The Park Residence video reveal is here! For this project it was all in the details from the vintage faucet to the cane kitchen stools. Every little detail made this space feel so special! And check out the video to hear another amazing story that made this project hit close to home.
We have tons of other blog posts all about this project if you’d like to dive in more! Linking them up below:
Before
Progress Update
Final Reveal
Enjoy!
The Park Residence is a special project for many reasons! This home is located in a beautiful historic neighborhood and we wanted to really honor the time period while updating functionality to modern day living. Special vintage details can be seen throughout the design, including some heirloom pieces that are original to the home. It wasn’t until we started the project that I discovered another important story. This home belongs to my extended relatives and was passed down over generations from my great great grandparents! So many beautiful stories were shared over the course of the project and I feel truly honored to have played a part in the restoration of this family home.
Bright and airy, warm and timeless. These were some of the aesthetic goals we wanted to achieve for this home. A palette that would fit a 100 year old home while still feeling relevant to today’s design styles. Inset cabinetry played a big role in bridging the gap between “just another white kitchen” and a kitchen that felt like it truly fit the home. We also wanted to include traditional styles of millwork, such as the custom hood surround and the planked ceiling. You see these details carried throughout the other spaces around the home. For example, the wainscot in the laundry room and the vertical planked walls in the stairway.
White oak accents were an important material to keep a bright home from feeling stark or sterile. New wood floors, oak floating shelves, and a custom white oak island with a planked detail brought in warmth and texture. Not to mention the texture from the cane stools! We carried the wood accents into the laundry room with the cabinetry as well as a custom base for the home’s original basin sink.
One of my favorite parts of this project was sourcing fixtures that looked original to the home. An antique brass kitchen faucet with porcelain handles was shipped in from the UK. It’s natural patina brought a vintage touch that can’t be replicated. The brass pot rail behind the range was the perfect detail with an ode to historic times. But how about those gorgeous copper pots?!
The backsplash tile is a handmade tile that has the perfect texture. We went with a 4×4 size which was another detail to the home’s age. It’s a size that was more common for historic homes and is seeing a resurgence in today’s homes. Variation in the color kept the kitchen from feeling flat and was a nice addition to the overall palette.
We made a lot of changes to the kitchen floor plan to open up the space! Increasing functionality was critical from a storage and circulation standpoint. Just go back to the before photos if you want to see how much it was lacking! The tricky part was finding a solution for the windows with a sill height just a bit too low for a counter to fit underneath. We dropped the cabinet height to work around this while still maximizing storage. We then changed the material on the top to a painted finish so the whole thing felt like an authentic built-in. Plus, how cute are the little round knobs that are carried throughout? The brass sconces above the windows on the left (peeking out in one of the photos from the photos earlier) added some nice detail along the wall.
Around the corner from the kitchen’s open shelves is the stairway. The stairs were originally tucked behind a series of doors that made them feel like a cave. With a few minor changes to the floor plan, we were able to open it up. This brought in some natural light and a better flow. We also added some safety measures like a new oak railing and new solid wood stair treads. The white vertical planking brightens the space and makes it feel much more open!
Upstairs, a little nook next to the stairs originally was closed off. Again we wanted to visually open the stairs up as much as possible. We removed the wall and added black metal spindles and a white oak newel post to tie everything together.
Some of my favorite details can be found in the laundry room! This space glows with natural light! Making the switch to white oak cabinets felt like the right choice to warm things up a bit. Wainscot with a few peg hooks brought in some historic details as well as functionality for a room that needs to work hard. The porcelain tile floor is durable, has a beautiful tumbled texture, and was installed in a traditional layout. The cherry on top for the entire room is the basin sink! This cast iron sink is original to the home but we freshened it up by reglazing, adding a custom white oak base, and a new brass faucet. It’s a workhorse for this family but who says that can’t be beautiful, too?
One of the major goals for the renovation was updating the upstairs bathroom. The long term plan is to make it part of the primary suite of the home. The challenge in this space was getting all of the desirable features of a primary bathroom while working with difficult angled ceilings causing restrictions on head heights. To fit in a shower, it would need to be almost in the center of the entire room! With this realization, a walk-in wet room started making the most sense. We would be able to tuck the tub under one of the lower head height areas. The rest of the necessities like the vanity and toilet would fit perfectly in the other corners and nooks of the room.
The clawfoot tub is another original to the home, which we reglazed just like the laundry sink. We also sourced a tub filler and handheld fixture that looks like an original but with all the functionality of modern day plumbing.
The bathroom vanity is one of my favorite parts of the bathroom! Its warmth and texture is exactly what the space needed! A marble countertop ties into the other finishes, the brass faucet with porcelain handles echoes the details found throughout the home, and the cane detail is hands down just my favorite thing. Plus we were able to incorporate the same detail downstairs with the kitchen stools! Touches of brass throughout provide a subtle yet impactful layer of charm in the bathroom, and the room just wouldn’t be the same without it!
This project was just so good. Despite navigating the challenges of job site shut downs in the middle of Covid, we persevered with patience, knowing it would all be worth the wait in the end.
Make sure to check out the before images here as well as the progress. It’s always fun to see that transformation! You can also watch the final video reveal here. As always, if you like what you see and have a project of your own that you would like to discuss, we’d love to hear from you! Check out our services and let’s chat!
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. We hope by sourcing some of our favorite products, we provide value to you and your projects!
SHOP THIS PROJECT
We’ve been writing sooo much about PDCo Home but we are definitely overdue for some client project updates, too! Our Park Residence is almost wrapped up, but we have to wait a bit longer for the master bathroom and final punch list items to be complete. So it’s time for a progress post, but I’m not going to show it too complete. That would certainly ruin the fun!
This home is a special one! You can read the full story in our first post here, but I’ll give a quick summary. Basically, the clients and I found out we’re family and this was my great grandmother’s home at one time! This is also a very old home with lots of charm, so it absolutely needed an update with a classic touch.
One of the primary goals was to open the wall between the kitchen and dining room, while still drastically improving functional cabinet and counter space. The photos below show before and after the wall was removed and a large beam added.
Can we also appreciate the look of that new subfloor? So much better and cleaner than the original floors! They were definitely old and worn!
If you look closely at the photos above and the before photos, you will notice a few details that became pretty good features of the kitchen. The first detail is how the stairs going to the upper floor create a partial angled ceiling in the kitchen space. To clean this up, we built out the angle all the way to the wing wall so it made the ceiling less choppy. Keep it in mind when you look at the photos below!
The second detail is in the original kitchen plan, the kitchen was not only separated from the dining room, but also a breakfast nook. When we removed these walls, we of course needed a beam between the dining room and kitchen. We also needed one in the location where the wall was between the kitchen and breakfast nook. This was just fine with us though because the client really loved the idea of beams in the kitchen. So we engineered the ones that were required, and then added one faux beam to match and balance out the space.
The last detail is a small switch we did for the doorways. The door to the basement in the original kitchen took up essential wall space. So we switched it to be accessed from the dining room! We also removed the door from the dining room to the upper stairs and main floor bathroom. This allows a pretty view to the stair focal wall, but also creates a more welcome feel for guests to use the only bathroom on the main floor.
See if you can see spot these details! They make all the difference!
I loved how many spaces we got to play with texture and pattern in this home! From a classic versailles tile install, to a gorgeous planked ceiling, and the vertical planked walls in the stairway, it’s all timeless but visually interesting.
The clients had recently updated their flooring in the living room and bedrooms to hardwood. We were able to get a perfect match to continue that flooring into the dining room and kitchen, as well as the stairs.
The other major concern the clients had was their narrow staircase. While we couldn’t create literal space, we could certainly create visual space! We added the vertical planking because it felt less farmhouse-y than horizontal shiplap. It also visually draws your eyes up the opening instead of noticing the skinny width. At the top of the stairs, we opened up a wall and will replace it with a handrail. That really did make the space more open at the top! And there’s nothing like a fresh set of stair treads to make your staircase feel less terrifying. This corner of the home now feels charming and welcoming versus a forgotten corner!
The original laundry room had a strange configuration with tight corners everywhere. We removed an unused chimney which allowed us to move the door. This not only helped the flow of the laundry room, but the kitchen as well! We also removed a closet and basically just opened the space up. My favorite detail is the sink refresh – that tub was original to the home! It got a facelift with a clean coat, new faucet, and new custom white oak base.
Cabinet layout and installation is always one of my favorite parts of the process. This home was the first time I also designed the cabinet package with a matching hood. It felt like the perfect fit for this kitchen to keep the space simple and clean.
The island was also custom designed with a gorgeous plank detail on three sides. I really felt the need to bring some warmth into the all white kitchen, so we went with white oak. This also matched the plans for the laundry room which called for some warm woods and less of a white utilitarian look. The two spaces are very open and connected to each other, so it was important that they play off each other beautifully.
Counters are in and backsplash is installed! I am so in love with the cabinet hardware and light fixtures in this project, but I’m not showing them just yet! This is the last photo you’ll see before the final reveal!
The master bathroom still has a bit to go, but once it’s all done, we’ll be styling away and getting our final photos. I can’t wait to show you!
If you have a project you’d like to discuss, feel free to contact me or book an appointment! I’d love to chat and see how I can help!
I can’t wait to share this first post about our Park Residence project, as it’s a special one! Shortly after the very first consultation for this home, the client messaged me and had discovered we were related. Small world, right? But it gets even crazier — the client’s home had been in the family for some time. In the past, it was actually my great grandmother’s home! These clients are already the sweetest people in the world. But this news was just a cherry on top for me. What serendipity! And what an amazing honor to both work for them and bring new life to a historic family home!
This renovation project consists of the main spaces of the home — opening up the wall between the dining room and kitchen and updating both spaces, adjusting traffic flow for the stairs to the basement and refreshing the stairs to the upper level, reconfiguring and updating the laundry room, and changing the upstairs bathroom to incorporate a shower and get a better use of space despite the difficult ceiling angles. Ready for a tour?
This kitchen had been refreshed several times over it’s lifetime. However, the root of all of it’s problems was never solved. Despite having a great amount of square footage, it could not be used to it’s fullest potential because it lacked wall space. Specifically, the wall space was taken up by circulation paths and doors! The door on the left is the clients’ primary entrance to the home. It goes through the laundry room and then to the home’s exterior and garage area. The door on the right goes to the basement, which is only used for storage.
“Floating” appliances, like the range in this kitchen, is always a pet peeve of mine. The refrigerator also blocks a good amount of the door on the left, which is a major circulation path. In addition, the clients’ main complaints included lack of storage and lack of counter/prep space.
The current laundry room had a big role to fulfill to provide many functions. On top of laundry, it held an original utility sink, it had kitchen/pantry overflow, and it was the main entrance for the homeowners from the garage. However, a catch-all isn’t the most desirable thing to walk into for the first impression of your own home.
Our goal for this space was to simplify the layout, add storage, and make it feel as special as the rest of the home’s updates. In order to improve the layout, we would need to remove an unused chimney from the corner. This would provide us JUST enough space to move the doorway. Going through the doorway, you would no longer be directed right into the side of the impeding refrigerator.
Within the kitchen was also a breakfast nook, which wasn’t essential to keep. We also planned to remove the wall between the dining room and kitchen for a better connection during family gatherings.
In the left picture, the door on the left leads to the staircase and only bathroom on the main floor. We wanted to reconfigure the stairs so that: (1) the door to the basement stairs would be moved out of the kitchen; (2) the staircase as a whole would be more open and inviting; (3) I personally felt this would make the bathroom feel more accessible by guests.
This bathroom space had charming architecture, but made quite the fuss when it came to head space. Ceiling slopes in every direction limited what functions could take place in each part of the room. The clients had hoped for this to be part of a future master suite, so incorporating a shower was an absolute must. How did we solve this problem? You’ll have to check back for our progress post! If you happen to know one of my favorite tricks for bathroom space planning, you’ll know exactly what I did!
How cute are some of these details? I personally fell in love with the window situation in this room! We also wanted to refurbish the tub — some of these details were very important in preserving the home’s history.
After some delays due to Covid-19 restrictions, this home is finally approaching it’s time for a progress update post! Cabinets were installed this last week, and things will start looking like a home again very soon. Stay tuned while I pull together all the exciting details to share!
If you have a project you’d like to discuss, feel free to contact me or book an appointment! I’d love to chat and see how I can help!
