Atlanta Home Improvement – True Visionaries
July 2003
But tackling a major renovation (or even a small one for that matter) isn’t something many of us want to take on when buying a home. Well, that certainly wasn’t the case with these three Atlanta residents. While each one’s story is uniquely different, they all shared one thing in common: they weren’t afraid to have vision.
Salvaging History
Kara O’ Brien Renovations business partners Kara O’Brien and Paula Rose had always admired what’s now their home in Kirkwood, so when it went on the market, they jumped at the chance to see the inside. “The house had 30 people living in it and was packed with tons of stuff,” O’Brien explains. “But even in horrible disrepair, the house was still beautiful and we knew we had to have it.”
They agreed it had potential as an investment, and was definitely worth saving because it was built in 1912 by Frank Ruggles, an architect who played a major role in the development of Kirkwood in East Atlanta. Like many of Ruggles designs, this house was Craftsman in style, but it also included many Victorian details, including leaded glass, stained glass, decorative woodwork and built-in cabinets.
But despite the beauty, the house was in bad shape. “We had to rip out and rebuild all of the ceilings and walls because the upper level had no support at all,” O’Brien says. “We also had to add anew roof, HVAC system, copper plumbing and new wiring.”
The kitchen and baths had to be completely gutted and rebuilt, and all of the original woodwork had to be stripped and re-stained. “The biggest challenge was repairing the original terrazzo floor on the front porch,” O’Brien says. “We had to pour a new terrazzo floor and it took four weeks to grind down the concrete with diamond tipped blades so the marble mosaic showed.”
Finally, two of the home’s seven bedrooms were combined to create one large master suite. “We took the wall out that separated them and used 100-year-old Craftsman columns to define the two spaces within the one room,” O’Brien says.
Even though the two purchased the house with every intention of re-selling it, it was just too tough to let it go. “We were just two weeks from finishing the job and the house looked fantastic,” O’Brien says. “We’d renovated so many houses that we’d sold, we just decided to keep this one. We’ve been here now since last November and it is very cool to enjoy our hard work.”
