My sweet client and I had recently finished updating her home in another neighborhood before I got the call, "Hey Candi, we bought a different house and I need you to help me update the lighting and add a few other tweaks." I was so excited to get the call. They were originally going to add onto their former house, but when they got the quote they decided buying was a better and more economical option. Then this gem of a house happened. This is our collaborative transformation of her Elmbrook home.
I got the link to the house shortly after our phone call. I studied through the photos to start putting a lighting package together for the house. These are the photos that I went off of before I could walk the space after closing:
Entry Way
Dining Room
Office
Bar
Living Room
Kitchen and Breakfast
Kitchen
Keeping Room
Keep in mind that all of these pictures are from the listing. This is not my clients furniture. I will now take you through the changes room by room.
Let's start with the entry. My client has a transitional style mixed with a touch of elegance. I knew we needed lighting that felt organic with modern twists to complement her furniture. From the entry, you can see all of her rooms except the kitchen and keeping room. I needed for everything to have it's own personality but still get along at this party. I picked the entry lights with alabaster to match the alabaster sconces we put in the living room. I loved how much the alabaster texture was complimentary to the brick ceilings. It was soft and warm, but still eye catching.
Office
My client works from home a few days a week, so she wanted it to be fabulous. She takes zoom calls during the day and wanted her bookcase behind her to look great on video. Since we already had a lot of the pieces from the previous house, we only needed to add a few touches. We painted the room Evergreen Fog from Sherwin Williams and added the art. We also updated the light fixture and rug to pull it all together.
Dining Room
Directly across the hall from the office is the dining room. The blue paint and shabby chic light were not going to play nice with the dining room furniture. We lightened up the room and added a darker chandelier to coordinate with the darker paneling and bookcases from the office as well as the dining furniture. In addition to the light fixture, we added the petrified wood above the chest and the Grandfather's Tree Art. I was so happy that all of the things we had picked for the other house worked so well in this new one. I mean who likes buying things twice? No one!
Wet Bar
This is the most important room in the house! I kid, I kid. The wet bar was the perfect space to be a bit whimsical. Again, here was another space that was open to the kitchen, breakfast and living room, so it needed to coordinate with the other fixtures. Are you seeing a theme yet?! We knew we were going to replace the countertops and backsplash in the kitchen in a couple of months. However, my client wasn't sure if we should replace the bar area countertops. I loved the bar's current countertops and backsplash together. It was different and moody. We added the star pendant, updated the cabinet hardware and accessorized with pieces she already had.
Living Room
The living room, kitchen and breakfast area are all open to each other. I was crazy about the light fixtures we picked for all three sections. The sconces in the living room were picked to coordinate with the entry lights and then we did the large, brass chandelier. Everything else in this room was repurposed from when we finished the previous house. I was so excited that everything we had picked for the previous house was proving to be classic and versatile to work in this house.
Kitchen and Breakfast
The lights went in first and a few months later we updated the kitchen. We replaced the countertops, backsplash and updated the hardware. The barstools we found at an estate sale. The plan was to recover them, but they looked perfect as they were. This was a unicorn moment! I mean, when does a remodel projects ever find moments where money is saved? It's not often, I can confidently say that!
Keeping Room
This room was a blank canvas. I had the idea to give it a more Ralph Lauren, rustic look. My client ordered her sectional from Crate and Barrel and we got the light fixture from Pottery Barn. The rest I sourced from my vendors except for the antler wall. This was the best, most comical moment of this entire project. I suggested we do antlers on the paneled wall since we had so much art in the rest of the house. My client went to work shopping for antlers. She went by the local antique store in downtown McKinney (Antique Company Mall) and pretty much bought them out of mounted and unmounted antlers. She swung by my store after getting her haul and said, "I think they call me the antler lady now." I went to her house the next day and we realized that we would need an actual mount for the unmounted, as we couldn't get them to hang without it. So we started googling where to buy antler mounts. The answer: Cabela's. We loaded up in her car, destination: Cabela's. On the way she asked, "I bet this is the first time you've had to shop for a client at Cabela's." It was, in fact, the first. When we got back we had to employ her sweet husband to help screw the antlers to the mounts. Meanwhile, we glued fabrics to update a couple of the already mounted anters. I think we started drinking wine at this point. Have I mentioned I just love these people?
Oh the fun and laughter! I am so blessed to get to work with such wonderful people! I don't know what I did to deserve such kind and fun clients but I hope I keep doing it! I also got to love on my keeping room furry models. They are the sweetest pups and, even better, they're rescues.
Thank you for coming along on this project evolution with me. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. May you have a wonderful day, wherever you are!