from Tract to Triumph
A Consultation Success Story
One
of the ways in which
Linda works with clients in her business is through consultations, and
she is often asked how much can really be accomplished in just one or
two
meetings. Of course, every client and project is different, but we’d
like to show you what can be achieved when everything clicks and there
is
true collaboration and a lot of hard work on everyone’s part. The
following transformation took place over a period of four months, with
just
two meetings between Linda and her clients.
The Challenge
It
was a 1973 tract home in Foster City, California - the country’s first
planned community. Kathy Gallo and John Podesta bought the
home in 1992 and over the past nine years have remodeled virtually
every
inch of the living space, including the 55' waterfront deck in the
backyard. Their goal was to give the home’s exterior the same WOW
factor
that you experienced when you walked inside.
“My
dad was a
woodworker,” explained Kathy, “so I’ve always appreciated
craftsmanship. We have beautiful Venetian-quality walnut built-ins in
the master bedroom and bath, and cherry cabinets in the kitchen, golden
walls in the living room and a jewel-toned color palette throughout.
But the
front of the house just didn’t match in style or live up to what was
inside.”
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“The
house
looked low and squatty to me,” said Linda about her first visit, when
she spent about three hours at the house. “The white and blue
horizontal bands of trim were essentially cutting the house into
thirds...
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...my goal was to make the house look taller and more
vertical, and I think we accomplished it." |
Virtually Vertical
Kathy
and John already had a contractor, Dave Mengel, to take care
of a
number of maintenance issues. They had some ideas about what they might
want to do to update the look of the house while they
were repairing it,
but wanted to make sure it all came together in the best way possible.
They had seen Linda on HGTV and called her for a consultation.
In
one energetic and highly collaborative three-hour meeting, the
basic decision
was made to transform the exterior of the house with six
major elements: shingles over the garage and front entry, stonework on
the lower
third of the house and in the driveway & walkway, new front and
garage doors, new paint and trim colors, redesign of the posts,
and new lighting.
Although the owners started out thinking of a more
Mediterranean style, Linda felt the Arts & Crafts look would be more
compatible with the
original lines of the home, and Kathy and John loved the idea.
Linda
describes the
creative process: “To give the house some strong vertical lines and
make it appear taller and grander in stature, I advised the homeowners
to
remove all the horizontal bands of trim and install rock or stone
on the full height of the three posts. Unfortunately, their city’s
building code did not allow them to extend the stone to the top of
the posts, so we settled for putting it just up to the bottom of
the
windows. This still made the pillars appear taller, because they were
not as chopped up, plus it added texture and a feeling of
strength to
their bases.
"In the second meeting
we selected the colors, pulling
different shades of brown
from the new stonework. We chose beige tones for the stucco
and shingles, coffee for the trim and garage door, and a warm
reddish-brown for
the new front door. The small light fixtures in the entry were out of
scale with the house, so we replaced them with much larger ones and
added
fixtures in a complementary style to all three posts and both sides of
the front door. A hanging fixture replaced the recessed
light, projecting
more light." |
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Before: the front entry was a dark tunnel, with only one recessed
light fixture and not much interest.
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GOOD DESIGN REPEATS ITSELF
One of Linda's favorite mantras is in evidence here.
The garage, front door and sidelights all have multiple square windows that relate to one another, creating harmony. |
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Maximum Impact
“Each change we made had its own dramatic
impact, and the neighbors would come by and tell us they couldn’t
believe how different it looked, and that they couldn’t wait to see
what was next,” said Kathy, who enthusiastically
recommends the consultation process to others who are considering
getting professional design help - if you can find the right fit.
“I’ve talked to a lot of people for help with design who wanted to do
it their way with no collaboration,” she said.
“Linda didn’t need to take over the whole project, and that was key for
me. She doesn’t push, and she’s great at the
tweaking. She was delightful.”
And Kathy has an epilogue to the story. “When
we were finished, the building department, which had not been all that
easy to work with, made examples of many of the elements of our house,
using it as the model for others to follow. Unbelievable!”
Resources
Please visit our website's Consultation page for
details about the products used in this project.
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HGTV Episodes
Sensible Chic
Tuesday, September 15
8:00 a.m. PT/ET
"Antiques-Filled Bedroom"
Episode 613
right: Treasured antiques, elegant textures, sensual lines and sumptous pillows combine to
create the master bedroom that was the inspiration for this episode of Sensible Chic.
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remember...
Good Design Repeats
Itself
- Linda Applewhite
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