New Project- Woodard

Hi ya’ll!!! Sorry for the unintended hiatus, but it seems life was thrown off kilter after Hurricane Harvey came through Houston. We were so fortunate and our home never flooded, but co-workers of Ryan were not so lucky. Their stories, and those of so many Houstonians, are absolutely heartbreaking. Last week we drove through a neighborhood about 10 minutes from us that was heavily affected and it looked like a war zone. Every single house for blocks had piles in front of their homes with furniture, flooring and woodwork that was destroyed by flooding. It is, without a doubt, going to be a long road to recovery for these people and this city we've come to love. If you're able to, and feel inclined to do so, please donate to the recovery effort! I also want to thank everyone who reached out during that time to check on us. Nothing like a natural disaster to remind you of the great people in your life who care about you; we definitely felt the love!!! 

I’ll be honest, it felt wrong to start talking and blogging about things like interior design, which feels so frivolous when people around you are hurting. I guess it's a form of "survivor guilt" but someone shared with me that it's good that not everyone was affected by Hurricane Harvey because otherwise this city would never be able to bounce back and help others get back on their feet. So with that, I've decided to push forward and start to get things back to normal. 

I’m really far behind on sharing the progress on a lot of great projects I’m working on, so I’m going to start chipping away and getting everyone caught up, starting with a new project! For the past six months or so I’ve been working on a spec home that a client of mine is building. It’s a little over 3100 square feet and has four bedrooms and four baths, as well as a game/media room and a flex space on the third floor. We’re actually in the homestretch, BUT because I’m behind on blogging, today is all about the millwork.

When I was brought on to help with this project, the house was framed but no renderings of the kitchen or bathrooms had been completed, so I started by working with my carpenter on coming up with kitchen layout. The kitchen is fairly large which allowed for a nice size island in the middle. We also utilized large drawers whenever possible for more convenient storage. 

When designing a spec home, I generally keep the layout and design pretty classic in order to appeal to more potential buys, but I still like to add few custom touches to make it stand apart from other homes on the market. I decided to have my carpenter build a custom range hood, and rather than squeezing in a small cabinet on either side, I opted for floating shelves. 

I absolutely love how this turned out and how these small touches instantly make the home feel more high end. 

Off the kitchen, leading to the dining room at the front of the house, is the dry bar and pantry. The first picture shows the space before the shaker-style cabinet doors were added. 

To connect this to the kitchen, we've repeated the open shelves and the same backsplash tile will be carried into this space as well. The gap on the bottom is where the wine cooler will be located.  

The first floor bathroom has access from the main hallway as well as the attached guest room/office at the front of the house.

Upstairs are two more secondary bedrooms that are joined with a Jack and Jill Bathroom. The game/media room also has a small attached bathroom. In the laundry room we’ve added upper cabinets on either side of the window and a small base cabinet for folding off laundry off to the side.

In the master bathroom, the vanities are split but both have great size to them. The one closest to the window, we added a lower makeup counter. There is a walk-in shower with a bench and a separate tub. Next to the tub there was the perfect amount of space for a small built-in cabinet with a pulldown laundry bin.

Next week I’ll be back sharing the design plan for the kitchen and first floor bathroom. We have some really great tile and lighting planned for this home, and I can’t wait to see it all installed! Have a great rest of the week!

Contemporary Farmhouse- Glen Arbor

While the project in Montrose is still in progress, I wanted to check in briefly to introduce another project I’ve been working on for the past few months. It is 5800 square foot, five bedroom and 4.5 bath custom home here in Houston. The homeowners are going for a contemporary farmhouse style and it is going to be stunning. The home is being built in a flood zone, so in order to meet code it had to be built 6’ above ground on concrete blocks, which makes the scale of this two story home really impressive.

Love that wall of windows on the left + double steel front door.
Ignore the temporary garage door. 

We are already to the sheetrock phase so I’ve had several site appointments with the homeowner and builder. Our first walk-through was to discuss the framing and electrical placement, such as overhead lights, wall sconces, hanging fixtures, switch placement, etc. One issue that was caught was the placement of three small windows in the master. They were along the wall where the bed would be positioned and after checking the height, we realized they we would be partially, if not completely, covered by the headboard. Since this room has plenty of natural light coming from a large bank of windows on the adjoining wall, we decided to remove these and frame over them for a solid wall for the bed.

Homeowner, myself + Project Manager to discussing plans
while still in the framing stage.

Windows in the master that we decided to remove and close up.

Still plenty of natural light in the master.

During the second and most recent site visit we went over all the interior millwork. We went through the plans, room by room, making changes to the cabinetry as needed. While the kitchen stayed relatively the same to the architect drawings, we eliminated a few upper cabinets on either side of the sink and replaced them with open shelving instead. These will be 3” thick shelves with a rustic, natural wood finish. We’ll be accenting the range hood with a piece of natural wood as well. This, along with a few glass front cabinets, will nicely break up the white cabinets and walls.

Homeowner, Carpenter + Builder checking the plans

Range hood will have a similar wood accent,
but in a lighter color. 

Moving into the main living room, it was initially planned to keep this space more formal (i.e. no TV), but the homeowners decided it would be nice to have the option as long as the TV could be concealed. After discussing a few options with the builder and the carpenter, we came up with the idea of adding an automatic lift kit inside one of the built-in cabinets that would allow the TV to be raised up for normal, daily living and back down when they don’t want the “black box” to show.

Standing in kitchen, looking towards dining + living room

Fireplace will be stucco with shelves + cabinets on either side

My client and I were on the same page for wanting to make the bathroom vanities appear to be free-standing pieces of furniture versus a solid built-in vanity. Not only does this look more custom, it also adds a lighter quality to the space. We plan to paint the vanities in the kids’ bathrooms, but the master will likely be a white oak, which play nicely with the planked walls and dark floor we have planned. I can’t wait to share all the tile and lighting for this home--- it’s so good!

With that, I’m signing off for the rest of the week. I'm heading to Kansas City to cheer on my alma mater, the Iowa State Cyclones, at the Big 12 Tournament. Here’s hoping we aren’t leaving this beautiful Houston weather for nothing! Next week I’ll be back to share more of the design details for this contemporary farmhouse!