By Melanie Radzicki McManus | Photography by Shanna Wolf
Building a home was the last thing on one Black Earth woman’s mind in 2023, when she began looking for a place to live in the Middleton area. Her husband had recently passed away, and she wanted a smaller place closer to town. But after fruitlessly searching for the perfect house, building a home was her best bet.
She also wanted a smaller place — 2,000 square feet was ideal. Yet her must-haves included a screened-in porch, a large pantry, a spacious sewing room and a generously sized closet. The result was a home about twice the size she was aiming for, but one she nevertheless adores.
The home’s main level features primary and guest suites, with two additional bedrooms and a full bathroom in the lower level. The lower level is also home to her sewing room and an all-purpose room containing exercise equipment, a ping-pong table and office space.
To achieve a softer, more feminine look for her new abode, the kitchen features light alder cabinetry, while similarly hued engineered white oak flooring flows throughout most of the home. In the dining room, the couple’s old, cherry table was bleached by Mineral Point’s Federal Restoration Studio, leaving it with a light, pinkish hue that’s mimicked in the window valances and upholstery.
“It felt good to reuse something, and Federal Restoration did a really amazing job,” says Laurie Lodholz, owner of Laurie Driscoll Interiors and the home’s interior designer. Lodholz and the homeowner have worked on several homes together over the years.
Today, nearly a year after occupying her new home, the homeowner can’t select one spot as her favorite — there are too many. She loves enjoying her morning cup of coffee in the screened porch, where a gas fireplace warms the room when the temperature dips. She adores her spacious closet, which is larger than the kitchens in her first two homes. And she really appreciates the lower countertops in her baker’s pantry, which accommodate her shorter stature.
Because she has so many beloved spots, the homeowner advises those looking to build a new home to find an interior designer right away, not halfway through the project. A designer’s eye can catch details homeowners wish they hadn’t missed in their home design.
“Laurie would go over the blueprints and find little things that needed to be changed,” the homeowner says. “Like the swing of the doors, or the size of a room or where the door is placed in the bedroom. Designers are not just about the furniture and the paint.”
Lodholz also credits many of the talented craftspeople in the area, many of whom she tapped to assist with the homeowner’s new digs, including builder Jason Thomas Homes, Mazomanie’s Dybdahl Design Group, which did the cabinetry, and Wisconsin Timberworks in Prairie du Sac, which created the walnut tabletop attached to the kitchen island.
The results speak for themselves for the homeowner — who treasures her truly custom abode.
“I sit here sometimes and am just in awe,” she says. “I love this place. It’s absolutely stunning.”
