WINTER LIFESTYLE: SEVENTIES TO SENSATIONAL
SMALL PROJECT EVOLVES INTO GRAND RENOVATION
By Janet Day / Photos by Carter Photographics

Great ideas and grand projects sometimes grow from humble tasks. For Don and Joyce Greenfield, the simple act of hanging a quilt on a wall turned into a full remodel and expansion of their Grand Lake home.

In mid-2006 they walked into the Jackstraw Mountain Gallery on the Grand Lake boardwalk seeking owner, artist and designer Marjorie Cranston’s help in hanging a quilt.

“I usually don’t do projects like that, but they were struggling with it,” Cranston said. “I went into the house and saw that it was really dated, stuck in the 1970s.”

The small home was built to mimic an old mining cabin with one long sloped roof and cedar siding installed diagonally, what Cranston called a sure sign of its disco-era origins. The interior held dated wallpaper, a cramped kitchen, butcher block furniture.

“I thought they could at least use a little remodel work and suggested they think about starting with the kitchen,” Cranston said. “Then I said ‘you could actually blow out the back of the house for a family room.’ I just started going on
and on about what they could do with that house.”

STARTING WITH A SKETCH -
She returned to the Greenfield’s home a few days later, sat on a rock outside and started sketching, putting her talents as a pastel artist to work. Cranston quickly drew a new exterior with a two-story addition in the back topped by a cupola.

“I made it look adorable and they liked it,” Cranston said. She took her sketches to Lisa Simpson at Vision Ink in Grand Lake to have them computerized. Grand Lake builder Don Gans, Cranston’s brother-in-law, started making the project real with Mark Miller of Pacific Log Homes.

It’s hard to define the home’s design, even for Cranston. “I just wanted to get it away from the 70s to something more timeless,” she said. “You can’t say it’s Craftsman or this or that. It’s comfortable, that’s what it is.”

After the initial sketch, Cranston and Gans added a breezeway connecting the existing garage to the original part of the house. It’s no ordinary breezeway – this one includes a high ceiling, chandelier, stone fireplace and sitting area with wingback chairs and an Oriental rug. After the breezeway, two master suites were added to the upper level. The Greenfields then had a full renovation underway nearly doubling the size of their home.

The home’s main entry is deceptive from the outside, hiding the large addition in the back. From the front, visitors see only the garage on the right, a red trimmed doorway in the middle and two floors of the original house on the left. Inside, the added space explodes open with airiness and natural light.

BEETLE-KILL PINE -
Cranston worked to use lower-cost materials, which also kept the renovation local and green. All of the exterior and interior pine, including the ceilings, is from beetle-kill trees from Hester’s Log and Lumber in Kremmling. “With all
of our dead trees around here, it’s such a good recycling thing, such a great way to use the wood we have,” Cranston said, adding that the project has made her more aware of green elements in home design.

To achieve an aged barn wood look for the exterior, the house was sprayed with a product called Lifetime™, but the
exterior trim and deck posts and rails are still identifiably pine logs.

“The beetle kill pine with the Lifetime™ barn wood look just went beautifully together,” Gans said. His fondness for the weathered barn look comes from his past in Connecticut, where real aged barn wood was readily available. Today it’s not so easy to find, nor so cheap, “but the Lifetime™ treatment creates the same look,” he said.

The pine was left natural inside, unstained and treated only with a sealant.

CLASSIC AND COMFORTABLE -
Cranston did all of the redecorating as well as remodeling after taking the Greenfields to the World Furniture Mart in Las Vegas for some shopping. The home’s interior has a look of casual elegance – not ornate or overstuffed, with walls painted in rich deep tones, the pine accents, comfortable furnishings, soft Oriental rugs and a few carefully selected pieces of art.

“If the house is awesome, you don’t have to doll it up with a lot of accessories,” Cranston said. “I call it Casual Mountain, without the moose. It’s classic; it’s comfortable.”

Cranston has been in the design and home development business for about 20 years, mainly in the Denver area and, as of a few years ago, in Grand Lake. Her philosophy is to maintain a strong builder-client relationship by providing innovative ideas using budgetsensitive products. She has repeatedly participated in and won awards from the Parade of Homes in Denver and in Grand County.

The Greenfield family was so pleased with the finished renovation that the couple’s son hired Cranston to re-decorate his home in California.

“It’s all about how you use your house,” Cranston said, noting that the Greenfield’s entertain frequently. “They
now have a house where people want to stay and stay rather than eating and leaving.”

The entire project took little under a year from first sketch to completed renovation. The quilt never did get hung on a wall.

SIDEBAR: BEETLE-KILL PINE
A "PERFECT MATCH" FOR GRAND COUNTY CONSTRUCTION

Grand Lake Builder Don Gans looked at all the beetle-kill pine in Grand County two years ago and thought “the resource is there, let’s use it.”

And use it he did, creating something of a trend in home development and remodeling in Grand County.

Gans has used the pine, from Hester’s Log and Lumber in Kremmling, on four homes in two years, including his own. He treats the exterior with a product called Lifetime™, which gives the pine the look of barn wood softened and darkened by decades of weather.

“I said ‘let’s try it on my house first,’ and it came out beautifully,” Gans said. After that, he renovated the home of his sister-in-law, Grand Lake designer Marjorie Cranston. Then came two Grand Lake-area remodels.

“Before I used it on my home, I didn’t see it anywhere. Now it’s being used everywhere,” Gans said of the beetle-kill pine. “But it’s not for everyone. It’s not a polished look. It’s rough. It’s rustic.”

Gans has the pine milled to on einch thick and then cut into widths varying from four to twelve inches. He said it’s an easy wood to work with, but there are some tricks to it.

“Install it with a black background, either a black wrap or sealing so that when the joints open up as the wood dries – by about one-quarter to three eighthsof an inch – you don’t see anything,” he said. “It is a green wood; it does shrink.”

For interiors, Gans leaves the pine unstained, treated only with a sealant to bring out its natural color, including the unusual blue stains left by the beetles.

“I love working with it. It’s an easy wood to work with,” Gans said. “And we’re using a resource that’s from the area. It’s right here, it’s available, it’s a perfect match for this area.”


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