K E L L I E FALK and her husband had to wait a year before they could move into their four-story townhouse in Raleigh. Construction on the brand-new seventeen-home development wasdelayed for some time, but Falk saw it as an opportunity, not a setback.
“We were one of the first people to buy one of these townhomes,” says Falk. “And since we bought it before the framing was up, we were able to change some of the layouts of the rooms and customize it for ourselves.” Falk, who did the interior design herself, started by moving the kitchen, dining room, and living room from the second floor to the fourth floor, where the home’s only balcony and patio was located. “We really wanted the balcony to entertain our guests,” she said. The builder not only agreed to the change, but he liked the idea so much that he incorporated Falk’s design into the last three units in the development.
That change spurred more alterations, especially in the kitchen. The existing six-foot island felt too small, so she swapped it out for a nine-foot island complete with a waterfall marble countertop. She also chose her own backsplash: blue tiles from Byrd Tile Distributors.
On the opposite wall, she balanced out the space with a row of navy-blue cabinets, which serves as a buffet, and accented the space with Cole & Son wallpaper. When she moved the owner’s suite to the third floor, she also enlarged the en suite bathroom to accommodate a soaking tub and chose her own floor file, also from Byrd Tile Distributors. “We were given an allowance for the tile, but we definitely went over it,” says Falk.
The hall closets allowed Falk to regain some much needed storage space. “We had to use every nook and cranny to house all of our stuff,” she says. The townhouse is just as large as her previous home—a wide, open condo that Falk lived in for sixteen years—but the rooms are longer and narrower, and she couldn’t accommodate many of the antiques she’d acquired from her grandparents or sourced from flea markets. To make sure the furniture was proportional to the rooms, she ended up ordering multiple custom-made pieces—including the blue velvet sectional in the family room, the desk in the office, and the bed in the owner’s suite—all from ModShop in New York City.
Falk’s favorite room in the home is the family room—or, more accurately, the girl cave, which she calls the “situation room,” explaining, “It’s because situations happen in there,” and adds, “we try to name all the rooms in our homes.” It’s an apt nickname—the room contains a ten-foot projector screen and a fully-stocked wet bar. “It has so many functions,” she says. “I can get my blanket and sit on the couch and watch a Disney movie really loud, or have parties in there where I hire a bartender and play music.”
While the townhouse is tailor-made for Falk and her fun, lively personality, she still has one more move to make—into her “forever home”—a project that’s still in the early stages. One thing that Falk won’t compromise on, though, is her bold, bright style. “I told my architect, ‘We are going to have color, because I am not having a black-and white-house,’” she says.