This project received the 2025 NRVHBA Best Remodeled Home Award

Project Goals

Remodel the kitchen to fit their family of three on a daily basis and allow for neighborhood gatherings and parties in the space
Functional & Larger Kitchen/office combination space
Incorporate custom cabinetry from a family friend of the client

Our clients knew when they started dreaming up this project, that their vision for what the home could be would require a think outside the box solution, and they were willing to do so. These clients wanted to remodel their space to comfortably fit their family of three as their daughter grows up but also fit their needs for monthly summer movie nights and weekly potlucks out of the kitchen. While creating an open functional kitchen that allows for entertaining, they also wanted the space to work for the three of them as an office/workspace. This space is truly the center point and gathering point of the home.

Another project goal was to collaborate with a company that was very special to our client’s family history. Mill Cabinet was started by the client’s family friends and because of this, our client had been familiar with the quality of their product for years and always wanted to build a custom kitchen with them. Blue Ridge Design Build (BRDB) was able to accommodate this and work closely to seamlessly incorporate Mill Cabinet and their production process into our larger-scale project.

Scope of Work

Kitchen Remodel & Addition
Stairway Relocation
Basement Remodel

The client’s existing kitchen was small and outdated. They wanted to expand the kitchen and the only space we could use housed a staircase that led to their basement and their current office. They decided to use both spaces. As you can imagine this created a lot of challenges. First, we needed a new set of stairs to their basement. We decided to enclose an exterior stairwell and build a small addition to connect it to the kitchen. Taking out the existing stairs gave us the ability to use the office space for the kitchen as well. But by using the office space we still needed a place for their desks, while keeping the kitchen feeling open. To keep that we decided to place a large custom-made bookshelf on the back wall of the kitchen and have their desks near the bookcase to give it a separate feel while keeping the open concept. Their existing kitchen was L-shaped, and we kept that. keeping the sink and the stove in the same location, we decided to move the refrigerator to the new line of cabinets to encourage kitchen work flow. We added two large pantry cabinets to provide ample storage space.

The clients wanted a timeless kitchen. So, they choose to go with a natural cherry with gray quartz as the countertops. Even with the timeless inspiration they wanted to add their style with beautiful wallpaper that featured mushrooms, butterflies, and greenery.

Special features of this kitchen:

Heated flooring
Completely customized kitchen Cabinets
Bookshelves
Green soldier stacked backsplash
Mixer lift cabinet
Moveable Island
Dog feeding station
Double pocket doors

These clients were repeat customers of ours from when we remodeled part of their basement in the past. This time, the goal was to finish the basement fit-out by remodeling and swapping the bathroom and laundry room locations. The existing bathroom was outdated, had hidden asbestos flooring, and cheap products were used. We demoed the bathroom and had asbestos professionals remove the flooring. There were lots of mechanical issues and conflicts within the space that had to be moved and re-routed as we went including wiring, and plumbing changes. The basement also had a history of flooding, to fix this we installed sump pumps in the laundry room. We also installed a small utility tub. With moving the location of the bathroom, we had to run new plumbing. Doing that brought about large challenges of removing existing concrete slabs, installing new plumbing, and then pouring new basement concrete. There was a window in this area where we were able to pour the concrete through, which kept our crews from having to carry it all down the stairs! After the concrete was poured, we closed in that window and now there is a walk-in shower there! Our clients have a fun sense of style, they chose multi-colored flooring and firefly wallpaper.

Special Features of this Bathroom/Laundry room:

Bidet Seat
Heating vent fan
Sconce lighting
Walk-in shower
Sump Pump
Utility Tub
To the ceiling shower tile
Tile wainscotting
Locally made vanity

The fun continues into the game room! After we enclosed their outside stairs, we needed to rearrange the walls for the entrance to the basement. The new entrance would take them straight to their game room. We needed to have a door put in for the storage section of the basement. Our clients decided a normal door would not do! And wanted to install a hobbit door instead, Which we thought was a great idea. To achieve this look, circle framing was installed and we used a frameless rectangular door. It was then all painted green and of course, a door knob was installed in the center. Since the walls were taken out, there were areas of flooring that needed to be patched, unfortunately, or fortunately, the existing flooring had been discontinued. So, to go along with our hobbit theme we would install river stone look-a-like vinyl, and make the transition curved. The finished look will transport you to the Shire!

Design details & challenges

Stair relocation
Engineering of existing stairs to support the new addition
Kitchen down time
Keeping the house functional during construction

Aside from the normal challenge of keeping a home up and running and clean during construction, the major hurdle with this project was the moving of the stairs from interior to exterior and then their enclosure. Removal of the interior stairwell was the easy part, when it came to enclosing the exterior stair, it was a different story. Working with and modifying an existing set of stairs is always tricky because of the low tolerance of error allowed by code for a stair-set. This project included a significant amount of engineering, foundation modification, and framing connection details that were challenging to complete.

During a significant remodel, people usually ask, do we need to move out during our remodel? The answer is always different for each project but we can often accommodate you staying in the space. In this project, we were able to keep the home livable and even keep a temporary kitchen going for the client by working with them to set up temporary barriers and protective measures. We installed water to a temporary sink off of their porch where they also had their fridge, coffee maker, and mini oven hooked up for the duration of the kitchen being unusable. They also decided to start on one end of main street and work their way across town during the project trying new local restaurants for dinners since they found it easier to purchase food out while the main kitchen was non-functioning.

Transitional Whole Home Renovation