Slideshow: Keep it in the family

Although plans had been made in 2005 to sell the East Brainerd home that had been in her family nearly 60 years, Beth Kaylor felt she couldn’t let it go.

Four generations of her family had lived in the cozy rock and Masonite home, so she and her husband, Kendall, decided to buy it from her aunt, renovate it and move there from Ashwood, Mrs. Kaylor said of the home at the corner of East Brainerd and Fuller roads.

Structurally, the now 2,200-square-foot house is much the same as when her grandparents lived there, but every room without plumbing has a different function.

The Kaylors turned the 1970s living room added by her grandparents, Eugene and Argie Wilson, into their master bedroom.

The room their grandparents used as a den became their living room. The small master bedroom became part of an expanded kitchen/dining area.

Downstairs, the basement added in the 1970s update became the Kaylors’ media room.

Plans are in the works to convert a paneled second bedroom into a home office.

The couple initially had a difficult time convincing a contractor to go forward with the renovation.

“Most of them ran from the project,” said Mrs. Kaylor, 39.

“They said to level it and start over,” added Mr. Kaylor, 42. “But the house had good bones. There was a lot of potential.”

Eventually, the couple enlisted the help of general contractor Philip Roark, decorator Sally Cooper of Yessick’s Interior Design Center and designer Chris Sanders of Home Depot.

For four months during the 2007 renovation, the Kaylors lived in the small basement that had been converted first.

“We just pretended we lived in a New York apartment,” Mrs. Kaylor said.

In many instances, the couple said, they weren’t aware of how striking the changes would be.

The kitchen, which doubled in size, has all new General Electric stainless-steel appliances and granite countertops. Its farmhouse sink, separate vegetable sink and new hardwood floor provide the warmth of a more vintage room.

The extra room allows space for a casual dining table and the light to come in from six windows (up from the original two), which are topped by cheery yellow floral treatments.

“We had never had anything more than a galley kitchen,” Mr. Kaylor said.

The only structural addition the couple made to the house was a small mud room between the kitchen and garage. Since the room contains a tiled shower for their golden retriever, Gracie, and her accouterments, they refer to it as their mud puppy room.

From the room, a dog door and a conventional door open onto a fenced patio, where the Kaylors can entertain, and a grassy area, where the dog can entertain herself. The patio has been outfitted with a gas grill, burner and sink.

The patio also provides an entrance through new French doors to the living room, where several pieces of furniture they owned combine with new accessories suggested by their designer.

“(Ms. Cooper, the designer) said she would add a few things,” Mrs. Kaylor said, “but when we saw it, the room was completely different. They made the room.”

A door on another end of the living room allows access to what once was the home’s front porch. The patio, the couple said, had been crumbling and was rebuilt, rerailed and had its roofline reshaped.

The former living room was the home’s biggest space, Mrs. Kaylor said, so we “decided to make it our room.” En route, the 1970s-era front door was eliminated, and the dropped ceiling was removed. Window treatments in the room are blue and white.

In renovating their new house, the couple said they kept in mind how they had fixed up their Ashwood home to sell by doing things they should have done while they lived there. One result is the new home’s guest-room-turned-closet. That room now contains floor-to-ceiling clothes storage installed by Closet Factory.

Once they were liberated from the basement, which had been outfitted with a kitchenette and crimson thermal curtains for their stay, the Kaylors turned the space into a media room with comfortable recliners, a wide-screen television, Surround Sound and a Wii game system.

The home’s two bathrooms did not change places within the configuration of the house but did receive an update. Both rooms received white bead-board finishes, new fixtures, ceramic tile floors, bath/shower tile, built-ins and new paint.

“They’re 1,000 times better,” Mr. Kaylor said.

Most of the hardwood floors are original and, having been under carpet, were in good shape for the refurbishment. The hardwood doesn’t match from room to room, but that only adds to the character of the house, the couple said.

“The floor is like a quilt,” Mrs. Kaylor said.

Since the couple often work from home — she is a nurse/product manager for General Electric Health Care Information Technology and he has a marketing/advertising/graphic design/consulting firm — the house was outfitted for wireless communication. It also has new crown and baseboard molding throughout.

The Kaylors, married 13 years, said they tripled their original budget to complete the house but felt it was important to “bite the bullet and do it now” in order to get what they wanted.

The home, they said, has come a long way from the one-room structure they believe was built in the 1920s and which her great-grandfather, Frank Wilson, bought in 1947.

When Mrs. Kaylor’s grandmother died in 2005, Mr. Kaylor said they decided to “honor her by keeping it in the family.”

With a keen eye in their work toward keeping the home as cozy as ever, Mrs. Kaylor said, “we think she’d be pleased.”

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