A McLean Home Gets a Practical Renovation Fit for a Family of 5

Ask Katie Crowe about the renovation of her 1994 McLean colonial home and she’ll tell you what started out as a kitchen renovation became very much like the children’s book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. In the Laura Joffe Numeroff book, a child gives a mouse a cookie, and the mouse keeps asking for other things, like milk, a straw, a napkin. 

“The kitchen went into building a better laundry room, wanting a walk-in pantry. Then I was like, ‘Well, if we’re doing that, let’s go to the basement, then to let’s put in a proper bar and change around a few things,’” says Crowe, a mother of three.

The interior renovation project further snowballed to include the living room, family room, another bathroom, and the addition of a mudroom.

Crowe and husband Zachary hired Michelle Vassallo, principal of Washington, DC-based MV Architects, who worked with Arlington designer Marya Karlton of Karlton Kelly Interiors, and Alexandria-based Thorsen Construction to refine the high-end, builder-grade home.

“They just wanted to customize some of the interior to have more detail,” Vassallo says.

The completed project would better define the rooms and add layers of texture and storage. 

“Our goal was to pair simple elegance with everyday practicality and to give the clients a lot of functional storage space for their family and for entertaining,” says Karlton. 

Using raised paneling, Vassallo transformed the look of the family room that has an 8.5-foot-tall window and a large sliding glass door that opens to a screened porch. “In the family room, we added the paneling,” Vassallo says. “The existing family room was all just two stories of drywall and very plain. We wanted to break that up a bit but also transition that to the second floor, which overlooks the family room.” 

While Crowe says the sliding glass door “opens up the whole room,” the opposite wall became a focal point when an awkward, rarely used built-in bar was taken out and a custom storage area for wine was put in. Crowe says the ideas for the door and the wine storage came from inspirations Zachary picked up while on business trips to California and Florida.  

“We do a lot of entertaining,” says Crowe. “It’s a nice place to have the wine, and it’s pretty.”

The home’s lower-level renovation involved defining an adult space and one for the kids, who are now 11, 9, and 6 years old. Vassallo divided the large room so that there was a den “where friends could come over and watch the game or hang out” and an area where the children could study and play. She tied the two together with engineered wood flooring.

“A lot of people are using an LVT (luxury vinyl tile) for finish in basements, but using an engineered wood allows you to put it down on concrete floors and gives you an actual wood finish. It’s just a higher level of finish,” Vassallo says. 

Karlton says the den, which features two TVs (one behind the bar and another larger one opposite the sofa) has a “cozy, library feel” with a balance of darker built-ins with a lighter textured Holly Hunt wallpaper on the other walls. A tufted sofa from Michael-Cleary covered in stain-resistant Kravet velvet sits across from what she describes as “extremely comfy” American Leather recliners. A built-in microwave, dishwasher, ice maker, and beverage refrigerator sit behind the bar.

Double doors separate the den from the children’s area, where one wall has shaker-style cabinets. “It’s so much storage, and it has all the kids’ toys, books, arts and crafts supplies. You name it, it’s got it in there, which is wonderful. We can put it away and you can’t see it, and it looks tidy and clean,” says Crowe.

A small reading nook breaks up the wall of cabinetry. “We designed the reading nook to fit around the Beatrix Potter–inspired painting that was done by the children’s grandmother,” says Karlton.

The kids have a study area with desks, magnet boards covered in a Thibaut wallcovering, and built-in dry-erase boards. Crowe says that desk area came out of a “COVID want” when everyone learned remotely. “My kitchen looked like an elementary school, and it was a disaster. Everything was everywhere,” she says. “Now they have a place to go do homework or to do crafts, and not do everything in the kitchen.”

With storage and functionality added and the rooms better defined with texture and customized details, the mouse with the cookie no longer appears to need anything. At least not yet.

Feature image by Keyanna Bowen, East & Lane

This story originally ran in our September issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.