spread to the basement kitchen and family room. We’ll have more about those later.
And Phase 3. Upstairs. What started in the bathroom extended to the master closets and bedroom. Here are the befores and the “durings,” not afters.. yet. I’m excited to see them finished.
Master Bathroom:
Kids bathroom:
We have been thrilled by the response to our Holladay project. We’ve had several requests for more information about the project so I thought I’d share some more info about the mud room and entry.
The mud room is great in it’s simple details and right as you walk in you look straight at the utility door (photo on right) with it’s custom intake vent. This area which also connects to the front entry is painted Restoration Hardware’s Pale Silver. Although it’s a bit difficult to appreciate it’s full awesomeness unless you see it in person but it’s a great color. 
The lighting fixture in the entry from Pottery Barn and is a perfect scale for the area and is both classic and elegant. 
Be sure to contact us at tiekbuilthomes@gmail.com if you have additional questions about your next project.
It’s all about the details and this house is full of them. I feel bad for the painters cause they spent a good few days just caulking all the millwork. The hard work paid off and I’m happy with the results. These pictures show a little of what we have done. Don’t mind the mess, these aren’t final shots. I wanted to go beyond bead-board wainscoting and really trim this house. The goal was to keep a cape cod authenticity with a coastal influence. I find the east coast “shingle style” homes pretty much do the same thing.
Front entry with two closets and a great spot for guests to take of their shoes.
Hallway leading to the rest of the house with floor to ceiling trim and the reoccurring shiplap overhead.
Kids bath with vintage classic feel. And hallways with built-in linen cabinets and contemporary light fixtures.
The mud room with the continued shiplap and storage space for the family. And then the door to the utility room has a custom made intake vent that goes along with the Greek key pattern above the living room fireplace.
As we approached the end of this project, we began to realize the overwhelming task the homeowner had of furnishing this house. So we thought who else but Caitlin Creer to bring everything together. We are so excited to have Caitlin apart of this project. She so is talented and has such great style.
Here are the canvases, ready to be filled..
Living Room
Dining Room
Family Room
Girl’s Room
Nursery
Boy’s Room
Master Bedroom
