When Aimee Nugent and her family moved to Apex, they were on the hunt for a new-construction home in a new neighborhood. They wanted to forge friendships in a community where no one knew each other yet.
Nugent soon fell in love with a house that had a great layout, plenty of light and bordered a farm. However, the home wasn’t quite her style. It was very traditional and “really didn’t feel like ours,” she said.
After struggling to figure out how to merge the home’s conventional roots with a more modern take on color and style, Nugent contacted Rima Nasser, interior designer and owner of Raleigh-based TEW Design Studio.
With Nugent’s openness to bold design choices, Nasser soon transformed the run-of-the-mill home into a unique and lushly colorful retreat. We spoke with the designer to learn how she did it.
What was the goal of this project?
The client had recently moved from California, and she and her family bought a house in Apex. The house had more of a ‘North Carolinian’ style, meaning it looked very traditional and cookie-cutter.
The client wanted to customize the home to her taste, which is where we came in. The space originally had gray walls, columns and other bland decorative details, making it look very neutral and basic.
We went in and modified everything, and added to the home in different ways to customize it to her and her family’s style. We wanted to make the home feel more like it is theirs — ensuring that the home reflects their personality, style and lifestyle. We also wanted to make the home a little bit more bold, fun and exciting.
What did you do to get rid of that cookie-cutter look?
We touched on a lot of the rooms to make the home feel less cookie-cutter. Throughout the whole house, we changed out a lot of the lighting, which instantly made a huge difference. We also added wallpaper, vibrantly-colored paint and drapery throughout the home.
When you first walk into the home, the first thing you see is the show-stopping dining room, with its eye-catching wallpaper. This is intentional — the client’s office is across from the dining room, and she wanted something really beautiful to look at when she is working. We also added some wallpaper in her office too.
What other prominent changes did you make to the home?
In the stairway, we switched out the railing to something more modern. It used to be these chunky columns that took up a lot of space and were an eyesore. Instead, we installed custom railing for the stairway that was simpler and looked better.
We also added vinyl wallpaper going up the stairs, as durability was important for the client. She has two boys and knew they’d touch all the walls while going up and down the stairs. Vinyl wallpaper is washable, so it was the perfect fit in that area.
In the kitchen, we changed out the backsplash with different tiling, which made a huge difference, and we painted the island, which I think really elevates the kitchen. We also styled the kitchen in a way that would complete the look, by adding in things like stools to the island to finish the space.
Changes like these happened a lot in this project. We were working with a lot of great pieces that the client already had, so we would just add in a few extra details to elevate the rooms.
What were this project’s challenges?
Working with something existing, rather than starting entirely from scratch, is always challenging, as modifying existing features even just a little bit can have their own unexpected difficulties.
For example, we changed out the fireplace mantel and surround. Originally, it was just a traditional white decorative mantel, and we changed out the tile and the mantel, and we had someone local make it for us.
However, during the mantel project, we realized the wood wasn’t finished underneath a section of the fireplace. From there, we had to figure out how to finish the wood in a way that wasn’t noticeable. And little things like that happened a lot during this project.
What was the inspiration for his project?
The client was. She was completely open to ideas, which gave us a lot of freedom to just do something different and something bold. Her energy and style were really inspirational.
What are your favorite parts of this project?
One of the best parts of this project was how open the client to really unique design choices, which is not something you come across everyday. That ended up being one of my favorite parts of the project — how much she trusted us.
But as far as spaces go? The dining room. With its rich color and wallpaper, it’s one of my favorite spaces we’ve ever done.
Rima Nasser is the founder of TEW Design Studio, located at 611 Germantown Road, Raleigh. You can contact her at (919) 899-7388 or visit tewdesignstudio.com.
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