Baby barn

The tiny house craze may have tempered a touch, but in the right application, downscale domiciles can still bring it big time. Crozet-based John and Lori O’Connor contracted with Charlottesville Area Builders to construct a new farmhouse several years ago. They didn’t plan to add a guest house but came to the idea as an […]

Triple the fun

For an artist moving to Charlottesville from the West Coast, dashed urban hopes led to a near-downtown dream renovation. The homeowner quickly learned the loft-style living and working space she wanted wasn’t currently available, but she says she got lucky. She found a single-family home on Lexington Avenue that had already undergone a modern renovation […]

How to sell a fully furnished home

With the real estate market still red hot, you may have noticed a new trend on Instagram: buyers selling their houses fully furnished. They don’t have to pay to pack up and haul all their worldly goods elsewhere, and sellers get a custom-decorated house with minimal unpacking. But before you decide to jump on this […]

It’s a calling

“You gotta love old houses to live in one,” says master stonemason Mike Ondrick. “If you keep it anywhere near correct [to its era], you’re going to live with cold walls and damp in the basement sometimes.” Ondrick should know: He’s a founder and project manager for Dominion Traditional Building Group, which specializes in restoring […]

Rest and relaxation

Over the last few years, Beth Ann Kallen, co-owner of home furnishing and interior design firm Folly, has been helping a client redecorate the family’s home in Blandemar Farm Estates room by room. For the latest project, the master bedroom, Kallen (a mother of three) knew just what the mother of four needed: “I wanted […]

The next stage

When the kids leave home, what are the choices: Rent out the basement? Move? Retire to a warmer climate? Sean and Gineane Stalfort rejected all those options. “We thought about downsizing,” says Gineane. “But we do a lot of entertaining, we host family holidays, and we wanted to have our sons come back here.” The […]

Hard (wood)work

If you’ve been following Taylor Ahn on Instagram (@new_iterations), like I have for a while, you’re at once impressed, inspired, and…a little grossed out. Her current project, an antique card catalog, started as a grimy habitat for a colony of stink bugs. She spent hours ridding the piece of its occupants and rebuilding the frame. […]

On the money

If you had your eye on the more than $1 million new construction home at 802 Hinton Ave., bad news. Someone beat you to it. But also good news. The builder, Steve Nicholson Construction, is still out there doing HGTV-worthy work on spec and for specific homeowners with style—not to mention substance. For context, consider […]

Courageously contemporary

Dave Ackerman and his architecture and design firm, Wolf Ackerman, have been making modern additions to traditional homes for at least a decade, and he thinks the trend is definitely catching on. “We’ve done a lot of older houses, specifically in and around Belmont, that just don’t suit the way people live today,” Ackerman says. […]

New house, new look

When David and Nancy Hughes retired in 2017, they needed a big change.  “We had lived in Delaplane on 21 acres,” says Nancy. While they loved the place, the couple decided they wanted a smaller, newer home and an urban vibe—so they moved to Charlottesville. “We were looking forward to travel, lots of dinner parties,” […]