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Saturday, March 23, 2002
Dream house Family modified 5,000-square-foot home to meet demands of style, design and five children SARAH JACKSON, THE OLYMPIAN Originally published Saturday, March 23, 2002
THURSTON COUNTY -- If humans had house soul mates, Lynn Grantham might already be living in hers.
Inside and out, the Grantham home north of Lacey feels more like an estate or a resort than a subdivision home.
More than 5,000 square feet of living space inside the home -- painted yellow and accented with white columns and balconies -- sits surrounded by fancy features.
Two large, column-supported pergolas, a firepit, a substantial, seven-waterfall bed of boulders and an enormous back yard -- dotted with evergreen and deciduous trees -- are only the beginning.
The Granthams' children enjoy playgrounds on acres of green grass mixed with conifers, a paved basketball area, an elaborate playset and a lighted area they call the baseball field.
But all of this wasn't in place right away.
Most of the work outside -- and the painting and decorating inside -- came from the Granthams. It's come a long way from the Spartan home the sellers left behind a year ago.
"They had never even hung one picture, painted one wall or planted one flower," Grantham said. "It was as if they pulled out enough trees to plop the house down and that was it. We had a blank canvas as far as the landscaping goes."
Relocating
But there was land enough for all of Lynn and John Grantham's five children, ranging in age from 7 to twins who are 2.
The Granthams first found the house online while looking for a place to resettle.
Longtime residents of Los Gatos, Calif., near San Jose, the Granthams wanted to slow down, move away from their hustle-and-bustle jobs in Silicon Valley and reunite with Olympia-area family.
"In California, you are lucky if your home is on a quarter-acre of land," Lynn Grantham said, "and with five kids we wanted them to be able to run and play without having to worry about cars and all that."
The Granthams looked all around Olympia -- from McAllister Park to Boston Harbor homes.
"But when we saw our house on an old Christmas tree farm -- with all of its potential -- we knew it was the place for us."
After many years as a professional in sales, Grantham's daily life now includes listening to the water trickle in the back yard while raising her kids (with occasional help from a nanny).
Up the hill from the house, Grantham's planted hundreds flower bulbs in a circular bed next to a potting shed, accented with cement and ceramic-tile steppingstones Grantham created herself.
"We just finished last fall," Grantham said standing in the back yard by the waterfalls. " I can't wait to get out here and enjoy the spring."
Grantham's anticipation for spring comes after months of work. The home cost more than half a million dollars to buy, and the improvements added another $200,000 to that cost.
Landscaping
While the Granthams put in much-needed utilities including some drainage and irrigation modifications, their first mission was clearing some of the trees around the home.
Grantham said the Intel executive who built the home lived in it with his family less than two years before the family decided to move.
Kris Knudsen, owner of Puget Sound Landscaping of Olympia, was happy to accept the landscaping challenge.
"They were pretty much surrounded by densely planted evergreen trees," Knudsen said. "They had this big home and big parcel of land, but very limited usable space."
So Knudsen and his crews -- and other contractors -- began shaving and shaping the land.
"They're young and athletic people and they wanted to use their yard," Knudsen said. "It added a lot of depth and scale to the whole place. It's almost like a park. It's really pretty nice."
Landscapers and designers created waterfalls and numerous flower beds.
"It's nice to have an opportunity to use a variety of plants," Knudsen said. "There were a lot of different rhododendrons, boxwood, day lilies -- so there was a mix of both perennials and shrubs."
Rebuilding
Soon, though, the Granthams' focus shifted to the home's front entrance, made dramatic -- but awkward -- by four huge columns of PVC pipe filed with cement.
Enter Tracy Moore, owner of WTM Construction of Gig Harbor. WTM stands for William Tracy Moore, who led the exterior remodeling project.
"Everything was out of proportion because you had these huge columns," Moore said. "We just tried to figure out a way that it should've been to begin with -- then the proportions started to work a little better."
So with scaled-down columns the Granthams were able to add better balconies.
Reproductions of the white columns support the home's two pergolas, each topped with cedar -- one outside the kitchen and another outside the parlor.
WTM added French doors to provide access to the kitchen pergola and to complement the home's French windows throughout.
"Both areas feel like an extension of the home," Grantham said of the pergolas. "And in the spring and summer they make for a wonderful spot to relax, entertain and unwind. On a beautiful sunny day, I just feel like this is another room."
Moore said many people who commission new homes put off designing outdoor living areas and landscaping. By the time the home is complete, homeowners already have run out of money.
Plus, grand homes such as the Granthams' especially need equally impressive outdoor accents -- such as the copper dormer window that WTM added -- expected to achieve a rich patina within a year.
"Pretty much everything tied together to make it very impressive," Moore said. "By opening that whole place up and adding the patios to the side and pergolas -- it just kind of made it much more inviting."
Interior
As you walk inside the Grantham home's improved main entrance, you'll step on white-gray marble floors and move though archways to the main dining room at the right. It's made more inviting by a sparkling chandelier, wooden antique furniture and an orchid in the corner.
Decorative and intricate anaglypta, a textured paintable wallcovering, provides an alternative to beadboard below the chairboard with dramatic results.
The parlor sits straight ahead through painted white columns and yellow archways.
There, similar decorating themes come through. You won't miss the baby grand piano, accented with a bust of Mozart at the edge of the room.
Grantham's parlor is formal with golden, satin curtains and a huge area rug over white, soft carpet.
Light, golden walls with faux finishing below the wainscoting -- deep yellow and rich burgundy -- match the colors in an Italian tapestry as well as unique lamps and sculptures.
There's a fireplace, too -- that also serves the adjacent family room -- and sculptures amid high, arching windows and high ceilings.
"This rug -- I saw it in a catalog," Grantham says. "The colors were just so perfect."
Those colors -- yellows, golds, burgundies, forest greens and deep purples -- are used throughout the house for a stylish palette.
Color
But decorating isn't all formal in the Grantham home.
Grantham had just as much fun on the children's bedrooms upstairs, where the twin girls' cribs sit in an array of Grantham's mosaic works of art.
With a little help from The Painted Plate in Olympia -- and her own muse for hand-painted art -- Grantham created an elaborate frame for a mirror as well as a table and lampshade.
Move into one of her son's rooms and you'll find a star and moon theme achieved with blues, yellows and white.
Grantham loves the shared bathroom between the two rooms for the three boys.
"For our family the arrangement was perfect," Grantham said. "Had we decided to build our own home, I don't know if we would have done much differently."
Grantham created colorful paint schemes, carrying colors from room to room, while she also added pillows, curtains and accessories to the children's rooms using her own sewing savvy and attention to detail.
Extras
All this is to say nothing of the Granthams' guest room, living room, kitchen, bathrooms, master bedroom, their offices and the kids' two playrooms.
There's one playroom downstairs with a Medieval theme with tasseled, jesteresque curtain tops and an oversized checkerboard rug with huge checker pieces for an extra-large game -- all against a backdrop of a Middle Ages scene on fabric on the wall.
Upstairs a 20-by-30-foot, blue-carpeted playroom includes a couch, huge denim bean bags and a built-in entertainment center with bookshelves.
"This is a great room for family," Grantham said. "They wrestle. They pull out the trains. We hang out up here.
Grantham's husband, John, is co-owner of Budd Bay Embroidery and Specialties. John also owns NoteAds, which sells Post-it Notes such as advertising coupons on products such as newspapers, and direct mail.
Grantham said the passion for creativity she used during her career fuels her projects -- and there are many -- today.
"I'm very creative," Grantham said. "I'm very organized. I worked with my customers to come up with fun ideas. So here I am, the frustrated housewife," Grantham said jokingly, "so I have to channel my energy.
"I'm constantly needing things to do."
Sarah Jackson can be reached at 360-704-6871 or by e-mail at sajackso@olympia.gannett.com.
Home of the Month
Every month, we'll bring you scenes from a South Sound home and stories that show why our humble -- and not so humble -- abodes shape the way we live.
We're looking for remarkable architecture, creative interior design, original decorating, interesting remodeling jobs and just about anything else you think makes your house a home.
Plus, be on the lookout for notable gardens for the seasonal feature, Garden of the Month. What better time could you find to show off your garden -- or a neighbor's garden -- than a South Sound spring?
Call Home reporter Sarah Jackson with your ideas at 360-704-6871 or write sajackso@olympia.gannett.com.
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