Three years ago, my husband and I bought a 1997 colonial farmhouse in the bucolic village of Pound Ridge, NY. The house was being sold as-is in a short sale, so it needed a significant amount of work, but after surviving the renovation of our first house while we had our two young kids running around, we felt like we were up to the task.
Devising a Plan—Then Revising It
We had a set budget that needed to include both the renovation and the decorating, so we intended to renovate only what was most necessary and then focus on adding touches to make the house our own. Due to the house’s “as-is” condition, we knew we had to replace the gutters, decking, and some of the siding immediately. The decking around the front and side entrances to the house were rotted through and was a safety hazard. The landscaping around the house was so out of control that plants had grown into the deck railings, pulling them down. Weeds were growing in the gutters as well.
We knew we’d eventually have to replace the roof, but it wasn’t on our immediate to-do list. However, a few weeks after we closed on the house, a huge rainstorm passed through, causing leaks in several areas of the house. Thankfully this happened well before we were too deep into the interior renovations. When we called the roofing company to discuss the issue, we learned that they had been out to patch the roof no less than 10 times over the last several years. That explained the water damage we had seen during our initial walkthrough. It soon became clear that patching the roof to put a Band-Aid over the problem was no longer an option. We recalibrated our plan and decided to move forward with replacing the roof, gutters, and decking immediately.
Working With What We Had
Inside our home, our budget only allowed us to renovate our kitchen and primary bathroom. Fortunately, the majority of the remaining rooms only needed a slight facelift. We got to work removing the 25-year-old wallpaper throughout the house—including the 20-foot-high entry and upstairs hallway that was covered in a faded yellow, as well as the bathrooms and bedrooms, each of which was plastered with a different colored wallpaper, ranging from blue and red to pink and yellow, peeling in most places and water damaged in others.
As we removed the very worn red carpet from the staircases and upstairs hallways, we discovered untouched wooden floors underneath begging to be stained, which felt like a win. We weren’t so lucky with the entryway floors however, as they were water damaged, worsened by months of no one living in the house during the short sale process, and had to be fully replaced. Once we got past these initial efforts, we were able to give the walls a fresh coat of paint, stain the floors and replace all the light fixtures.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen an increase in new builds that lack decorative molding, which creates an overall clean and minimal aesthetic. But since our house was built in the 1990s, it had been designed with oversized, detailed molding throughout. Though I would describe my interior style as modern minimalist-meets-transitional eclectic, we decided to lean into the molding, rather than remove it. I like every piece of furniture to have a purpose, and I don’t tend to fill floor space unnecessarily. I’m also drawn to large pieces of colorful art, textured wall décor and sculptural light fixtures. So, keeping the dentil molding in the living and dining rooms, along with the chair rail in the dining room, allowed me to decorate in a more minimal style just by adding a few key pieces of wall décor and lighting.
Modernizing the Dining Room
Some homeowners today feel that formal dining rooms are no longer necessary, especially with the rise of open-floor plans. But I think they are making a comeback, and I’ve always felt that it’s important to prioritize the way your family uses your house daily first, then think about the guests you’ll be hosting. For our home, we chose to keep this space as a formal dining room. I come from a large family, and we often gather for holidays, birthdays, and Sunday dinners so having a designated space to comfortably host is important to us.
I used the chair rail as an excuse to have this be the only room in the entire house that isn’t painted Chantilly Lace by Benjamin Moore, which is a neutral white paint with almost no undertones. In our previous house, we were not consistent with the paint color from room to room, so I knew I really wanted everything to flow together visually with this new house. It made sense to lean into a moodier, more intimate feel for the formal dining room, and although the previous owners had the right idea, using a very deep shade of red, we opted to update the space using Farrow & Ball Mole’s Breath, a deep gray, and Chantilly Lace in a matte finish below the chair rail. All the trim throughout the house is a now discontinued Benjamin Moore trim color, but it is equivalent to Chantilly Lace in a glossy finish.
We kept the existing red oak floors, which are designed with a gorgeous inlay around the exterior of the dining and living rooms. We chose to restain them in three parts dark walnut and one part weathered oak, which created a warm effect against the white walls. For the lighting, we used the existing electrical mount and swapped out the existing polished brass candelabra-style chandelier for a modern, linear gold chandelier from Kelly Wearstler.
Brightening Up the Living Room
The living room was painted a pastel yellow with white bookshelves and trim. We decided to repaint this room in Chantilly Lace and then painted the fireplace surround and bookshelves the same color as the trim. I questioned this initially, but after filling the room with furniture and décor, I realized the bright, white fireplace and bookshelves allowed me to hit all the colors of the rainbow with décor and art, while still having the room feel bright, mature and relaxing.
We kept the existing granite tile, which is a black and grey speckled style, on the fireplace, though I have plans to replace it with Zellige square tile. When budgeting our project, I realized that replacing the fireplace stone became a want, not a need, and so it was pushed to the “tackle it later” list.
Maintaining the existing electrical mounts in this room, we replaced the polished brass and glass sconces with tall, modern, fluted bronze sconces that drew more attention to framing the mantle. Finally, we replaced all of the existing screw-in high hats with LED cans, which I would recommend to anyone buying an older house.
What We Learned
One of my favorite design quotes that has stayed with me over the years is from interior designer Suzanne Tucker: “As we evolve, our homes should too.” We bought this house with the intent of transforming it into our dream home. In our first house, I struggled to ever feel fully settled with the design. But with our second house, we took all the lessons we learned the first time around, the things we loved, the things we hated, and the things we evolved from, and applied them to our new home to create a more efficient, thoughtful renovation.
We learned that building clear lists of our high-priority projects and the future projects we hope to do someday, as well as developing a budget for both renovation and decorating beforehand, was the key to making a house like this work. Instead of allowing ourselves to get swayed by whatever’s trendy at the time, we decided to focus on design elements that we are drawn to most, like the warmth of dark floors and dramatic molding, to ensure we’ll still love our choices years from now.
Three years down the road, we definitely still have a list of things we want to accomplish. But I think we can say we have successfully taken a house that many people looked at and dismissed for being too much work and have turned it into our dream home. Besides, as my favorite quote says, design is an evolution and we’re very happy with our work in progress so far.
