Upstate House

A house can be in the right location, offer a beautiful view, and still fall short of the way its owners need to live. With high interest rates and an uncertain housing market discouraging many homeowners from moving, EvolveD Interiors Design and Build is increasingly helping clients find space where they already live.

“People are saying, ‘We’ll work with what we have, enhance it, and stay here,’” says founder and lead designer Mari Mulshenock. The Woodstock firm is currently managing several substantial additions and whole-home renovations as clients invest in houses and neighborhoods they already know and love.

One recent Woodstock project demonstrates how dramatically a home can change without substantially enlarging its footprint. The owners had purchased a small two-bedroom cottage within walking distance of the center of town. Its location was ideal, but its cramped combination kitchen and living area made the house difficult to inhabit full-time.

“They needed more living space,” says EvolveD Interiors designer Stacey Anderson. “The challenge was making more space out of no space.”

The answer was sitting just beyond the walls: an existing screened porch that could only be used during the warmer months. Evolved Interiors converted it into a year-round living room, keeping the deck so the homeowners could retain a place to sit outside.

Removing the original fireplace from the undersized main room freed up space for a proper kitchen and dining area. A new fireplace became the focal point of the expanded living room. Along the rear of the house, the team installed a wall of windows framing a view of Overlook Mountain and bringing much-needed natural light into what had been a dark cottage.

The project reflects a recurring lesson in EvolveD Interiors’ work: Additional living space does not always require a major addition. An underused porch, oversized laundry room, awkward hallway, or poorly placed wall may hold the solution. Stacey says that an outside perspective can help homeowners see possibilities obscured by years of living with the same arrangement.

“It’s hard to imagine a space differently when you live there every day,” she says. “Someone can walk in without that history and say, ‘You could do this,’ and suddenly there’s an option you never considered.”

EvolveD Interiors brings those possibilities to life through a comprehensive design-build process. Its designers assess how clients want to use their homes, translate the existing footprint into architectural CAD drawings, develop new layouts, and coordinate engineering when required. The firm also hires contractors, manages construction, and supplies materials through its Woodstock showroom, where clients can select cabinetry, tile, flooring, windows, doors, and siding.

That integrated approach also helps keep ambition aligned with budget. Mari is candid with clients about what their money can accomplish, then looks for inventive ways to achieve the underlying goal. Opening a wall, for instance, may create the desired flow without the structural expense of removing it entirely.

“We’re good problem solvers,” she says. “Sometimes you have to think outside the box to make a project work.”

For homeowners considering a renovation, Stacey recommends beginning with a deceptively simple question: Why do you need more space, and how will you use it? Once that is clear, the right design may reveal that the home they want is already there, waiting to evolve.

EvolveD Interiors Design and Build

86 Mill Hill Road, Woodstock

(866) 363-2152; Evolvedinteriors.com