The Birth of S + A : Part 1

In the interest of complete honesty, I nearly titled this page “Birthing S + A.” But then again, I nearly do a lot of things. I nearly took a job at a high end home decor store in order to be able to call myself a real life designer. I also nearly brought home a new puppy one month after a major move to Virginia beach with our house still in boxes. Thank God for foresight and learning from near misses. And I nearly missed the opportunity to integrate “Becoming” into the title. With each new project, and each new lesson learned on this journey, we’re committed to becoming a support for you when you are in need of home renovation tips, real estate advice or clarity, and a catalyst for your own personal financial freedom. We are committed to becoming S + A.

In committing to a brand and a business, Sean and I saw S + A founded on three cornerstone events: flipping our Auburn home, the weight of travel and separation, and our Catskills experience.

The Auburn Farmhouse Flip

In 2018, Sean and I were beyond blessed with the gift of a gorgeous early 1900s farmhouse, where Sean’s grandmother lived and where his father enjoyed many, many memories as a child. We operate with the philosophy that homes are built with bricks, but sustained by memories. Memories bridge the distance between a house and a home; they provide longevity that building materials could never match. Pieces of ourselves are left inside those fours walls where Christmases were spent, bikes were ridden and meals were shared. More than the floorplan, more than the design potential, the memories drew us to the property itself. 

Before

After

I will never forget when Joe, our contractor at the time, brought down from the attic this tiny, fragile vintage booty. Immediately I pictured a hypothetical debate between my father-in-law and his two brothers as to who was the true owner of the prized possession. One can only imagine the wobbly tasks accomplished in those tiny shoes such as collecting eggs from the chickens that lived in the old coop that used to stand next to the house or hundreds of crawfish collected from the nearby pond. Houses like these hold thousands of treasured memories and it was a great honor to improve this house in a way that will allow for thousands more. 

We made the decision to upgrade all that we could into this little house and make it feel like home. The house was torn down to the studs. Our Auburn house received new drywall, new paint throughout, new white oak floors, a brand new staircase with custom hand stained treads and iron railings, new windows, new doors including two sets of french doors, whole new bathrooms and showers, a gorgeous custom bay window sink, an entirely new kitchen and appliances, custom handmade bookshelf built-ins from our contractor complete with a new gas fireplace with brick surround, an added laundry room, an added third bedroom, new lighting throughout, and the list goes on.  Week after week, Sean and I couldn’t stop planning due to the excitement of the home renovations. It was as if everyday brought new inspiration and ideas to add to the old home made new.

We spent hours mapping floor plans, choosing floor samples, and painstakingly revising the budget so that the house would be ready to bring home our second baby whom I was due with soon. See, we’re back to birthing…

We ended up finishing the project 2 weeks after she was born. It was as if I was bringing home a baby plus new furniture plus numerous suitcases plus cardboard boxes filled with our life’s worth of belongings. There were nights after we brought her home that consisted of hours rummaging through boxes to find a clean onesie or new bottle that didn’t smell like mold or old milk. At the end of the day, our daughter’s first home was built upon generations of love, old floorboards and walls replaced with new materials, thoughtful design choices, and was filled inside and out with people who loved and adored her. Some would say taking on a renovation such as this while preparing to give birth might be poor planning. I say the timing was perfectly imperfect. 

The funny thing was, the hours spent working, planning, disagreeing, idea vetoing, opinion giving, opinion shooting down and so on made for some of the best bonding and special months of our lives. Sean and I had never really delved into a project that was 100% our own. The kitchen and dining floor had to be demoed to the foundation because of a mold infestation MID-PROJECT. It’s those moments when you say to yourself, “This is when Chip calls Jo with the bad news.” Yep, those hiccups really happen. And you really do deal with them. 

Sean and I look back on planning and designing that house with more than just fondness. We learn more about ourselves in those few short months than in most of our marriage.

We learned that we can affirm.

When Sean decided to move the kitchen and dining room to opposite ends of the house, I thought my head would explode. We struggled for so long with what to do regarding those two rooms and in one move, Sean cracked the code. He was brilliant.

Sean also surprised me with the subway tile chair rail in the upstairs bathroom. He had informed me the budget didn’t allow it at first and completely surprised me as one of the last projects we completed. When asked where in the budget he found money he answered, “don’t worry about it.” My man. 

To this day he doesn’t stop affirming my color, tile, lighting, and contextual design choices in the house. We loved every little thing about that home, and what a wonderful home it was! It taught us to never stop affirming each other.

We learned that we can be wrong. 

During our original planning process, Sean told me he wanted carpet in the bedrooms and a large portion of the downstairs. At the time, I was heavily against carpet. Kids stain carpet, dogs ruin carpet, and unlike the flexibility provided by area rugs, you can’t change carpet when you’re bored with the ambiance. Hardwood looks and cleans better, or so I very strongly thought at the time. We couldn’t settle on a compromise, so I told Sean we’d do this one his way. Well, I can proudly say today that I was wrong. I am now an advocate for carpeting throughout the home, and never want to go back. It’s so cozy on your feet, there are plenty of options from which to choose, it’s not that much different to clean and the kids love it. Sometimes it really does pay to be very, very wrong. 

When kitchen skylights were first pitched to my husband, his original opinion negatively regarded their high maintenance, impractical nature and money-wasting reputation. Well, we had 2 large skylights installed and Sean asked me the other day if we should install skylights in our Brigstock VA Beach house, so… point made. Done right, skylights rock.

We learned that we can compromise.

Originally, after a lot of HGTV watching, I wanted wall-to-ceiling shiplap as is so often demonstrated on cable television. Sean did not. And boy, he really did not. We disagreed for a while. I wanted the dramatic shiplap farmhouse charm, even if just in one room. Sean did not. I wanted it in the upstairs kids’ bath. Sean did not. We went on for a while until we compromised with chair rail shiplap in almost every room of the downstairs. Besides, I still have half the wall to call my own. It turns out, the shiplap looks unbelievable at the chair rail height. It gave the house more access to grey and broke the downstairs up in a more eye-catching manner, that wasn’t too overwhelming. Behold, the power of compromise.

We learned that we have a gift. 

Standing back and looking at that house is like looking at a perfect combination of Sean and my soul. We painted a picture together and enjoyed every brush stroke, every mistake, and overcoming every bump in the road. It blew on the kindles of a flame that first began a few years earlier in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. That little farmhouse gave just as much to us as we did to it. And without us knowing, our lives were about to be changed from old into new.

Keep Reading: Becoming a Team: The Birth of S+A: Part 2

Ann | DESIGN