Kathleen Reynolds helps a family make their mark on a builder-grade home
Interior designer Kathleen Reynolds and her team have a strategy for distinguishing between their multiple projects: they name each one after a color in its design scheme.
For Project Boysenberry—the transformation of an Augusta Road-area house—the name came from a hue in the vibrant, keeping-room rug.
Before that rug and other colorful custom elements could be installed, the nearly 3,900-square-foot house needed extensive updates to its builder-grade layout and finishes.
“It is a planned development, so a lot of the houses look similar. And this isn’t the only house with this floorplan. My clients wanted to make it their own,” says Reynolds, who toured it with them before their purchase was finalized and again with Hadrian Construction ahead of the five-month project.
“There was a lot of open space that wasn’t utilized well, and there were some odd window placements that made rooms feel off-balance. Those were the big things we changed,” she says, adding that the house now feels “a little bit cozier.”
To create better function, an oversized upper-floor room was divided into three separate spaces: a whimsical art-filled playroom for the couple’s daughter and son, a gym, and a new laundry room (the old laundry room became the daughter’s en-suite bathroom).
In the spacious living room, the combination of transom windows and a corner fireplace made it difficult to find a focal point. “It was tricky, so we took out those transoms and put in a large built-in,” Reynolds says. With varied storage and a spot for the TV, it became the anchor for the custom velvet sofa with scallop details, two pairs of chairs, and two coffee tables. Now, the room is perfect for cozy movie nights and hosting college football game gatherings.
To strategically add storage—at one of the homeowners’ requests—Reynolds eliminated a corner fireplace in the narrow keeping room and replaced it with two closets and a lively mint-green dry bar, complete with glass-front cabinets and a beverage fridge. Slightly enclosing the dining room’s once awkward opening made way for a hallway coat closet and built-in cabinetry for dinnerware.
Other built-ins, all crafted by SK Custom Woodworking LLC, were incorporated into the playroom for books and Lego sets and the primary bedroom’s sitting area, which it contains a pull-out desk.
Finishing layers of inviting furnishings, colorfully patterned drapery and wallpaper, and pieces from local and regional artists—many are commissions—fulfilled Reynold’s vision for a vibrant and happy haven for the family.
“Being able to add those little things in made it unique for them,” she says.
Kathleen Reynolds Augusta Road home photo tour
In the living room, custom millwork added to the corner fireplace helps it blend with the adjacent built-in cabinet (it replaced a row of transom windows). Reynolds completed the large space with a custom blue velvet sofa with a scalloped detail and swivel chairs upholstered in Kiki Slaughter “Moments// Rainbow” fabric, as well as commissioned artwork. That includes a painting by Greenville artist Patricia De Leon above the fireplace and an installation of off-white ceramic petals by artist Annie Singletary.
With its “depth of color,” Reynolds says, the commissioned painting by Diane Kilgore Condon complements the calmer colors in the narrow dining room, including the pale blue built-in, added when decorative pillars separating the space from the entry hall and back hallway were turned into casings. Reynolds furnished the space with a statement burlwood table and antique chairs, a narrow console, and vintage floral candle sconces. Artist Sarah Farrar created the back hallway mural to coordinate with a Marquin Campbell painting that was part of the homeowners’ collection prior to the renovation.
In the entry hall, Reynolds hung the homeowners’ mirror with a spray of plates above the skirted table (Rebecca Atwood’s Blooms fabric in Soft Green). Like the other public spaces, its walls are painted in a pale green that provide a neutral backdrop. The chairs can be pulled into the adjacent dining room for extra seating when needed.
In the kitchen, the addition of quartzite countertops created a warm and durable work surface, while custom white cabinetry created more functional storage. Because the rooms tones are primarily neutral, Reynolds added color through the Schumacher Otis Hand Print fabric in blue on the island’s five stools and texture through the rattan-wrapped chandelier.
Reynolds eliminated a corner fireplace in this narrow room, replacing it with a dry bar (it is painted in Farrow & Ball’s Arsenic) and two large closets to contain craft supplies and additional kitchen items. Reynolds added comfy chairs that can swivel toward the kitchen or the TV and carried the boysenberry hue in the room’s rug into spots in the house.
This upper-floor room was divided into separate spaces. “It was almost too big, so we dropped a wall in and created a gym and a laundry room,” she says, as well as a playroom. In the laundry room, she created pattern plays – combining Jane Churchill Rocco wallpaper (in green) with pale green cabinets and Rebecca Atwood Dot fabric for the cafe curtains and the built-in ironing board cover.
In an upstairs bedroom-turned-office, Reynolds called on Nathan Fosness with Nautilus Woodcraft to create a custom desk and a file-storage console for the husband, who has a hybrid work schedule. “We wanted something that checked all the boxes for him,” she says of touches that include hidden spots for a paper cutter, a shredder, and a printer, as well as tucked-away channels for the dual monitors’ cords. She completed the room with a commissioned painting by Greenville artist Jessica Fields above the desk.
An upstairs laundry room was converted into an en-suite bathroom for the couple’s daughter by walling up its hallway door and adding a door from her room. “Because she is in elementary school, we wanted something that was going to grow with her,” Reynolds of the pale pink cabinetry and the yellow star wallpaper. “Things could change without ripping everything out.”
Reynolds updated every room, including the primary bedroom. Enclosing decorative columns in its sitting area created space for a built-in with a pull-out desk and a cozy sofa. Reynolds added a commissioned painting by Caroline Thomas Calder to the room, along with pieces from Art & Light Gallery, and drapes made with Designer’s Guild fabric.
