The warm welcoming feel of this Eden Prairie house beckons friends and family to settle in and feel at home. The natural color palette and earthly elements – e.g. black walnut cabinets, are exciting to look at but neutral enough to please future homeowners.

A newly ‘empty nest’ couple challenged the design team to convert their typical suburban home from one that worked for their family to one that would function as an entertaining and party mecca. The homeowners are a fun-loving, Harley-riding couple who want to squeeze every ounce of fun from life that they can. Their home no longer worked for them.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES
- Redesign kitchen
- Need to update family room with rest of project
- Make sun room more inviting and available
- Make front foyer bigger and incorporate a front porch
- Transition new first floor to the upstairs within the open foyer and second floor hallway
- Organize the back hallway
- Create a larger laundry room
- Relocate powder room to make it more accessible to the rest of the first floor
- Use energy saving materials
- Create a uniform sense of style throughout the first floor
- Complete project within budget

The complete reworking of the main level floor plan changed the face and the function of the new spaces. By removing a rarely used dining room and replacing it with a powder room convenient for arriving guests, enlarging the foyer and laundry room, re-making the front exterior and interior entryway, removing the kitchen island and designing a combination kitchen and entertaining space perfect for intimate gatherings but room for a crowd, the new spaces not only look great but the homeowners report meet their needs much more fully than their former floor plan.