Mountain house

Sometimes houses just need an identity. That is actually usually where I start with a design. My mother always said “The house will tell you what it wants to be.” I do find that to be true. This house was lacking for curb appeal to me. We knew it needed more visual weight to balance the stone on the left so we traded the white railing for the wood and skirted the deck to ground it. As for the front door, I felt it was lost in the shadows so it was painted white to bring it forward as well as making the cut glass window more noticeable.

This house was built with a lot of good elements that really just needed to be brought back to life. It had amazing windows and beautiful hardwood floors. Once we gave all the built-ins, island and walls a fresh coat of white paint, we literally felt as though a large brown weight had been lifted off us. Too much white though can leave a room feeling sterile and too precious so we balanced that by grounding the floors with a medium stain, added the timbers on the mantel and at the entry, a massive wood barn door to the office and butcher block on the island and bar top. The kitchen only needed a few tweaks then. We changed the perimeter countertops to quartz, bought new appliances, sink, faucet and changed all the cabinet pulls to black. I am a firm believer that light fixtures are crucially important to get right so most of those were updated but I do like to keep the things that have a retro vibe or are actually on their way back in so you will see that there are three pendants that are original to the house. 

Moving downstairs, we had an existing bedroom and bathroom that had recently been installed. Just a few things to fix and finish those rooms off. We added the fun birch wallpaper to tie in the rustic mountain feel in a more contemporary way, switched the vanity light to a more substantial black as well as the black framed mirror and cabinet bulls. 

It is definitely a fine line that we walk with our houses. Balancing good design, conscientious construction, thoughtful maintenance and a real desire to create a product that we are proud of with a practical need to earn a profit is sometimes a challenge. There are always more great ideas. We could add ceiling beams here or some board and batten there . . . knowing when to stop is hard but one thing I do know is that there will be a new house speaking to me again very soon!