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The master bedroom overlooks Monroe Bay in Colonial Beach. The dock seen through the window comes with the property.
LEFT: The family room gained the feeling of more space when a wall separating it from the kitchen
The floors were refinished and matching new planks were milled for the kitchen.
ABOVE: 622 Monroe Bay Ave. in Colonial Beach features a semicircular stone drive.
Sunsets across Monroe Bay are a fringe benefit |
BY RICHARD AMRHINE
There are many special little corners of the world that might give you that this-is-the-place-for-us feeling. Maybe you were in search of such a place, or just happened upon it.
Terry Rankin and Jim Kail traveled up and down the mid-Atlantic coast looking for the right place back in the spring of 2008. Rankin said they put 5,800 miles on a rental car in their search, and then someone suggested they have a look at Colonial Beach.
Once there, they stumbled across 622 Monroe Bay Ave. It needed some work, but the idyllic setting, overlooking the Potomac River inlet that is Monroe Bay, was captivating and, well, it was love at first sight. This would be where they'd retire.
Jumping ahead 14 months, the house has been delightfully redone, with Kail doing 90 percent of the work himself. A wall was removed to combine the kitchen and family room into a single open space, and extensive renovations have been made that result in a light-filled home perfectly suited for its waterfront location.
But 14 months can also bring changes in plans and priorities, and the couple has decided to put the property on the market. It is listed with Colonial Beach Real Estate at an asking price of $875,000.
The couple is prepared to leave behind all but a few sentimental furnishings, providing a move-in home for the right buyer.
Built in 1988, the house has four bedrooms and 2 baths on two levels, covering 2,436 square feet of finished living space. It sits on a little over a third of an acre on a peninsula created by the Potomac River and Monroe Bay that extends south from the central part of Colonial Beach.
THE PROJECT
Rankin and Kail are no strangers to remodeling houses. Having come here from the West Coast, they have redone houses in Venice Beach and Malibu, Calif., and another house and office in Bend, Ore., during their 26 years together.
The Southern California connection owes to Kail's work as a Hollywood makeup artist for many television shows and major motion pictures. His list of credits is extensive and impressive.
He likened taking on a home renovation to getting his first look at a script.
"You get a script like 'Cliffhanger' or 'T3' ['Terminator 3'], and you go 'Oh, my God, how am I going to do all of this?'" he said. "But then you let yourself get an overall vision of what the thing should look like. Then you break it down into pieces and take one piece at a time."
Being relatively new, the house was structurally sound. The exterior, originally cedar clapboards, was at some point covered with dark-beige vinyl siding for reduced maintenance. With white trim and a scalloped treatment on the two-story bay window, plus a semi-circular stone driveway with pampas grass at each entrance, the house has definite curb appeal.
Across little-used Monroe Bay Avenue is a private dock that comes with the property.
Out back, there's a screened porch that opens to a deck and a large, flat fenced yard.
Inside, the floors are hardwood throughout, a handsome combination of white and red oak, whose grain emerged when a dark stain was removed during refinishing.
Kail said that once the wall between the family room and kitchen came down, additional hardwood was needed to replace the vinyl kitchen floor. He credits Bobby Allison of Allison Floors in Colonial Beach with finding new planks that were milled to perfectly match the existing ones.
VINTAGE LOOK
The trim throughout the home has a turn-of-the-20th-century Colonial Beach or Fredericksburg look: flat window and door trim with bull's-eye corners and tall baseboards.
The living and dining rooms and foyer have chair rail plus transoms over doorways and windows. The interior transoms are open, allowing the free flow of air.
Kail said that as the extensive work was done in the family room/kitchen, trim was carefully removed so it could be reused. The rooms carry a theme of beadboard wainscoting to chair-rail height.
Two nooks that flank the family-room fireplace, one of the home's two fireplaces, were treated to hammered-copper surfaces that replaced laminate. Original solid cabinet doors were given vintage-looking glass inserts in a continued effort to rid the room of its closed-off feel.
Rankin loves to cook, and the kitchen was re-created with her in mind. Cabinets were repainted in a creamy off-white, and the countertops and back splashes were replaced with a granite of dramatic and contrasting earth tones.
"People come in and ask us, 'What did you do? How was it changed?'"said Kail. "It doesn't look like we did anything because this is the way it should look."
Like many who undertake such projects, Kail attributes some successes to luck. After discovering one of the bay window transoms had a rotted frame, he found a near-identical piece at a Fredericksburg shop that he could make work. The couple also happened upon a hutch that fit an arched, recessed area in the kitchen that fit to within a quarter of an inch.
Upstairs, remodeling work included enlarging the master-bathroom shower, taking space occupied by a small linen closet that was relocated. The new shower was given a new tile floor and walls and new fixtures.
The master bedroom provides an expansive view of Monroe Bay through a bay window.
"I love this room," Kail said. "The view has it all, the dock, the cove, the marina."
And because it faces west, it also takes in sunsets across the water. Nice.
Richard Amrhine: 540/374-5406
Email: ramrhine@freelancestar.com
