When people ask us what interior design is like, the first thing that comes to mind is that it's like solving a puzzle. A majority of our new renovations begin with walking through very old structures, or outdated homes whose owners have trusted us with giving it a timeless and classic feel.
It's a long road to get to that finish line, and the question we often find ourselves asking is "how can we make this happen"? "This" being our vision in a new space. This is where the puzzle solving begins!
Take our most recent renovation for example. This is the entry space when the clients bought this 1920's Royal Barry Wills home:
This home had incredible character. However, over the years and many different owners, some unfortunate design decisions were made which left this beautiful swan of a house feeling very underwhelmed.
We loved the original metal windows, brick exterior, slate roof, foyer metal railing and many other details that dated back to its original conception. The main issue for us and our clients was the rooms had been chopped up and made into small generic spaces. The kitchen wasn’t at all cohesive, and for our clients who love to cook and entertain this was a problem (aka puzzle!) that needed to be solved.
Our wheels started turning after our first walkthrough and we needed to figure out a way to structurally open up the space and make it seem warm, inviting, and elevated. We got right to work on floor plans, and below you can see on the left how the house was laid out originally, and to the right was our new vision for the space.
By opening up the wall from the kitchen to the dining room and removing the main wall that made a long narrow hallway from the entrance, we created a large kitchen, with a banquette area as well as pantry storage.
We then closed in a back entrance to make a mudroom area. The powder room initially had a tub in it, we removed the tub and used part of that room to add to the kitchen pantry and then gave the extra storage to the powder room. A small room off of the hallways was transformed into an office. The result was that the flow of the house was drastically improved!
Below you can see our plan in action! This was a big day when we had a brand new beam installed:
We really love the way this project turned out, because the final product is so wildly different from where it started! It's fun for us to look back and see how much change we were able to implement in a renovation.
Solving those design puzzles is a fun part of the job, and makes for amazing homes that we are proud to say we redesigned! Below you see a few of our favorite "after" shots from our Portfolio "Royal Barry Willis" on the KMH website.
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