When my clients reached out, they were relocating to Asheville from out of town with a busy family — a teenager and two young children in tow. They'd found a home on a generous three-acre lot, convenient to everything, but it was a duplex. The bones were there, but the layout simply didn't work for a family of five.
What they wanted was warmth, ease, and a home that finally felt cohesive. They cook and entertain often, so a functional kitchen with a natural connection to the great room and dining space was non-negotiable. Their style landed somewhere between Southern and coastal — relaxed, traditional, and grounded. Nothing fussy.
The design problem here was less about aesthetics and more about possibility. This home needed to be completely reimagined before it could be designed. That kind of ground-up thinking — seeing rooms not as fixed but as potential — is exactly the kind of challenge I find most rewarding.
Primary Residence
The Nest House
The Work
This project meant completely reimagining how the home functioned. The original kitchen became a generous primary bathroom, and the breakfast room was transformed into the primary bedroom — a reminder of how powerful it can be to stop seeing rooms as fixed and start seeing them as possibilities. Taking down the wall between the two duplex units opened everything up. The better-positioned kitchen grew to nearly four times its original size, a generous pantry was added, and a great room addition finally gave the family the layout they'd always wanted.
Even the leftover materials found a second life. When the front door was relocated closer to the driveway, the extra brick pavers were repurposed to clad a new living room fireplace — a detail that ties the reimagined home back to its original character. A wall of built-ins rounds it out, adding the kind of storage that actually fits the way people live now.
- chad s.
"We came with a house that needed more than decorating — it needed to be completely rethought — and Jennifer rose to that challenge without missing a beat. She has a rare ability to see past what a space is and envision what it could be. The great room addition blends seamlessly with the existing home and is one of my favorite places to be in the world."
