The Must-Haves and Want-to-Haves…

Lucynda met me at ‘the house’ on Prentiss to walk through and get a feel for what I wanted in a new home.  The house has 3 bedrooms, a nice living room, dining room and library. Baths are outdated.  It has the charm of a 1930′s era structure:  imperfect plaster walls, slants to some floors, knob and tube light switches like my grandmother had, overgrown shrubbery, not many working appliances….

But I fell in love with the possibilities.  The street is fabulous, the corner lot has lots of privacy and with the vision of Lucynda, I just knew it was right.  By mid-September I owned it.

Lucynda listened to my list of must-haves and want-to-haves and carefully measured the spaces we had to work with.  There were many challenges to work around.  The back entrance of the house was actually on the back side, so entering at night especially was sketchy.  I don’t like entering a house directly into a living room area, and this was how the house was designed.

The kitchen was dismal.  Dark.  The only appliance that worked was a microwave, and it went away with the previous owner!  The house has two fireplaces, but the previous owner had never used them, creating uncertainty about their functionality.

And I have a budget, those pesky numbers that we try to live within.

By mid-October, Lucynda had come up with 2 plans for consideration!  One, more traditional, used the rooms as they were, with upgrades and the addition of a fabulous front porch and screened porch.  I had thought the screened porch would be out the back of the house, but she recognized the shady, private side yard as the perfect place to build it.  Why have a view of the porch in the hot sun when we could have a shady, welcoming location?  I’m convinced.

The second plan was a revolution of space.  It ‘re-purposed’ many of the rooms to be in a more user-friendly configuration, resulting in a two bedroom/2 bathroom house that offered the kind of space I really wanted.

My daughter was a skeptic.  Laura expressed concern about the resale value of the house if it was reduced from three bedrooms to two.  My response: “That will be your problem, sweetie!”

The Possibilities…

Well, not exactly homeless.  As luck would have it, some good friends decided to move to Kitty Hawk and had to be there for school’s beginning in mid-August.  Their house is for sale but hasn’t sold yet.  So, all my household goods went into storage and I moved in to their lovely furnished home to ‘house sit’ with the agreement to keep it ready for potential buyers.  The stars lined up and life is good!

The luxury of looking for a new home without the pressure of meeting a deadline is truly a blessing.  My search began in earnest during August, with hours and hours of looking in the Augusta Road and North Main neighborhoods.  Anne Marchant, my real estate agent, booked house after house, and at last, success!  This cute little 2,000-sq-ft ream puff on West Prentiss Avenue came on the market!

My requirements for a new place included a garage, screened porch, not a large lot and in a neighborhood that was safe and welcoming.  West Prentiss had a 2-car garage already, which meant that I would need to add a screened porch.  The lot was small enough (1/4 acre) for me to manage the yard and get excited about a new garden, and private enough to feel I had neighbors but not too close.

And then a wonderful thing happened.  I was introduced to Lucynda Moore by a mutual friend, Sharon Self.  We met for breakfast at Mary Beth’s and Lucynda brought her portfolio of homes she has re-designed.  Over scrambled eggs with goat cheese, we became partners in the possibilities at West Prentiss.

In the beginning…

A baby-boomer, a big house and big idea about the next 25 years!  After 25 years in a great house on 2/3 acre across from Cleveland Park, it was time to emotionally cut the cord and move to something more manageable.

This new chapter in my life didn’t just happen; it took at least a year of planning, sorting through the accumulation of one quarter century of items held on to in hopes/chances that they might someday become useful again, aided and abetted by a floored attic that was all too easy to fill. My children are on their own and one person in a 3,200 sq-ft-house just doesn’t make sense.

The really hard part was turning loose.  The memories of years spent with a growing family, transitions of happy times and tragedy, just the sheer habit of the place, had to be reconciled and in some cases grieved.   My children and I moved into the house in
May of 1986, with hopes of changing many things about it but realizing it had
good bones.  Over the years we added a screen porch, a double garage and new master bedroom suite.  A circular drive added street appeal and a landscaping plan combined with lots of sweat equity really made it shine.

Not all of the leaving had to do with the house.  I had the best neighbors ever, Colleen and Chuck, who are my BFFs, and could never be replaced.  I had served as the president of the Alta Vista Neighborhood Association, enjoying the interaction with other homeowners in the area and feeling a sense of satisfaction in service to them.

After some painting and sprucing up, I put my house on the market in April of 2011.  I had an offer several weeks later and closed the sale in August.  Now I’m homeless.

by Aries Moore

Helllloooooowwww – That’s a howling hello to you from Aries Moore, Design Muse. Design Muse you ask, what do you mean by that?  Well folks, I am a working breed of dog. Yes, I am beautiful but I work hard providing inspiration for my delightful master (mistress) as she works to create functional and stunning homes for her clients.

A little background. I am a greyhound and for those of you who don’t know. A greyhound is a sight hound—that means our vision is great! So great in fact I help Lucynda Moore as her visionary when she is concepting design work.

That is where the job title “design muse” comes in or you can simply refer to me as the Dog of Design.

For example, I rode along with Lucynda when she went to meet a new client, Ryan Montgomery. He had called a few days earlier to seek our opinion on a house in the Augusta Circle neighborhood that he and his wife were considering purchasing. Ryan couldn’t remember the house address but told us it was
the “ugliest house on the street” and we would know it when we saw it! Well, let me tell you, we figured out which one it was easily.

As I trotted around the yard, sniffing out the previous canine visitors I noticed that the facade was just simply uninviting and outdated. I was convinced that the Montgomery’s (they are dog people after all) must have vision too since they were even considering this place.

Lucynda began sketching while talking (a common occurrence) to create a unifying element that combined the hodgepodge collection of siding and roofing elements into a standout design, I lay down and gave her that knowing look, you know the
one—it says this place needs a really cool porch—for dinner parties & hanging out watching the kids play as well as giving a real sense of entry.

She felt my vibe and began tying the homes various elements  into a porch that reflected the fact that we ARE in South  Carolina . The South that is a place for porches. A place for the dog to lie and keep watch over his domain. The initial design sketch created a definite entry as well as appealing facade on the street—adding a bow front portion of porch to expand the dining room and an outdoor living space for conversations and  waving to neighbors. This concept, I will howl it out myself, convinced the Montgomery’s that we were good. Very good.
Especially the Dog of Design.

Time passed. It could have been mere minutes or months (I lose track as soon as she walks out of my line of sight—I am a SIGHT hound, you know) as I waited for Lucynda to finish  translating the design musings I was sending her into drawings that reinvigorated the whole house. Once we were measuring the original house (well…I was supervising from a pillow) and trying to determine how the house first looked—before the carport was turned into an apartment or the screened porch was converted to a cheesy (mmmmmmCheese) paneled space—and I thought to myself, this whole back section should be the kitchen (mmmmm…where the cheese is….) and we could even add a back porch toward the garage for everyone coming and going. I trotted down the hall with all the twists
and tiny doors to find She who Draws ( and gives me cheese ) so that through my wordless staring the idea would come to her.

And now, the house is finished. Check out the pictures of the really cool porch that She Who Draws got just right! I know that the Montgomery’s French Bulldog, Roxy must love it. It’s perfect for Foxy Roxy to survey her world and keep a sharp eye on her three Short People Who Drop Food.

Who knows, the Dog of Design may be coming to a  neighborhood near you, stay tuned!