We are so excited to share this project with you!
Our clients came to us basically wanting a new house, but not wanting to move. They loved their neighborhood and their location. They had done their research, and a new house with all of the items they were wanting would have been double what their current home was worth.
That’s when they called us to help them transform their current home to feel like a completely different house. It was originally his house, but now it was becoming “their” home as they were getting married and combing two households with three children each. We not only needed to make this look like a different house, but with additional household members joining the mix, we needed the house to function differently.
The whole house got fresh paint, light fixtures, hardware, and flooring, but several spaces got a complete overhaul! Here are a few highlights with before and after photos of the spaces we would vote “most improved”:
Entryway
As you walked through the front door of our clients’ home, there were two spaces originally intended as a formal living room and a formal dining room. The formal living room had already been overtaken by the kids’ toys, but the formal dining room was still treated as the dining room, though seldom used for dining and more often used as a place to lay out paperwork. We overhauled their great room, kitchen, and breakfast room to give them a big island with more casual seating and a breakfast nook with seating for 8 (more on that in a minute!), so they really no longer needed the formal dining room. They did, however, still need a playroom, though they preferred it not be featured by the front door. They also needed another home office. We moved the kids’ toys into the former formal dining room and put in a wall with pocket doors where the columns used to be so the space could be closed off and out of sight completely if needed. We converted what was originally the formal living room, and then the playroom, into a home office. Though the office was complete with a chandelier for our fabulous client, she wanted to be able to close it off from the front door, too. We took that opportunity to design custom “barn” doors, which give her not only privacy when she needs it but also add an attractive focal point when you walk through the front door.
Kitchen
This kitchen, breakfast room, and great room transformations is one of our favorites ever. The existing kitchen was somewhat isolated from the great room, being tucked around the corner, and awkward in its layout. In our initial discussions with our clients, they had thought that to increase the size of the kitchen that they would need to add on to the house.
Working our space planning magic, we were able to double the size of the kitchen by flipping the locations of the breakfast room and the kitchen and utilizing wasted space at the end of the long great room.
We modified the windows to work with the new layout and swapped out a single patio door to the deck for french doors to allow in more light.
We added a cased opening between the great room and new kitchen location to give some definition between the spaces, but now our clients can cook and hang out at the large island in the kitchen and still be a part of the action in the great room.
Our clients were thrilled that we could help them make better use of the space they already had and stay within the existing walls of the house, which saved them quite a bit of money.
Master Bathroom
Part of the deal for our clients staying in this house was that she would get a bigger closet. Very much wanting this marriage to happen(!) and for them to stay in this home, we went to work space planning in the master suite to find a way to enlarge one of the closets and make better use of the space.
It turned out that there was a lot of wasted space in the master bathroom between the big, open floor space and the tub!
We took out the gigantic tub deck and wall bump-outs that had been built to accommodate the tub and were able to add about 25 square feet (over 50% more space) from the bathroom to her closet.
We also opened up and doubled the size of the shower by combining the two separate vanities into one large double vanity (good riddance, glass block!).
We relocated the tub to be opposite the new double vanity, and by using free-standing tub, we reduced its footprint to about 1/3 of the original tub and deck. (You can see here where the shared closet/master bath wall moved into the bathroom space and toward the window to enlarge the closet.)
We swapped out the original closet doors for sliding doors so they weren’t swinging into the closet or the hall and in the way.
This has to be one of our biggest transformations yet. We were thrilled to help our clients create a “new” home out of their existing home and to do it for a fraction of the cost of a comparable new home!
Check out the project portfolio here: https://emilydyerdesign.com/portfolio-items/chippenham/