Todd Yarrington
A top-to-bottom basement remodel is just the latest in a series of major improvements for a 20-plus-year-old Amberleigh house.
The home was built in 1998, and the current homeowners have been there for the vast majority of the 24 years since. Over the past decade, they’ve worked with J.S. Brown & Co. to overhaul the mudroom, add a second-floor laundry, renovate the kitchen, spruce up the front entryway and, finally, transform the basement – almost always with their children and dogs in mind.
The Basement
“We went through all the ages of toys in that basement,” says homeowner Becky Keyser.
The basement was partially finished before, but the finished section is much larger than it once was. J.S. Brown took over a wall space and moved a doorway to accommodate the TV and large sectional couch.
“The wall that had the TV and bar area on it used to be interrupted by a doorway to the unfinished part of the basement,” says Monica Lewis, vice president of sales for J.S. Brown.
The shift in space opened up more room for the pool table, which Lewis calls one of the most beautiful she’s seen. It’s surrounded by porcelain tile with a distressed wood look – a good choice for a basement, Lewis says.
“It is so tough and so waterproof,” she says.
Adding character to the entertaining area is a small nook under the stairs, where people can sit and talk outside of the flow of traffic. A small floating bar with stools pulled up to it is positioned near the end of the pool table.
“It’s just a cozy little spot to sit and have a beer while you’re playing pool or whatever,” says Lewis.
The homeowners also wanted to add a bedroom in the basement – previously, the house was four-bedroom, and with three children, they didn’t have a guest room – but didn’t want it completely cut off from everything. Thus, the sliding barn doors with frosted glass, which not
only ensure that open doors don’t cut down on the amount of space, but make it possible to extend the living area down the road if desired.
The bedroom is equipped with a full bathroom and a sizable closet. It also has plenty of natural light. Though the windows had to be replaced because they were dated, they didn’t need to be enlarged, as they were of impressive size already.
“There wasn’t much we had to do to make that bedroom feel like a bedroom,” Lewis says.
The stairs down to the basement have undergone changes, too. Given Keyser’s preference for clean lines, J.S. Brown gave the railings a new style, with a painted look rather than a stained look.
“This basement had a very Colonial, old turn spindle look with the oak coming down the stairs,” Lewis says. “We went with a more Shaker style railing and post.
The Mudroom & Laundry Room
The Keyser home renovations started with the mudroom overhaul in 2013. As the main entrance for both the children and dogs, it wasn’t up for handling all that traffic.
Making things more complicated was the placement of the washer and dryer. Their positioning was off, blocking the door from the garage from opening all the way. In fact, the homeowners didn’t like having them in the mudroom at all.
J.S. Brown repurposed a second-floor sitting room to serve as the new laundry room, eliminating the need to haul laundry up and down the stairs. It’s equipped with shelves for laundry baskets, a counter for folding laundry and a long hanging rod, and it now has a door to separate it from the master bedroom, which the sitting room did not.
Down in the suddenly spacious mudroom, J.S. Brown installed assigned cubby spaces – with hooks for backpacks, coats, shoes and more – for each of the kids, as well as a pet area with a sink and a space for water dishes.
The Kitchen & Beyond
The kitchen remodel followed the mudroom and laundry room in 2014. The new kitchen, designed in a Shaker style, is open to the dinette, which is itself open to the family room.
The biggest obstacle to modernizing the kitchen was the ceilings. The house has high vaulted ceilings in the back, and the transition comes smack in the middle of the kitchen. That means it can be hard for light to get all the way down to the floor, though a new orb pendant light over the table helps.
“It’s a beautiful feature, and you want to take advantage of it, but you don’t want to draw attention to the fact that this room doesn’t have a consistent ceiling,” Lewis says.
The kitchen island, which was previously two-level, now is down to one, making it easier to manage. J.S. Brown moved the cook top from the island to the main counter, which was a high priority for Keyser. The island also features a beverage center, oversized glass fixtures and glass cabinet doors.
“It’s really stood the test of time,” Keyser says. “People think I just redid (the kitchen).”
A smaller component of the renovated kitchen plays an important role in the household. J.S. Brown installed a nook on a high-up ledge, used to hold food – particularly pizza – out of the reach of the dogs.
The front door replacement, which immediately predated the basement remodel, turned a typical late 1990s front entry with side lights into a striking grand entrance with solid wood doors.
Garth Bishop is a contributing editor. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
