Showing Off The Dream Home, for its simplicity, shows off several design flourishes.
The staircase fronts a floor-to-ceiling tile wall evocative of midcentury modern architecture. The open stairwell makes the foyer feel even larger. Gray, dry-stacked tile accent walls form the focal points of the foyer and living room.
A floating urban-flavored corner staircase connects the first floor to a second-floor bridge. The bridge looks down into the dining and living rooms and kitchen, and out onto the pool deck through double doors in the living room's all-glass, backyard-facing wall. It connects both ends of the second floor, including two bedrooms and a game room.
The staircase — made of black metal stringers and rails, stained wooden treads and white oak banisters (also mimicked on the bridge) — is accented by a floor-to-ceiling gray, dry-stacked tile wall evocative of midcentury modern architecture, and illuminated by four windows. The open stairwell contributes to the oversized feeling of the foyer.
The living room is anchored by another dry-stacked tile wall, which frames a linear gas fireplace and serves visually as a simultaneously grand but understated mantel, with a built-in white Advanced Architectural Stone cast stone bench at the foot of the wall. The Dream Home's direct vent fireplace, provided by Nix Door and Hardware, draws combustion air from outdoors and sends its exhaust through a second vent, circulating the warm air and keeping the cold air out.
One wall of the Dream Home's kitchen is accented by a 400-bottle-plus wine closet featuring stainless steel walls, stainless steel cable rack system, floor-to-ceiling double glass doors, one-zone cooling system, and high-density LED lighting. Vendors Vineyard Wine Cellars, Petro Metal Fabrication and J&S Air worked together to create the attractive and functional closet.
The modern kitchen is modest in scale, but the contrasting finishes add another focal point to the Dream Home. The cabinets are Wood-Mode Fine Custom Cabinetry, provided by The Kitchen Source, the Dream Home's longtime kitchen cabinetry vendor. The subtle weathered finishes are in grays and mostly whites. The fronts of the upper cabinets, refrigerator and freezer are in white back-painted glass. The stainless steel vent hood and metal tile backsplash add further texture and contrast. The result is a “stunning ultramodern finish,” says Elizabeth Tranberg, The Kitchen Source lead designer on this project.
The appliance package, provided by Expressions Home Gallery, includes a Sub-Zero refrigerator and freezer, Wolf oven, Wolf steam oven (“You can cook your steaks in that,” Braswell says), six-burner Wolf gas cooktop, small Sub-Zero wine refrigerator, and Asko dishwasher. More and more, with the aging population, Braswell says he finds homeowners shy from ranges in favor of built-in ovens. “People don't want to bend over,” he says.
The kitchen's island and breakfast bar, topped by a gray waterfall edge Quartz Master countertop, features a 5.5-foot Galley Workstation stainless sink that includes a sliding colander and brings “new definition to how you prep, cook, serve and entertain,” Tranberg says.
The cabinets themselves are highly functional, with plate racks and defined drawer and rollout storage for flatware, cooking implements, oils and spices, cookware and bakeware, and trash. A pocket door system hides a coffee and beverage bar that's plumbed for water. The upper and lower cabinets feature soft LED under lighting. An adjacent butler's pantry includes a microwave, icemaker and more storage space. “We're doing a lot of back kitchens,” Braswell says.
The master bath is one space in the Dream Home that's “over the top,” Semmelmann says.
It features his-and-hers vanities and water closets, with a glass-enclosed, three-sided, double-door, triple-headed shower room in the middle of the bathroom. A white acrylic tub fronts the shower enclosure. The cabinetry, by Mike Conkle's Custom Cabinets, includes interior plugs and concealed storage for devices like hair dryers and shavers.
The triple mirrors over each vanity are framed by Carrera tile backsplashes, painstakingly cut and laid in intricate herringbone patterns. The countertops are Quartz Master. The floor, ceramic tile, is also laid in a herringbone pattern and is fully heated.
The three-sided wainscot wall of the shower enclosure is in marble. The interior shower wall is done in a waterfall-patterned steel, glass and marble tile down the middle, surrounded on both sides by the same marble as used on the exterior of the enclosure. The shower floor and ceiling are in the Carrera stone, laid in herringbone. A built-in bench in the shower is done in the marble. LED tape under lighting on the vanity baseboards and recessed lighting in the ceiling throw off soft light in the evening, and six 5-foot windows bring the outside in. Vintage Floors laid every piece of flooring and tile in this Dream Home.
A giant walk-in closet by The Container Store mimics the feel of a country club locker room, featuring ebony cabinets with LED soffit and under lighting on dimmer switches, stackable washer and dryer (one of two laundry centers in the home), laundry chute from the children's room upstairs, and an island dresser. “The LEDs make the whole room,” Braswell says.
The cabinets — from The Container Store's TCS Closets line — are made of 1-inch thick Thermofused Laminate boards fabricated from recycled and reclaimed wood and have soft-close solid and glass doors, chrome hardware, tie rack, valet rod, belt rack, full-length pivoting pull-out mirror, and double and long-hang capability.
The master bathroom is one distillation of Grandeur's contributions to the Dream Home. It's the third Dream Home for Semmelmann and Blaylock. The first two were a green home in Montserrat and a transitional in Fort Worth's Edwards Ranch.
The two partners first teamed up in 2001. Grandeur prides itself on being involved at the design stage in its projects, planning all finishes, furnishings and accents, and manufacturing most of the accents it puts in. “We don't go out and buy lamps from anybody else,” Blaylock says. “We don't buy candles from anybody else.”
To Semmelmann and Blaylock, finishes work together within each room and flow perfectly from one to the next. “Everything feeds off [something else],” Blaylock says. “There's not anything odd.”
The gray prefinished, engineered hardwood flooring they chose runs through the Dream Home's common spaces, and cream and gray carpet highlights all of the bedrooms. Woods and metals — chrome, stainless steel, nickel, platinum, and metallic colors — are found in the furnishings, fixtures, and accents. Wood-like texture and metal are also found in some of the tile.
The Dream Home's dining room offers another distillation. Semmelmann and Blaylock contrasted the room's straight lines and color with a mix of furnishings: rustic wooden Bernhardt dining table with stainless legs, and curved-back gray fabric chairs with stainless nail heads. The set sits on a patterned rug with grays, creams and blacks. To draw the eye up, they hung three cylindrical metal-and-glass pendants from Ferguson Bath, Kitchen & Lighting, and floor-to-ceiling accent drapes on both sides of the windows.
Semmelmann and Blaylock created a tabletop centerpiece of floral, driftwood and metal. Because the home's new owner is a horse lover, Semmelmann and Blaylock found a photograph of two horses running in a river, enlarged it to 10 feet by 8 feet, cut and mounted it on four panels, and erected it on the room's one full wall. Homages to horses, wildlife and nature can be found in Grandeur's accent pieces throughout the Dream Home. “The way you change things up is by changing the texture,” Semmelmann says.
Three cylindrical metal-and-glass pendants from Ferguson Bath, Kitchen & Lighting draw the eye up.
Ties That Bind The Dream Home’s dining room, living room and kitchen flow easily together. The dining and living rooms are separated visually by archways created as part of the bridge.
The living room vignette, like others Semmelmann and Blaylock chose for the Dream Home, is simple, with sectional sofa and blended fabrics, two stainless-frame chairs, wood and stainless tables, and hair-on-hide pillows. The two lamps feature curved stainless bases and circular hide-covered shades and hair-on-hide pillows.
For the master bedroom, which has his-and-hers entry into the bath, Semmelmann chose a combination of contrasting rustic and modern treatments infused, again, with nature. The bed canopy, in white oak with stainless accents, comes from the same product line as the dining room set. The base is in light textured raffia wood. The shams are in animal fur, and the comforter, snake print. The furnishings include a shiny metal applique dresser and stainless-and-leather bench.
