Christine Blau 
Heidi Dugan is on her phone early in the early morning, responding to e-mail and texts and tending to past-minute facts of her actual estate do the job. She could sit and sip coffee in a lovely courtyard outdoors or any a person of the cozy rooms in her residence, but it is really not abnormal to find her in her newly renovated most important bathroom, exactly where she can maintain court with mates, co-workers and purchasers — electronically — for hours.
Dugan, a Realtor for Greenwood King who has lived and labored in West U for 40 years, sees what she feels is the very best of what is actually readily available in Houston place houses, no matter if it is really renovations in bogs, kitchens or even outdoor spaces. Nevertheless she bought her house some 20 decades back and beloved it then, she’s completed a variety of renovations as new issues in property style and design grabbed her focus.
For the past handful of years she’s renovated one particular home or a further with the support of inside designer Elizabeth Donnelly of Elizabeth Donnelly Interiors, updating furnishings and bringing in antiques and art and even sprucing up outdoor areas. A significant element of the most modern round of updates was gutting and transforming her key toilet upstairs, and refreshing the rest of the upstairs of her household. The project commenced as a redo of the most important toilet and closet, but grew from there.
In advance of, her major lavatory was octagonal in shape — a not-so-productive floor prepare with awkward corners and doors put in on the angles, a built-in spa tub and an angled shower. Dugan realized that she wanted antique tile, beautiful marble and a stunning chandelier.
“I sit at my self-importance for a genuinely very long time just about every day. It is not since I’m vain it’s because I’m there with my telephone and responding to texts and e-mails. My work never ever stops,” said Dugan, a native of Miami Seaside who came to Houston in her early 20s. “It is really tranquil in this article. I never have a 9 to 5 career I get the job done 24/7. I start out answering messages when I get up and I can go to 11 p.m.”
Donnelly introduced in interiors architect Nadia Palacios Lauterbach of Nadia Palacios Residential Structure to to structure a customized vanity and perform on the great details of the place. Erin Stetzer of Stetzer Builders was the contractor.
“The idea was to take a regular builder home with his-and-hers vanities on opposite walls and reconfigure the area. It truly is not much more space, but it is laid out differently, and what we attained was an open up, streamlined place with supplies that are mild and airy,” Donnelly reported. “We took away awkward angles and put together two closets, which gave Heidi her attractive, incredibly large closet.”
The reimagining of that toilet positioned a totally free-standing tub about in which the designed-in edition was. Then, the shower was moved upcoming to it with a single side “bumped out” with a pony wall and sheets of glass to make it sense even more substantial. Inside of that shower, a pair of shampoo niches and a bench that feels like a tiny piece of home furniture are covered in the exact same Calacatta you can expect to locate on the vanity counters.
Dugan fell in appreciate with the Aged Earth experience of antique tile and other architectural antiques stocked at Ruth Gay’s Chateau Domingue store in the Heights space. She observed some stunning tile there, purchased on Gay’s previous acquiring journey to France in advance of the COVID shutdown. The marble experienced been applied as flooring in an 18th century chapel at a monastery on the grounds of the Basilic Saint Aphrodise in Beziers in southern France.
The chapel was about to be torn down, so Gay bought the tile and many columns ahead of it was demolished, she explained.
When the tile arrived at Dugan’s house, she, Donnelly and Lauterbach received it out, hand washed it and very carefully made the decision the placement of each and every tile.
Other European decorations include things like the new Murano glass chandelier, built in Italy, and an antique Murano-framed mirror that hangs around Dugan’s tailor made-made makeup self-importance. That piece of household furniture was designed by Lauterbach, a classic type with Artwork Deco touches built with walnut wood.
“We wanted the self-importance to experience glamorous, although its 1st precedence was to be practical because it serves as a 2nd desk for Heidi,” Donnelly mentioned. “She receives all set there in the early morning, but she can plug in her laptop, way too. It has concealed plugs and chargers almost everywhere, and the drawers are made to residence her solutions she uses to get completely ready each working day.”
She also keeps her terrific-grandmother’s vainness established there, a pretty tray and antique perfume bottles.
Not only did they turn two smaller closets into one particular greater area, but they concluded it out with exquisite depth with fumed French oak. Lighted, glass-entrance cabinets exhibit off her selection of handbags and superior-heeled sneakers, and locking drawers are lined with suede to exhibit her jewelry.
Donnelly mentioned that numerous of her customers want boutique-design closets that work as a dressing room, with outfits, footwear and equipment perfectly structured and exhibited. Valet rods, moreover pullout rods for scarves, belts or neckties are hand and can be house savers, as well. Lighting is crucial, so owners can see what they have, and glass shelving allows the mild filter as a result of, producing it all sense far more open, Donnelly said.
In the rest of the primary bedroom suite, they extra gorgeous Gracie wallpaper to a vestibule and a Venetian plaster finish on the walls and ceiling of the bed room. A small visitor home with a total bathtub grew to become her new household gymnasium, and the lavatory bought a refresh of its have.
The upstairs recreation place is Dugan’s Television place, and it got a makeover with a created-in console cabinet built of fumed French oak changing floor-to ceiling cabinets that experienced louvered doorways. The place is stuffed with much more present-day furnishings, such as a comfortable sectional couch with an acrylic coffee table, in addition a curvy chair with ottoman and a tiny Saarinen Tulip desk paired with modern chairs. A new brass chandelier lights up the home, and a big Michael von Helms summary painting fills a side wall.
Dugan elevated her two sons, Alex Dugan, now 31, and Harrison Willett, now 40, in this home, and when Alex life and performs in Los Angeles — he is a songwriter and direct singer of the band Society Wars — he insists that his bedroom and rest room remain exactly as they had been when he was in large faculty. Harrison, 40, life in Houston and is the father of four young children.
Her sons utilized to deliver their pals right here when they had been young, and some nevertheless stop by. She was regarded for owning a big Christmas get together with 200 or much more individuals, although COVID compelled a pause on this kind of huge gatherings. Now, she’s more probably to have a supper social gathering for 12 in her quite dining room.
“This is my sanctuary, surely. It is very private and incredibly a great deal a reflection of who I am,” Dugan claimed. “I have an art background degree, so for me, when I sit below and seem at everything, I see both the beauty and the functionality.”
