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Living Spaces: 2010 tour offers ideas for sprucing up a home
Journal Photo by Lauren Carroll
Tile is a big feature of Lackey's home, sponsored on the tour by McCullough Tile and Stone, which did most of the tile work.
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Published: March 20, 2010
Diane Lackey didn't intend on having a laundry room as large as her kitchen.
It wasn't part of the plans when she and her husband, Charles, built their house in 1998. She has no great love of washing clothes or ironing. But Charles, who died in 2006, was a lawyer who worked at home. He wanted more space for his office, so they added an addition.
The office went downstairs. The Lackeys built their house on a slope, and much of their living space -- the kitchen, the master bedroom, the dining room -- is upstairs. That's where they added a sun-filled breakfast room -- and that laundry room-to-end-all-laundry-rooms. It's lined with natural stone and hand-painted, sage-green tiles. Lots of natural light coming in through Solatube skylights means that Lackey rarely turns on the overhead lights.
There's an island where Lackey, 63, stores gift bags and gift-wrapping materials. The room has lots of cabinets, a wet bar for storing wine glasses, a fridge, a freezer and a microwave in addition to the expected washer, dryer and ironing board.
Most of Lackey's house will be on tour today during the 2010 Junior League of Winston-Salem's Tour of Fine Spaces. The tour is a fundraiser that helps pay for the league's community events and outreach.
This is the fifth annual tour, expanded this year to include living spaces in general, inside and out -- not just kitchens.
That means whatever room you may be thinking about renovating, you're likely to come away with ideas for a home-improvement project.
There are eight houses on this year's tour, each sponsored by a local home-improvement company. The companies pay the league $2,000 a sponsorship to show off their best work.
Lackey's brick house is in northwestern Winston-Salem, just off Silas Creek Parkway in Silas Ridge, an area Lackey calls "Buena Vista-ish."
It's appropriate that McCullough Tile and Stone is sponsoring her house. Over the years, the company has provided the tile for much of her home, from a tile floor ringing guest bedrooms downstairs, to decorative tiles and stone in the bathrooms.
There are thoughtful touches and details throughout -- inlaid cherry designs in the hardwood floors, tiered ceilings and a custom-built cabinet that holds a television in the living room but also divides the room from the breakfast room.
The Junior League's tour usually attracts people who are serious about renovation. "I think they're looking for ideas to help them with projects," said Heather Jenkins, a Junior League member and the tour's chairwoman. "You see people constantly on the tour with notebooks and asking questions about paint colors. They can touch and feel it and look at it."
In Lackey's upstairs powder room, a simple change such as adding a decorative stone chair rail over the vanity can be a weekend project that costs from $100 to $200.
And you can do it yourself. "It's something that anyone can do that really adds a lot," said Amy Linville, who owns McCullough Tile and Stone.
Lackey's renovations over the 12 years she's lived in her house represent the kind of gradual improvements you can make to a house, she said. That's in line with the kind of realistic facelift that homeowners are interested in today.
"They're renovating baths and kitchens instead of going out and buying new homes," Linville said. "They're kind of holding onto their money and spending on what they have. They're putting their money where they are going to be."
Linville is also a big fan of using pops of color -- tipping colored tiles a different direction in a kitchen backsplash, for example, to create designs, or painting the ceiling. Lackey's dining room ceiling is a deep red -- the color of Cheerwine soda; in her breakfast room, a sunny yellow ceiling plays off apple-green walls and shabby-chic furniture.
Clemmons interior designer June DeLugas' house in Advance and a new Energy Star, energy-efficient house in Pfafftown are among the other houses on the tour. Admission includes snacks from area restaurants and caterers. Lackey's house will have heavy hors d'oeuvres. There will also be a wine tasting by RayLen Vineyards.
The perfect spot for it? The laundry room.
lgiovanelli@wsjournal.com | 727-7302
The 2010 Junior League of Winston-Salem's Tour of Fine Spaces will be today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets are $25 and may be purchased at any of the houses on the tour. For more information, including a map, go to www.jlws.org.
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