Jim and Jill Olding had their picturesque new Dublin-area residence designed with two main purposes in mind. First, it’s a comfortable, well-equipped home for a family of five—but it also offers ample space for relaxing and entertaining.

 

With just under 7,000 square feet of living space, the home exudes class as it embodies the unique features the Oldings wanted: features that the Truberry Group incorporated as they turned concepts into construction blueprints. The plan is based on ideas gleaned from pictures and visiting other homes as they looked for a location as well as a builder.

 

Situated on a corner lot in The Oaks, an upscale development just north of Tartan Fields,

the two-story stone and stucco home has a “French-country feel,” Jill says. Its four-sided architecture is magnified and enhanced by a wooded backdrop: a preserve at the rear of the home, once part of a fairway on the small, remote Twin Oaks Golf Course that’s currently undergoing a facelift.

 

Entering the foyer introduces a visitor to a home that’s loaded with charm, owed in part to the interior design decisions of John Wilson, a Columbus-based interior designer who the Oldings brought in for advice. Jill says she needed Wilson’s help because she started second-guessing all of her design decisions. Truberry planners and designers sculpted custom trim and other elements to blend the vision of the Oldings and Wilson—elevating the final product.

 

The unique floor plan doesn’t lead a visitor directly to a kitchen-great room. Obvious upon entry is a handsome office behind French doors to the right, and a wide-open formal dining area to the left. It has a table to seat eight, allowing the Oldings to entertain large numbers of guests on the holidays.

 

Just to the rear of the dining room is a short hall that leads to the first-floor focal point—the gathering room, a large area that incorporates all the features the owners need or want for their family or guests. Jim says they wanted to keep this room out of view of the house’s entryway, to maintain a modicum of privacy.

 

Entertaining In Style

 

Behind the design is what every homeowner knows. “We entertain a lot but no one ever leaves the kitchen,” Jill says. She really wanted a place where guests would be comfortable, retaining the ability to move about freely to socialize.

 

An angled, three-sided dining island at stool-height has seating for seven. It steps down to a counter-height top with a sink—void of appliances. That’s where the family usually eats, says Jill, who has three sons, one in college, one in high school and one in middle school.

 

Between the ample and eye-catching angular fixture is an island that stands taller than counters but is shorter than the dining counter. It’s a place for people to stand and is situated out of the way of anyone cooking, Jill says.

 

Kitchen built-ins include a conventional oven and a convection microwave, a wood-paneled two-door refrigerator and a drop-in gas range, all situated around the granite work counters that are highlight with paneled cabinets and tile and mosaic backsplashes. Jill concedes it’s not the typical V-shaped kitchen work area—instead it’s more open to allow easy movement in a crowd.

 

The gathering room spreads well beyond the kitchen. A self-serve bar wrapped in custom wood cabinetry and trip is across the room along an angled wall. The wood trim is sculpted like the kitchen cabinets but is stained much darker. The bar has an under-counter “beverage center” with two shelves for wine and one for beer or soft drinks, each individually chilled to allow temperatures to vary.

 

Along the rear wall, across from the kitchen-seating counter is a comfortable seating area with a half-dozen upholstered armchairs. “Men don’t like to sit next to each other on couches,” Jill says. This is the relaxing social center, complete with a wall mounted television. An informal dining table for six sits along the other side of the room.

 

There’s no fireplace in this room—on purpose. The room gets warm enough with a large number of people in it, Jill says. Instead, the fireplace was built into the “great room,” located through a door next to the bar. That room has, among other features, a custom woodwork mantle that works together with a tableau of square, framed, nicely painted indentations—a variation of a trey ceiling. It’s a room that allows a different sort of socializing and relaxation, Jill says. A wide opening provides access to the house’s entryway and dining room.

 

The master suite is a short walk from the social rooms. A highlight is a two-person shower with a rain showerhead in the ceiling, plus one head in the wall. Jill says the couple decided against a tub since they had seldom used the soaking tub in their former home in Hilliard.

 

High-End Amenities

 

The nearby laundry, handy off the gathering room, has a full counter, sink, ample wall and base cabinets, plus an under-counter niche that’s the “bedroom” for the family dog.

 

Not far away, a walkout door at the end of a wall of windows is access to a kidney shaped pool (with a deep end and a shallow wading end) and a large paved deck that will allow for larger groups. “This is something I wanted to do (for the boys),” Jim explains. “We moved 12 miles and I wanted to be sure their friends would come out.” At one end of the pool is a large entertainment bar made of natural stone and polished concrete, enclosing a barbeque grill. A nearby wood-burning fire pit is made of the same stones, as is an equipment facility at the opposite end.

 

A black wrought-iron fence surrounds the pleasant outdoor plaza that has nature’s hillside landscape as a backdrop.

 

Back inside, all of the rooms throughout the home feature crown molding that’s a combination of wood and painted wall surfaces, all white, highlighted by earth-tone walls and dark stained hickory floors throughout the first floor.

 

Upstairs, one of three bedrooms was expanded to allow room for a desk, a full bath and a walk-in closet. The two other bedrooms are served by a Jack ‘N Jill bath.

 

The massive lower level, most of which is finished, includes a theater with a large built-in projection screen. A long stool-height granite bar in the theater’s rear wall is for sitting and food service. An oversized antique pool table – a converted billiard table which has been in Jim’s family since the early 1900s – is prominent in the middle of the elongated room.

 

Off of that main room sits a full bath and laundry room, a “video game room” for the boys, and a home gym.

 

Clearly, this house was a concentrated effort, an effort that paid off for the Oldings and any guest that walks through their door.