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Napkin inspires new home's decor

    Peggy Schucht had been leaning toward a French Country decor even before she and her husband, John, moved into their new home in London, Ontario. What really clinched her decor choice, however, was the purchase of a cloth napkin that depicted a floral pattern in shades of navy blue, mustard and sage.

    That simple purchase proved to be the springboard for the decor in the couple’s nearly 10,000-square-foot home, which was designed by Scott May of Waterloo and built by Wasko Developments of London.  

The use of soft yellows and blues — the signature colours of French Country style — are paired with sage and raspberry accents. The effect is mixture of pattern and colour that blurs the boundary between indoor and outdoor space.    While decorating a new home from scratch would seem intimidating to some homeowners, Peggy Schucht says the experience was anything but.     "This was the most focused I was as to what direction I was going in with the finished product. I knew the exact look."

   As she began to assemble her new furnishings, Schucht says she was able to create a fuller picture in her own mind of the overall effect of the new decor. She was ruthlessly practical and parted with many pieces of furniture that she didn’t think would complement her French Country theme. She saved other pieces, such as copper kettles and iron pots, and blended them with her new accessories.

    Even before construction of the new home began, Schucht contacted Jeanne Morris, a decorating consultant with The Sofa Gallery in London. Their starting point for the decor was the kitchen, which was designed in collaboration with Braam’s Custom Cabinets in London. Because French Country decor revolves around the colours blue and yellow, one of Morris’s most difficult tasks was finding yellow granite for the kitchen countertops.

    Of all the rooms in the house, Morris says the kitchen best exemplifies the French Country theme. A grape pattern is repeated several times, from the carved fruit on the ornate hood over the stove to the etched glass transom above the doorway. The mouldings are also very detailed and include corbels which support the stove hood, as well as dentil mouldings around the stepped cabinets.

    The cabinets were treated with a pale yellow wash to enhance the yellow granite countertops. They’re also a dramatic contrast to the large centre island, which is made of cherry, like the hardwood floors, and topped with black granite. A tumbled marble backsplash, positioned on the diagonal, adds texture and interest.

    For the adjoining dinette, Morris and Schucht selected toile wallpaper, which depicts a pastoral theme with images of roosters and sheaves of wheat against an off-white background. Morris balanced the wallpaper with Italian draperies in a tight pattern that portrays an array of fruit in shades of blue, yellow and sage green. Pineapple finials on the curtain rods of the two sets of sliding terrace doors reinforce the fruit theme.

In the sunken sunroom, which is separated from the dinette by a low wall and three round columns, the French Country look is quite prominent. The cushions on the white wicker sofa and loveseat depict a wisteria pattern in shades of cornflower blue and butter yellow.     In choosing fabric for the toss cushions, Morris introduced three different sizes of plaid in the same colours. "French country is a lot of pattern being put together in the right scale," Morris explains.    The blues and yellows are repeated in a painting illustrating a French patio scene, which hangs above a pretty fireplace with a white wood mantel. The surround and hearth are formed of small ceramic tiles in floral and diamond patterns in soft shades of yellow and blue.

      Before decorating a new home, Schucht says it’s critical for owners to select a point of departure for their new colour scheme, whether it’s a favourite painting or a decorative plate. Consulting Morris even before the home was built also helped her to make the right decisions and create consistency throughout the home.

    Despite the fact the couple has built four new homes, Schucht says her present home was the easiest to decorate. The decor is just as she envisioned it.

    "It feels very warm and comforting," she says. "It doesn’t feel formal."

Renovating the barn after horses had gone

   Most homeowners would be disconcerted by the sight of motorists stopping in front of their home, staring and taking pictures. For Mike and Joanne Oden, however, it’s just a daily occurrence.

    Once the Odens made the decision to buy the barn and property, they quickly sold their home in Dorchester, east of London. In June, 1994, Mike, Joanne, and their two daughters, Julie and Stacey, moved onto the property with a trailer where they lived for the next 10 months.

    The couple designed the plans and contracted an architect to draw them to their specifications. Their only prerequisites were a screened porch, a functional kitchen, a wood-burning fireplace and a centre hall. Because they enjoyed a casual lifestyle, they decided against formal living and dining rooms.

    By mid September, the couple and their two daughters began gutting the barn. The process lasted eight weeks and cost $400 in saw blades as they cut window openings through 2x4 lumber. Once the demolition work was completed, a team of three framers began building the internal framing, relocating the dormer windows, levelling walls to make the home square and building the front porch. At that point, the Odens were working until 10 p.m. daily, hauling lumber out of the barn and doing their own clean-up to reduce costs.

    Mike, president of a display manufacturer in London, says he found it challenging to focus on long-term goals without being distracted by more immediate jobs. "One of the things I look back and admire about us is the patience we had to step over work, which would normally have driven us crazy because it wasn’t done, to keep the project moving forward."

The couple’s next step involved peeling off the steel roof, nailing down plywood and then installing the new roof, which is made of architectural shingles. Two triple-laminated trusses were required to shore up the roof to create a vaulted ceiling in the great room. That cost alone was about $14,000, including labour.     The total cost of the conversion, which was completed in March, 1995, was $150,000. Much of the existing structure was salvageable with the exception of the exterior siding, which had been damaged by shrinkage and horses’ hooves. The Odens have since replaced it with board-and-batten siding.

    Throughout the construction process, the couple and their daughters lived in a 60x12-foot trailer with a limited hot water supply, frozen pipes, no dryer, two cats and a dog. Even so, they never doubted their decision.

    "It was just like this was home — this was it," Joanne says.

    The couple opted for a ground-source heat pump that circulates hot or cold groundwater through 2,500 feet (762 metres) of pipe buried six feet (1.8 metres) under the front lawn. Energy is transferred from the groundwater and into the home, where it supplies all of the couple’s laundry, air-conditioning, heating and showering needs. They also decided to insulate the home with blown-in cellulose insulation, which is made from recycled newspaper.

    The Odens, who have built and renovated several homes in the last 30 years, agree that their previous experiences didn’t fully prepare them for the challenge of designing and converting a barn.

    "We did everything ourselves and it was a ton of work, but it’s been rewarding," Mike says. "It’s another way of proving to yourself that you’ve got what it takes — the patience, the perseverance. Every once in a while, I sit back and say, ‘This is quite the place.’"

    An enormous great room dominates the main floor and provides a panoramic view through floor-to-ceiling windows over a ravine filled with sugar maples and black walnut trees. A huge fieldstone fireplace is the focal point of the room, which is finished with pine floors, deep Wedgewood blue walls and a cream-coloured vaulted ceiling that soars to a height of 18 feet (5.5 metres).

    The kitchen accentuates the home’s theme of rustic comfort with its natural pine floors, custom pine cabinets and crown mouldings. A separate baking area features a sink, a blender on a pull-up shelf, and thermal and convection ovens. A breakfast bar separates the kitchen from the dining area, allowing Joanne to chat with guests as she prepares meals. A rear entry off a three-car garage leads past a full bathroom to the kitchen and a screened porch.

    Off the front foyer is a cosy den that the couple use for watching television. The master bedroom down the hall has large windows that face south and west, and an ensuite bathroom with a whirlpool bathtub, shower and bidet.

    An extra-wide pine staircase leads from the foyer to the second floor, which includes a home office, two bedrooms — now unoccupied since Julie and Stacey have left home — and a large bathroom. An open alcove overlooks the great room and functions as a reading nook.

    The Odens currently use 3,500 square feet of the home’s 5,000 square-foot space. An additional 1,000 square feet of unrenovated space on the second floor could be used for extra bedrooms or storage.

A rear deck, shaded by a pergola, overlooks deep, curving flowerbeds that brim with 300 different varieties of perennials in shades of pink, purple, blue and yellow. A small pond reinforces the home’s connection to its natural elements.     Despite the upkeep of a large home and property, the couple say they have no regrets about undertaking the project. "I think what we really wish is that we had been able to do it 10 years earlier," Joanne says.Mike says his one disappointment is that they hadn’t made the rear foyer larger since that’s the entry their dogs, Bosco and Daisy, use. There is also some wasted space that they could have avoided.

    "We made mistakes — everybody does when they do a project like this — but we did a lot of really good things," he adds.