Thursday 26 July 2018

Before & After: A 1990s Suburban Home Gets a Colorful Makeover

Stacie Bloomfield on Design*Sponge

Stacie and Nathan Bloomfield were just 11 and 12 years old when they met while growing up in Missouri. They began dating in high school and have been together ever since. “We went to a small private school and were a part of the same friend group,” Stacie shares, “My senior year of high school I asked him on a date. I didn’t realize he would fall in love with me! We got married during my junior year of college and we immediately purchased a little cottage to live in. Together we have purchased and sold several houses, although we think we will stay put in this house for the foreseeable future.” They now live just outside of Fayetteville, AR with their three children, ages nine, six, and three.

Stacie is an illustrator and owner of a stationery and home decor line called Gingiber and Nathan is a math professor turned home software developer. “I have a degree in Graphic Design and Fine Arts from Drury University in Springfield, MO. My entry into small business began with selling art prints on Etsy, but soon my business began to outgrow my dining room table, and somehow I had accidentally fallen into my future career as an illustrator. My husband has a PhD in Mathematics (Algebraic Combinatorics, to be exact). Last year he quit [his] tenure-track professor position and now works as a software developer,” Stacie says.

In the 10 short months since they moved in, they have turned their 4,000-square-foot suburban home in Springdale, AR into an artist’s dream. Each room is more colorful and unique than the last — but it didn’t start out that way. “What sold me on the house was the fact that there were herringbone wood floors in the entryway and in the dining area, and the house did not have an open layout (I am not a fan at all of the trend to have a house feel super open),” Stacie begins. “There was plenty of space for me to have a studio, for my husband to have his own space, and for each of our kids to have their own separate bedrooms. The house is big, so we are still figuring out how to live in it! It was very formal, with lots of honey oak trim and dark 1990s colors, but I knew we would be able to transform it into something light and bright.”

Stacie went into the home renovations with a plan: Start a room and see it through before moving onto the next room. “Having a plan helped me to see each room through to the end without getting too distracted by the next big thing to tackle,” she notes. Doing almost all of the work herself, Stacie spent weekends and evenings sanding, priming, painting, removing wallpaper, hanging art, painting stair rails, changing light fixtures, and so on. “I did some of the wallpaper installation myself, and then I hired a friend to do the entryway and the hall bath. Decorating and transforming this house has become my little stress reliever after I come home from work. It gives me such joy to see my children living in their rooms and appreciating all of the details that I have put into their spaces,” she shares. There are still parts of the home that will change in phase two of the reno, like the main bedroom’s bathroom. “The main bathroom is a maroon dream. 1990s to the max. The tub is large enough that our entire family could sit inside of it. The tub is maroon, the toilet is maroon, and the sinks are maroon. It honestly needs to be fully gutted, so we are saving up for that project.”

Aiming to design a home that felt creative, inspiring, and classic, Stacie worked very hard on having a cohesive color palette that felt unexpected yet harmonious. Stacie shares, “Visually, I love how there are unexpected elements in the house, like a half painted mural in the piano room (that I’ve since decided that I like unfinished) or the animal motif wallpaper in the entryway that feels high-end and not at all childish. I design nursery decor, draw animals, and create patterns for fabric and textiles for a living, and I wanted it to look like the person who runs Gingiber actually lives here.”

Scroll below to see the full transformation. This certainly has opened up my eyes to what is possible in a home you might not be able to envision past the builder-grade materials. —Erin

Photography by Ashley Kamara@geezlouise

Image above: The fireplace, now the focal point of the living room, is painted in Ultra Pure White and Oyster Bay. The painting above is by artist Amber Perrodin

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from Design*Sponge https://www.designsponge.com/2018/07/before-after-a-1990s-suburban-home-stands-out-of-the-pack.html

from Home Improvment http://notelocreesnitu.tumblr.com/post/176301164904

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