The pair painted the upstairs master bedroom white, and added a G55 sling chair and leather baskets from their recent design collections. The carpet is from a souk in Casablanca, and the bedcover is from Zara Home. Atop the vintage cup-board is an artwork by Vereecke’s father. Verheyden incorporated all-new woodwork of his design into the room.
Steven and Tata relax in their living room. “The house has always been deemed the ‘great escape,’” says Steven. “It’s a very special place for us.” The Superheroes stool and table are by Swedish designers Glimpt Studio for Cappellini, the blush-colored rug is from ABC Carpet & Home, and the Pan Pan rabbit figurine is by Ligne Roset.
Fusion Landscape Design worked with PATH to remake the backyard into a grown-up playground. Under the stairwell sits a tiny custom cedar sauna and an outdoor shower—just a literal hop, skip, and jump away from the sprawling in-ground eight-by-ten-foot hot tub. Down three short stairs, Gloster’s Elan dining table from Design Within Reach is surrounded by Spark chairs by Don Chadwick for Knoll and a built-in fire pit and DCS grill by Fisher & Paykel—all resting on a smooth surface of bluestone pavers.
The open dining area and kitchen of a midcentury renovation in Austin shows the existing terrazzo flooring, the plaster ceiling, and the kitchen's tile backsplash—Fireclay Debris series in Daffodil—working in harmony. Floating shelves in the kitchen window and a stainless-steel countertop surrounding the kitchen's burners rest just beneath the backsplash. A Boca Raton Blue upper cabinet and Nelson pendants add interest and dimension to the kitchen's warm combination of wood, yellow and blue. Vintage chairs, seated at the kitchen island and in the front right corner at the dining table, complete the design scheme.
Opening the kitchen to outdoor spaces, a new window with floating shelves for storage looks out into the front yard. New appliances, stainless steel countertops and an integral sink add utility. Photo by Whit Preston.
The renovation was designed to preserve and call attention to the angular pattern of the crisscrossing concrete ceiling beams. Photo by Jim Stephenson.
In the master bedroom, a small, cramped closet was replaced with a wardrobe that is partially obscured by a slatted wooden screen that was built by Metalworks & Design Studio of Seattle. "The idea was you see through it, so in a sense it doesn't feel like a small space," Smith says.
The duo added custom redwood cabinetry on the dining area side. The pendants are from Birchwood Lighting.
"The most challenging part of the design was fusing the old part of the house with the new addition," says principal architect Alex Terry. The character and architectural integrity of the single-level 1950s ranch house was thoughtfully reconsidered during the addition and remodel. The home’s front porch, typical of the period, was refreshed with Ipe decking and railing.
The exterior mixes pale gray wood on the vertical volume, and fiber cement and black brick on the horiztonal volume. The three trees in the front yard were maintained during the renovation process.
The flooring in the hallway, and elsewhere in the apartment, is manor oak by Kährs. Photo by Jim Stephenson.
A door frame was preserved as "a sculptural memory piece," Sara Imhoff says, after a wall separating the old kitchen from a small dining room was demolished. The countertops and backsplash are by Caesarstone.
Light streams into the bedroom through walls of floor-to-ceiling glass. The windows are triple-glazed, creating a tight, eco-friendly seal.
Though the home is expansive, the team made certain to waste as little space as possible. Clever moments of storage, like this sliding shoe closet, abound.