Adding Style and Character to a Dated Builder Grade Townhome

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Mud room (Image credit: Brandon Temple)

Name: Lindsay and Joey
Location: Seattle, Washington
The basics: 8 years, owned — 1,670 square feet

Lindsay and Joey filled their townhome with so many personal touches and smart upgrades it’s hard to believe the space was ever anything but totally captivating.

Tell us a little (or a lot) about your home and the people who live there: My husband and I bought our new construction town home eight years ago. We were in love with the West Seattle location – but all the finishes and decor were builder grade and very dated. We spent the last eight years putting our own personal touch on everything. My day job is working as a clothing designer for Nordstrom and my husband is an electrical engineer in the semiconductor business. We combined our passions and talents to make our home as functional and aesthetically pleasing as possible. I have a side gig as a floral designer and use the mudroom to work on arrangements. We were so in love with this journey that we decided to put our home on the market. We’ve purchased a new home which is a fixer upper.

What is your favorite room and why? Our new mud room! We used tile from Fireclay Tile in San Francisco. We also did an ash wood accent wall – which turned out gorgeous.

If you could magically change something about your home, what would it be? I would love if we had a bigger yard for gardening – but the neighborhood does have pea patches you can rent.

What’s the last thing you bought (or found!) for your home? A Marshall speaker – eventually we’ll have one in every room!

Which fictional character would be most at home in your place? Maybe Tina from Bob’s Burgers because our place is my teenage dream!

Lindsay‘s words of wisdom: Don’t be afraid to try something you haven’t ever done before – I was really intimidated by the idea of changing out the counter and sink on my own, but it ended up being so much more simple than I ever imagined.

If you’re renovating a room where you have to work with existing tile, I’d also recommend spending some extra time on your color scheme, especially if the tile is a color you don’t love. I spent a lot of time in the design process planning how the colors would all play together and working to make sure that the tile wouldn’t look too brown when all was said and done, and working to help it feel more modern since we weren’t going to be able to change it.

Thanks, Lindsay !

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