The Right Sequencing Opens up an Entryway

Project Info

Designer & Contractor: Ridley Wills / The Wills Co., Nashville, TN

Priorities

• Reconfigure the entryway to create a better first impression • Add visual interest to the dining room
• Update interior overall

Solutions

The original entry to this Nashville home was blocked by the stairs, which turned directly into the foyer. Designer Ridley Wills reworked the stairs to spill straight out, widening at the bottom in a welcoming way. To update what the clients felt was the “unimaginative” stairwell, Wills replaced the wooden handrails with elegant iron hand and shoe rails and balusters. The effect is light and open and fits with the more updated aesthetic the clients wanted to achieve in the other rooms on the main floor.

To further open the space, Wills improved the entry hall by removing the cased openings and false transoms of transition spaces.

In the dining room, Wills removed dated panel molding from the walls and had bookcases built between windows and on either side of the wide doorway. The effect gives the space an updated look that improves upon—but doesn’t eliminate—the home’s traditional origins.

In keeping with that idea, Wills replaced the single-lite windows in the dining room’s bay with divided-lite windows. “These are more true to the traditional nature of the architecture,” he points out.

Judges’ Comments

For this project, the team was able to do so much within the budget—redoing the railings and stairs, adding built-ins, cleaning up the rooms, raising doors, and removing the wall panels. Using black and whites for the “before” photos and color photos for the “after” shots was a great way to present the work in the award-entry binder.