Unless you're
a celebrity with money to burn, or just one very successful lay-dee, most of us have to cut back somewhere when it comes to furnishing and renovating our homes. I myself have been known to drop big bucks at high-end design shops and haggle over flea market finds in the same day. And although I'll concede that spending money on my house itself is in most cases a better investment than purchasing furnishings to fill it with, sometimes I just can't restrain myself from bringing home a beautiful lamp or having a chair reupholstered.
I recently read about architect
Madison Spencer's renovation of his own 1950s Charlottesville, Virginia home (known as Rabbit Run), which was featured in the April issue of Southern Accents,
on Style Court. I was bowled over by the drastic change, which took advantage of existing features like tall windows and
Chippendale accents, but made changes inspired by Thomas Jefferson's designs for the University of Virginia (Spencer's alma mater). The renovated building is impressive and elegant, rather than gauche and unremarkable, as it was before.
TeamSugar member
Twinkle recently renovated her kitchen, and the results are magnificent. She designed the new kitchen layout for her Scandinavian home herself, and her husband assembled and installed the cabinetry (by Danish company
Kvik) himself. The couple hired professionals to knock down a wall, put drywall up, rework the plumbing, do electrical work, and lay the oak floor.
Su Casa member
NdChristine sanded, primed, and painted her three 1950s-era lawn chairs. Here's what she started out with:
To see the chairs after she worked her magic, read more.
Nice work. I love the tomato-red shade that NdChristine chose — it looks amazing against the green grass.
Since many families choose to build their bedrooms onto a separate wing, or far end, of a home, doesn't it make sense to put them on another level altogether — such as on a rooftop. Built in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, by the firm MVRDV, is this very cool rooftop house extension, which was added onto an existing home. I love the look of these little house bedrooms, which offer privacy to each family member, and appear to be a tiny village growing atop the existing home's roof.
