Super 6

Family Retreat
For older homes, the challenge for remodelers is to incorporate modern conveniences in a way that doesn’t conflict with old design styles. Such was the case for Gary Aulik of St. Louis Park–based Aulik & Associates, when a client requested a renovation of their Tudor-style home overlooking Lake of the Isles. “Many of the spaces in the home—the living area, entryway, den—are very formal environments,” he says. “The family wanted to introduce an area where they could be together in a much more casual environment.” The most likely candidate for remodeling was a long room above the detached garage that the previous owner had used as a home theater. It was accessible from the house via a causeway over the porte-cochère (an enclosed entrance), but Aulik and the chief architect of project, Wayne Capra, suggested creating a mudroom in the garage that led up into the new family area. They absorbed one of the garage’s far stalls and used a stamped and stained concrete product for the mudroom floor. Each of the four family members has one custom-built cubby for their coats, hats, boots, and other gear; the drawers and shelves can be adjusted in height as the kids grow.

A stairwell leads up into a study area for the kids, with the balance of the space over the garage filled with a family/entertainment room, bar, game room and reading area, and a home theater. Despite the lighter feel to the space, and its separate location, Aulik and Capra wanted it to relate to the rest of the home. They chose similar dark and medium tones of wood, but used vertical-grain fir, as opposed to walnut. Not only was fir commonly used in the spare rooms or servants’ quarters of old mansions, fir handles wear-and-tear better. “It’s a softer wood, so when it takes a nick or ding, it tends to add to its character, instead of detracting from its formality,” says Aulik. It can also be relatively evenly stained, antiqued, and glazed to mimic an older, original look—as was the case here.

A hand-wrought plaster finish invoked an aged feeling as well, and timber beams were added to the ceiling of one section of the space to bring a rustic, attic-like character. Some elements, such as the honed granite bar top and hand-hammered copper sink, hint at an aged look, while others actually are vintage: Aulik sourced antique light fixtures, an antique fir fireplace mantle, and, for cabinetry, pitted iron hinges, handles, and knobs that are pockmarked with hints of rust.

Bathroom Trio
When Holly Bayer Seel, of Minnetonka-based interior design company hauthaus, inc., was asked to redesign two bathrooms and create a design for a third in a century-old Minneapolis home, the main challenge was how to tie the three rooms together. To make sure her designs were practical as well as aesthetic, Seel asked Tim Purcell of Purcell, Inc.  in White Bear Lake to facilitate the project. “The connecting piece for all three bathrooms was to do something somewhat historic but also luxurious,” says Seel. “We chose historic-looking but very fine fixtures [Perrin & Rowe] for each bathroom.” They also used imperial white marble in the different spaces for the tile, tub deck, and a cabinet top to tie all three bathrooms together. But each space also had its own distinctive character. For instance, the sink room featured an apothecary cabinet Seel designed for the client’s makeup and accessories, and the second floor bathroom included a restored medicine cabinet and bead board, a Victorian-era wood wall treatment. The third floor bathroom, which was created during the renovations, sported a period-looking shower fixture with hot and cold levers and piping on the outside. Purcell also tackled the technically difficult task of undermounting the tub so that it sits below the marble tub deck. He added a wall-mounted towel warmer and a glass-block window in the tub room, and fitted a dark twelve-panelled walnut door with mirrors in the new bathroom for a useful, yet brightening, feature. Purcell also reconstructed the medicine cabinet that originally came with the house, and built the custom-designed cherry cabinetry and apothecary cabinet—one of his favorite defining elements. “The apothecary cabinet has a marble top, polished chrome bars that go to the wall for towel bars, and tiny little drawers that dovetail,” he says. “The room is very tiny, and the cabinetry just makes the room.”