Working For The Rich & Famous

For a good portion of my adult life I have been a contractor to the rich & famous, more the former than the latter, but my current client is definitely both.

Their house is large, but about average for the homes I have worked on. The interior & exterior is where things differ a bit than most. The former owners did a lot of nice woodwork inside and landscaped a beautiful backyard. My only complaint about the backyard is it's missing a pool house, but other than that it's fantastic.

There is a tennis court above the pool that might make for a nice pool or guest house, but I'm sure my client would rather have the tennis court.

As I mentioned the interior has a lot of woodwork. This is my specialty, designing and building rooms like this.

While the color is out of style, the design itself is nice. If it were my house I would probably go with a darker stain on it all and panel the remaining walls, but my customer is painting it white with black accents. The theme is French Chateau, not to be confused with French Country. Here is a partially finished, soon to be office, with a freshly painted coffered ceiling.

The white ceiling turned out nice, but the walls still need to be painted. The herringbone floor is my favorite part of the room. I haven't done a herringbone pattern in years, everyone usually just wants straight, but if it were up to me herringbone all floors would have a herringbone pattern or a version of it.

Back to the living room.

All of the paneling in here is anigre veneer. It's all getting painted white. If you are not familiar with it, anigre is a higher end patterned wood used as a veneer. It's specifically used for it's pattern, but in this case it will be painted over and hidden.
This is anigre.

(source - https://www.columbiaforestproducts.com/veneer/anigre-figured/)

The bar will be torn out and redone in a more contemporary style with all white Carrera marble. I have to tear it all out and build it out to accept the new marble.

It's going to look great, but it's always a bit sad to tear apart something beautiful.

The master bathroom is another area I am remodeling.

The tub will be completely torn out along with the shower behind the glass block. All of the marble is going away too. The floor will be replaced with new marble and the tub will be freestanding. The shower will be all glass with a black frame. The wood work will stay unchanged, but we will add to all the paneling that the current bathtub deck hides.

The kitchen will be completely gutted and rebuilt in a more contemporary style with lots of Carrera marble.

The owners are great to work with. They are sharp, know what they want and are very friendly. Of all the wealthy people I have worked with over the years that is the case probably 90% of the time. The other 10% are arrogant, stubborn, penny pinchers and horrible to work for. You just want to be done with the project and move on.

This is a really nice house. There is something about it, the character, the layout, I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it's very inviting. The previous owners did a nice job of designing everything, but it's dated. The new owners are doing a good job of taking that old style and updating it though, without deleting too much of it. Move a wall here, rebuild a bar there, paint the coffered ceilings, redo the flooring and it's really going to look like a modern day chateau. When it's done you will be able to see it on TV and I will be sure to follow up this post with a post about that. Then I can reveal who they are. Until then, cross your fingers I don't shoot a nail through a water pipe in the wall!