The 2016 Northern Home & Cottage Home Tour in the Traverse City area takes place on Saturday, September 17 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Traverse area home tour treats tourgoers to 11 beautiful homes, thoughtfully designed and surrounded by stunning Northern Michigan landscapes in Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties.
Proceeds raised during the home tour will benefit Northern Michigan non-profit, Child and Family Services of Northwestern Michigan. Save by purchasing tickets to the 2016 Northern Home & Cottage Home Tour at MyNorthTickets.com.
The fifth home on the Northern Home & Cottage Tour is located at 12777 Craker Rd. in Omena. The home was designed by Bay Cabinetry and Design Studio out of Traverse City, 231.946.6882.
Back then they kept horses and a flock of sheep and pretty soon it became a lot of work for the couple, who are both teachers. A lifestyle change was in order. They sold the sheep and considered a move closer to Traverse City. They put Windy Knob on the market, and it sold quickly. But the more they looked at homes closer to the city, the more they knew that life was too hustle and bustle for them. When their former neighbors at Windy Knob offered to sell them a beautiful piece of land in sight of their former farmstead, they jumped at it.Marek, especially, had always dreamed of designing and building a home from the scratch-it-out-on-a-paper-napkin stage. This was his chance.
The couple’s new home pays homage to the area’s farmhouse vernacular with a white board-and-batten exterior and mullioned windows. But unlike the small-room, chopped up floor plans of old farmhouses, the new floor plan features a wide-open first-floor kitchen and living area. Bucolic scenery and a wide swath of Grand Traverse Bay flood the many windows. Black window casements and mullions lend an industrial edge that is subdued enough for a rural setting.
While Marek and Dan had most of the project under control, they turned to Bay Cabinetry and Design for help with the kitchen. Bay Cabinetry’s Paige Fuller, working closely with Bay Cabinetry owner and lead designer Sandra Bargiel, listened carefully to what they wanted and then laid out an open, efficient kitchen that revolves around a generous prep/eating island topped with a thick slab of marble. The dark-stained cabinetry is a mix of knotty alder and cherry with minimalist pulls—very modern, with just a hint of farmhouse. A pantry that’s roomy enough for appliances keeps the countertops uncluttered.
Tourgoers will love this home that is filled with detail from its finished basement through its second floor and right up to its finished attic. But above all, the floor in this home is not to be missed. Marek and Dan first saw the idea for their floor in the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee. It is made from the end grain of 2-by-4s, cut into 4″-x-6″ blocks. After researching this very old flooring technique, the couple found a place in New Mexico who would supply the old growth fir for the blocks. Marek laid each one—10,000 in all—himself throughout the home. A painstaking labor of love that says plenty about the soul of this home.
Phase II: Petoskey area 2016 Northern Home & Cottage Tour Saturday, October 15, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Find information in your October issue of Northern Home & Cottage.
