⸻TWO-PHASE PROJECT · NORTH DALLAS
A Home Transformed
Twice Over
Interior renovation followed six years later by an outdoor living overhaul same home, same clients, same standard.
| Phase 1 | Phase 2 |
|---|---|
| Kitchen & Living Interior | Outdoor Fireplace & Grill |
| ★ 2018 NARI COTY WINNER | ★ 2022 NARI COTY WINNER |
Few things tell you more about a contractor than repeat clients. When the same family returns years later with their next project, it means the first one went exactly as they hoped. This North Dallas home is the story of two separate renovations — and the trust built in between them.
| Location | Phase 1 Investment |
|---|---|
| North Dallas, TX | $290K-$330K today |
| PHASE 2 INVESTMENT | NARI AWARDS |
| $165k - $205k Today | 2 COTY Wins |
PHASE 1 · 2016
Kitchen & Living Area Interior Renovation
2018 NARI CotY Winner — Interior Over $150,000
⸻ THE CHALLENGE
A great house with a kitchen stuck in 1980.
Our clients liked the open plan and high ceilings of their living area, but the original 1980s kitchen and breakfast area felt isolated by comparison — lower ceilings, walls that cut off natural sight lines, and a floor level in the living room that created a tripping hazard and made the space feel smaller than it was.
The flooring through the main areas was disjointed — different materials that had accumulated over time rather than a single considered design. The kitchen peninsula had a truncated layout that interrupted traffic flow. And the overall result was a home where the kitchen was clearly an afterthought, not the center of daily life.
The goal was to bring the living room, dining room, kitchen, and breakfast area into one cohesive, open space that flowed naturally and felt like it was designed that way from the start.
01
WALLS, CEILINGS & STRUCTURE
Removed the wall between the sitting room and breakfast area. Sloped the kitchen and breakfast ceilings to match the adjacent pitched ceilings, creating a unified volume. Raised the living room floor to eliminate the tripping hazard and unify the floor plane across all spaces. New subfloor installed at the living room level.
02
KITCHEN REDESIGN & MILLWORK
Eliminated the truncated peninsula and redesigned the kitchen layout around a dual-fuel range, simplifying the footprint while accommodating a larger refrigerator. New paint-grade inset-style cabinetry throughout — kitchen, wet bar, and pantry with soft-close drawers and full-extension guides. A 25% increase in storage capacity from a new large pantry in an unused part of the breakfast area.
03
OKLAHOMA FLAGSTONE PENINSULA WALL
A full-height Oklahoma flagstone wall at the end of the kitchen peninsula — needed structurally, but designed to serve as a visual anchor for the space and complement the existing stone walls in the living room. The stone also acted as a chase for the gas line and range wiring, and served as the anchor point for the furr-down ceiling element above the peninsula.
04
APPLIANCES & FIXTURES
Full appliance package supplied and installed: 48" Wolf dual-fuel pro range, 48" Sub-Zero refrigerator, Asko dishwasher with hidden controls, Wolf microwave drawer, 51" Best stainless venthood, and two Marvel 24" wine refrigerators at the wet bar. Lancaster fireclay farmhouse sink with Rohl faucet.
05
HARDWOOD FLOORS THROUGHOUT
2¼" select red oak hardwood floors installed throughout entry, living room, dining, kitchen, breakfast, and music room — all continuous, creating the visual harmony the space had been missing. Hand-scraped, stained, and finished on-site to a custom approved sample. New subfloor over vapor barrier at all impacted areas.
06
MECHANICAL, ELECTRICAL & HVAC
Complete HVAC replacement: two Lennox systems re-zoned to properly separate the bedroom side from the main living area. New sub-panel in garage. Full lighting redesign with recessed LEDs, LED under-cabinet tape, Lutron DIVA dimmers throughout, and combination USB/outlets at the kitchen. All appliance circuits added.
⸻ SUPERIOR CRAFTSMANSHIP
The details that made it a CotY winner.
Inset Cabinet Door Fit & Margins
Inset-style cabinetry demands a level of precision that face-frame overlay cabinets don't. Every door and drawer face must be fitted individually to achieve consistent margins on all four sides. The uniform gaps throughout the kitchen are a direct reflection of the millwork quality and the care taken during installation and adjustment.
Stone Wall Against Ceiling & Countertop
The Oklahoma flagstone wall at the end of the peninsula meets the ceiling and the countertop at tight, clean joints — a difficult fit because natural stone has no perfectly flat surfaces. Getting the stone to terminate crisply at both the ceiling plane above and the countertop edge below required careful selection and hand-fitting of individual pieces.
Smooth Drywall on Complex Ceiling Planes
The sloped ceilings meeting the flat furr-down element create angular planes and intersections that punish any inconsistency in the drywall finish. A truly smooth, paint-ready finish on sloped and angled surfaces is significantly harder to achieve than on flat ceilings, and the result defines the clean, architectural quality of the space.
Appliance Fit & Integration
A 48" Wolf range and 48" Sub-Zero refrigerator are professional-grade appliances with exacting installation requirements. Proper fit, alignment with surrounding cabinetry, vent hood sizing and duct routing, and a clean uniform reveal at all appliance edges are the marks of an experienced installer — not just a delivery crew.
Horizontal Outlets Above Backsplash
The electrical outlets were positioned just above the countertop, oriented horizontally in the backsplash tile — a deliberate placement to keep them from visually interrupting the tile field. It requires planning the tile layout around the outlet locations and cutting tiles precisely, but the result is a backsplash that reads as an uninterrupted surface.
Continuous Crown Moulding Detail
The existing crown moulding in the living room had been disjointed at the flat/sloped ceiling junctions. New headers were added at those junctions to allow the crown moulding to run continuously around the room — creating a unifying line and a proper demarcation between the ceiling and the wall planes throughout the living and dining areas.
⸻ THE DESIGN PROBLEM
Two ceiling pitches heading toward each other — no obvious solution.
01
THE OPPOSING CEILING PITCH PROBLEM
Raising the kitchen and breakfast ceilings to match their adjacent rooms meant sloping them in opposite directions — which would create an awkward collision point above the peninsula. The challenge was to resolve that junction in a way that felt intentional and clean, rather than like a construction compromise.
02
THE FURR-DOWN SOLUTION
The floor plan revealed the answer: the area directly above the range needed to be flat for the venthood and lighting anyway. Designing a flat furr-down ceiling element sized to mirror the peninsula below resolved the pitch collision, provided the flat surface needed for the hood, and added an architectural element that visually anchors and defines the cooking area.
03
STONE WALL AS MULTI-PURPOSE ELEMENT
The structural column needed at the end of the peninsula was an obstacle — it would obstruct views and interrupt the open flow of the space. Cladding it in Oklahoma flagstone matching the existing living room stone walls transformed a structural necessity into a design feature, a partial visual screen, and a utility chase for the gas line and electrical wiring.
04
RAISING THE LIVING ROOM FLOOR
The lowered living room floor was a tripping hazard and a space that felt smaller because of the step down. Raising it flush with the surrounding areas and running continuous hardwood flooring through all connected spaces — entry, living, dining, kitchen, breakfast, music room — created a visual expansion and a connected feel that no amount of furniture arrangement could have achieved otherwise.
PHASE 2 · Outdoor Fireplace, Grill & Patio Renovation
2022 NARI CotY Winner — Residential Landscape Design / Outdoor Living $100k–$250k
⸻ THE CHALLENGE
A backyard that looked good but didn't work.
Years after the interior renovation, our clients came back with the outdoor space they'd been living with: a built-in gas grill they never used, a patio that pooled water after every rain because the drain had long since blocked, and a raised patio that crowded the area around the fireplace they wanted to add.
The existing grill area needed to become a full masonry fireplace — something permanent, useful, and tied to the architecture of the house. The Big Green Egg they actually cooked on needed a proper home with built-in storage. And the drainage problem needed a real fix, not a bandage.
The constraint: everything had to look like it had always been part of the house.
⸻ SCOPE OF WORK
Replacing the unused with the essential.
01
CUSTOM FULL MASONRY FIREPLACE
A full masonry fireplace designed to fit precisely in the footprint of the old grill area — using Blanco chopped stone matching the existing stone already on the house. Concrete footing and piers, full surround and chimney with metal chimney hood, Arizona Blush stone lintel, new stone pilaster, and roofline flashing and cricket at the chimney back. It looks like it was built with the house.
02
BIG GREEN EGG BUILT-IN GRILL STATION
A custom built-in station for the XL Big Green Egg: masonry surround in stone matching the house, Absolute Black granite countertop and prep surface, and a Viking 36" fully sealed stainless steel weatherproof drawer for grill tool storage. The only drawer on the market with a fully sealed weatherproof design — critical for an outdoor installation where water infiltration destroys lesser products.
03
PATIO RECONSTRUCTION & DRAINAGE
The existing raised concrete patio was pooling water at a blocked center drain. New patio design slopes to shed water off the steps and drain through the synthetic turf — bypassing the old pool deck drains entirely. The upper patio was pulled back to give more room around the fireplace. New cut stone patios in a mix of Arizona Blush and Oklahoma flagstone, three different materials integrated for visual texture.
04
SYNTHETIC TURF AT POOL DECK
Synthetic turf replaced the existing pool deck surface adjacent to the new patio — not for aesthetics alone, but specifically to allow rainwater to drain through the turf and away from the pooling area. This solved the standing water problem that had existed for years without requiring any major re-grading of the pool deck elevation.
05
MASONRY & STONE INTEGRATION
The entire project required stone selection and laying that matched the existing stone on the house — brick veneer and Blanco chopped stone already present in the architecture. Getting both the fireplace surround and the grill station to read as original features, not additions, required sourcing matching stone and executing tight joints throughout.
06
UTILITIES & SITE WORK
Extended gas line to the fireplace location. Electrical outlets at the fireplace (2) and grill station. New concrete slab at side of house, modified soffit and cricket construction, gutter drain pipe reconnected. Sprinkler risers relocated along fence as needed. Square pool deck drains replaced to improve flow. Roofing flashing at chimney.
⸻ SUPERIOR CRAFTSMANSHIP
Stone that looks like it was always there.
Stone Matching the Existing House
The fireplace and grill station stone was selected specifically to blend with the Blanco chopped stone, brick veneer, and Oklahoma flagstone already present on the house and in the yard. Getting this match right means sourcing from the same or compatible quarries and reviewing samples against the existing stone in the actual light conditions of the site — not under a showroom skylight.
Stone Matching the Existing House
The fireplace and grill station stone was selected specifically to blend with the Blanco chopped stone, brick veneer, and Oklahoma flagstone already present on the house and in the yard. Getting this match right means sourcing from the same or compatible quarries and reviewing samples against the existing stone in the actual light conditions of the site — not under a showroom skylight.
Viking Drawer Custom Integration
The Viking 36" weatherproof stainless drawer required precise masonry framing to achieve a flush, built-in look with tight reveal margins on all sides. Outdoor masonry doesn't offer the same dimensional precision as interior millwork — getting a stainless steel appliance to sit cleanly within a stone surround requires careful layout, shimming, and finishing around the appliance opening.
⸻ PROJECT GALLERY
Both phases — finished.
"When our clients came back six years later with their next project, the only question was where to start."
TWO SEPARATE RENOVATIONS · TWO NARI COTY WINS · ONE LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIP
⸻ PROJECT INVESTMENT
Two phases of renovation — current pricing ranges.
The 2016 interior was a significant structural and systems renovation: walls removed, ceilings re-framed, floors raised, complete HVAC replacement, full appliance package, and all new finishes throughout. The major appliances alone — 48" Wolf range, 48" Sub-Zero refrigerator, two Marvel wine refrigerators — represented a meaningful portion of the total.
The 2021–22 outdoor project was more focused in scope but highly custom: a full masonry fireplace is a labor-intensive trade, stone matching work takes expertise, and the Viking weatherproof drawer and custom grill station were specified and built to last as long as the house does.
Pricing below reflects current material and labor costs — both projects were completed at lower cost, but these ranges reflect what an equivalent scope would run today in the DFW market.
| Phase 1 - Interior Renovation 2016 Project | Current Pricing |
|---|---|
| DEMO, FRAMING & STRUCTURE | $28k-$34k |
| Millwork & Cabinetry | $40k-$50k |
| Appliances (Wolf, Sub-Zero, ECT.) | $72k-$85k |
| Flooring, Painting & Finishes | $46k-$56k |
| HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical | $60k-$72k |
| Estimated Total Today | $290k-$330k |
| PHASE 2 — OUTDOOR LIVING 2021-22 Project | Current Pricing |
|---|---|
| DEMO, CONCRETE & SITE WORK | $16k–$20k |
| FULL MASONRY FIREPLACE | $55k–$70k |
| GRILL STATION, STONE & COUNTERTOP | $28k–$36k |
| PATIO STONEWORK & DRAINAGE | $32k–$42k |
| UTILITIES, ELECTRICAL & ROOFING | $12k–$18k |
| ESTIMATED TODAY | $165k–$205k |
| Combined Two-Phase Investment | $455k-$535k |
|---|
