The Benefits of Experience

Situated on a lush corner lot in Denver’s University Park neighborhood, the house had good bones, but its age and a patchwork of incompatible renovations had taken their toll. As Barb points out, “All the golden oak trim was pretty but dated. There was mismatched flooring throughout, with lots of old carpet and tile. The dining room and den locations didn’t make sense, and the layout of the primary bedroom and bathroom didn’t work.”

“The house certainly had an identity crisis,” observes Rick. “We didn’t so much as renovate as correct, removing or replacing things that were incongruent with the original architecture. And we reassigned spaces to different rooms, to create a better flow throughout the main story.”

One space needed more help than the others: the upstairs primary suite, which Rick reworked in a gut renovation. “The layout of both rooms was awkward, the bathroom was out of date, and Barb and Bruce wanted to bring in more light. I even removed an extra fireplace they didn’t want, to get the best layout,” Rick explains.

“When Rick first visited the Denver house,” Barb recalls, “he and I walked through it, and he said, ‘do this, do this, do this.’ Initially, Bruce and I weren’t sure we should tackle it all. But Rick’s work on the Atlanta house turned out so beautifully, we knew we should go with whatever he says!”

“Since we’ve worked together before, I had a good sense of what they’d want—and what they might not want—going in,” Rick continues. “I got to the point where I was saying things like, ‘Barb would love this’ or ‘Bruce would prefer that’,” he laughs.

“Rick has a good sense of space and dimension,” Bruce remarks. “He knows Barb and me well enough to see how we wanted the spaces to work and make them inviting and comfortable.” Barb adds, “We like some separation between rooms, and we like to have different little gathering areas: some intimate, some casual. Rick found a way for everybody to have a beautiful place when we entertain or have houseguests. He really opened our eyes to what the house could become.”

“This house is now truly ours.”

The pandemic was challenging not only during the home search but also during renovation. “Tradespeople were super super busy, and the supply chain was super super slow,” Barb recalls. “We stayed in the mountain house through most of the delays. But once the hardwood floors were finally in, we felt we had turned the corner. We said, we can live here now!”

“The pandemic was a crash-course in long-distance collaboration,” notes Rick, who’s based in Chicago. “Luckily, I’d worked remotely on another out-of-state project earlier in the year, so I largely knew what to expect. We all agree that, in the end, the design didn’t suffer from it.”

“Not at all!” answers Barb. “In fact, we couldn’t have a house like this just a year later without Rick, long-distance or not. He’s unflappable. At no time did we ever face a problem he couldn’t solve quickly, with really good results.” Bruce adds, “Rick has such confidence in his decisions, it makes you confident. You learn a lot; you start to see what he sees.”

When asked if they would have done anything differently, Barb is quick to say, “It all actually turned out even better than we expected. At first, you might not ‘get’ some of what Rick comes up with, until you see it. For example, when he said to paint the doors black, I thought, that’s not a good idea ever!” she laughs. “But we trusted him, and it turned out great. Now I couldn’t imagine them any other color.”

Fellow University Park residents appreciate the renovation, too. “Even our neighbors have told us, this house is transformed,” Barb says. “And that’s before they even see the inside. Our house was sort of the ugly duckling in the neighborhood, and with Rick’s help, we feel like we breathed life back into it. When you work with a designer you relate to, you can make any space feel like your own. We feel like this house is now truly ours.”