A year after her husband’s death, Jacquelynn Richmond decided it was time to carry out the couple’s plan to install hardwood floors throughout the main level of their family home. Trading carpet and vinyl for bamboo was fairly straightforward — but, given the kitchen’s configuration, replacing the floors ultimately meant remodeling the entire kitchen, which hadn’t been touched since the ‘80s and had the ubiquitous built-in desk to prove it.

 Sometimes all you need to make a big statement is the right color palette, plenty of sunlight and thoughtful staging. For this particular European-style property – a two-story home set alongside rural terrain and a clear, blue lake – country French hues gave way to the lighter, airier look two Belleville homeowners were after. The husband-and-wife duo had built their house in 1988 and had it professionally decorated then. “I loved it for years,” one homeowner explains, “but there was so much going on, and I’d grown tired of the previous look.”

What started out as an unexpected disaster quickly turned into an opportunity for change when Town and Country homeowners discovered a crack in their basement floor. Foundation issues that needed immediate attention pushed them to redo their lower level, turning it into the space they had always dreamed of.

After building their home in 2006, the couple thought they had built the perfect basement. It had a bar, a gym and a place for guests, but after several years in the home, they found they never used the space and, honestly, just did not like it.

Seated at the peninsula in her tired, dated kitchen, a Ladue homeowner wistfully envisioned her family and friends gathered around a center island while she prepared delicious meals and snacks. While her current kitchen wasn’t necessarily small, it was narrow, making it nearly impossible to add a center island that was the appropriate size for seating and aisle space. A peninsula extending from one wall provided seating, but it cut off the flow to the breakfast room and doors to the home’s exquisite backyard patio and pool.

“I can never just cook a simple meal,” gushes homeowner and bona fide foodie Allison Gulbrandsen. Apparently her culinary exuberance slipped into interiors, too, because what began as a simple nursery project quickly enveloped Gulbrandsen’s entire residence, ending with the dramatic reimagining of an outdated Chinese-toile papered dining room.

After 50 years in Davis Place, Elaine and Tom Tucker made a big move from life in a single-family home to high-rise condominium living.