Katy home’s massive makeover adds 800-square-foot game room … – Houston Chronicle

The huge 20-foot-by-40-foot game room in Nancy and Stu Schrier'sCinco Ranch home came just in time.

The couple bought their home nine years ago and expected to make changes as time went on. In a project that added space for entertaining family and friends and made other parts of their home more functional, the Schriers sought to make their now 4,550-square a place that their grown children and their grandchildren would enjoy visiting and always call "home." And, about a year ago, one of their daughters moved back in temporarily with her family of four.

Their renovation list included creating a porte cochere in front of their two-car garage. This would allow them to create new square footage for a second-floor game room, renovate their kitchen, reimagine their dining room, refresh the foyer and expand their backyard patio, add two full bathrooms and retiletheir swimming pool.

Those are the broad strokes accomplished in six to seven months but there were other small touches, including a novel approach to the dining room.

The couple had a formal dining room, but the prominent, front-of-the-house square footage felt wasted because it was used so little. Still, Nancy and Stu, both 72, wanted a place to have extended family holiday dinners, and they didn't want to get rid of their beautiful drop-leaf dining table that had belonged to Nancy's mother.

Their interior designer and general contractor, SophiaVassiliou of Sophia Designs, said she stayed awake at night thinking about what she could do with the table and chairs, ultimately coming up with a brilliant solution. She designed a large bookcase for the living room, and its larger base was sized to hold the table and the leaves that allow it to seat up to 20 people.

The bookcase's front doors are simply decoration since they don't really open. It's the side doors that operate, one end opening so that the dining table can be rolled out and the other end used to store the leaves. The table was put on casters so it could be moved in and out of the bookcase easily.

For occasions when they do use the table, they simply shift the living room sofas and chairs to the back of the room to make way for the dining table setup. That's what they did at Easter, when they hosted 13 people for dinner, and at Christmas, when they hosted 24. Some of the dining chairs are in a new upstairs storage closet and others are sprinkled throughout the home as extra seating.

In the kitchen, nearly everything was replaced, and the floor plan reimagined to put a full range in front of a bay window and move the sink to a spot in a peninsula. Before, the sink was in the bay window and a cooktop was situated in the island. They kept a microwave and full oven built into the wall, liking the extra oven space it provides.

Now, the island is purely a work space, and it's large enough to accommodate barstools so people can use it to sit or dine. More barstools are located along the outside of the peninsula.

At the end of the kitchen, where a breakfast area used to be, Vassiliou helped them configure a mud room, where benches provide a place to put on or remove shoes and cabinets are a place for storing dog leashes, jackets or backpacks.

All of this comes in handy now, since the couple's eldest daughter, Haley, 39; her husband, Clay Hargrove; and their two children, a second-grader and a third-grader, have been living with them for nearly a year. Clay retired from the U.S. Army and is undergoing Houston-based training to be a commercial pilot.

The couple's other daughter, Jenny, 37, lives with her husband, Garrett Duff, and their two children in a nearby neighborhood, and the Schriers also have a 40-year-oldson wholivesin Houston.

Haley and her family stay in the upstairs bedrooms and use the game room a lot for family time. The big space has two seating areas one with a sectional sofa and the other with four swivel chairs nestled around a coffee table and a kitchenette that has dishwasher drawers, a microwave oven and a small refrigerator.

The 800-square-footspace includes a gorgeous bathroom, with cabinets painted peachy-pink and walls covered in black-and-white wallpaper.

All of the counters in the kitchen, the upstairs kitchenette and the bathrooms are Cambria quartz.

Another area widely used by the Schriers, their kids and grandkids is the backyard, where they retiled their existing swimming pool, expanded the patio's size and added a roof to make it more usable. A dining table, fireplace, new lighting and ceiling fans and new furniture from JANUSet Cie make it usable year-round.

Knowing the backyard would get used so much more, the couple added a pool bathroom with an outdoor shower. The bathroom is large enough for changing clothes and designed to be easy to clean.

Once the dining table had a new, hidden home, Vassiliou could help the Schriers find a new use forthe dining room, as many homeowners are doing as they make their homes more functional. Since Nancy always wanted more storage, a bigger pantry and a better laundry room, the dining room was transformed into a multipurpose room.

A pair of French doors and a transom that lead from the foyer intothe dining room, were removed and the space enclosed with drywall. Now, this multipurpose room is accessed from the kitchen area.

Side walls were filled with cabinets, where Nancy keepseverything from kitchen items to thegrandkids' arts and crafts supplies. The back wall has a big pair of doors that hide the washer and dryer.

In the center of the room is a casual table and chairs, where the family can eat meals or the kids can do schoolwork or arts and crafts. Sometimes, Nancy uses the table as she foldslaundry.

"This is the room we used to use three times a year, and now its used every day," Nancy said. "We eat here sometimes and if we have big family dinners, like at Christmas, we canuse this as a dessert table."

The home's foyer got a big refresh, too, greeting guests with freshcolors and a lively pattern.

Vassiliou already knew that Nancy would embrace big ideas, and she suggested Schumacher's "Yangtze River" wallpaper pattern, running it up the two-story walls and adding a pretty bench that Vassiliou found on Chairish.com.

"We went through books and books of wallpaper with different ideas and looks. Sophia showed me this pattern and said I think this will work and I immediately loved it. I loved all of the colors," Nancy said. "We used this palette all through the house, so I knew it would tie in with everything."

Also, with the French doors to the dining room gone, that big wall, even with wallpaper, needed something. Vassiliou suggested that they moved three mirrors framed horizontally she'd designed thosefor the living room in an earlier phase of decorating to this spot. the French doors and arched transome were shifted to the doorway leading to the living room, saving an architectural feature and making the short hall between the two spaces more important.

diane.cowen@houstonchronicle.com

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Katy home's massive makeover adds 800-square-foot game room ... - Houston Chronicle