The light  fantastic

Sunshine and rich green views are design elements at a fabulously contemporary west Kettering home.

Photos: October 2009 At Home

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By Jane Schreier Jones, At home Updated 4:00 PM Monday, October 12, 2009

There once was a beautiful, contemporary home nestled in a wooded area in west Kettering. Trouble was, you had to step outside to see the lush greenland setting.

Enter Trish and Terry Tomlinson. They fell in love with the house and purchased it in 2005. Before they even moved in, they radically changed the home’s interior by opening it up to the great outdoors. An abundance of windows was installed, including six windows above the glass doors in the two-story dining area, nine motorized skylights in the living room, four windows in the entry and even more windows and skylights on other levels.

These windows perform double-dipping magic: Sunlight now joyfully pours in while splendid greenscape views become part of the interior look.

“I’m all about the outside coming in,” says Trish Tomlinson. “I love the juxtaposition of the clean, contemporary lines of our interior with the natural surroundings. It’s very relaxing.”

She adds with a laugh, “I don’t get as much done as I used to.”

Trish has high praise for Mike Sikora’s Dayton Home Improvement Center who did the extensive window and skylight additions, as well as bathroom renovations and more mundane projects such as new gutters. “After all, the house was built in 1978, so you expect things have to be updated,” Trish points out.

LIVING THE  CONTEMPORARY STYLE

Trish is originally from Canada, coming to Dayton in 1972 when her father began work at NCR’s Sugar Camp. Terry, a radiologist with a sub-specialty of interventional radiology, came to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base from California in 1993. The couple married in 1997.

Along with Trish’s children, Eric and Nicole, they lived right next to the Oakwood stadium.

“That was a great place for the kids but we lived according to the school year, with everything from marching band practices to football games,” she said. “That was a good house for us then; this is a good house for us now. Plus, Terry started working at Kettering (Medical Center) so moving to this area made sense.”

Trish and Terry are well on their way to being empty-nesters. Eric is at Columbia College Chicago and Nicole is at The Ohio State University.

The undeniable contemporary style of the west Kettering home is what initially attracted the couple.

“The exterior of our home in Oakwood was part Prairie style, part Mission, so we had traditional furnishings,” Trish recalls. “But we both like contemporary — and this house lets us do it.”

Room after room in the Tomlinsons’ home reveals how contemporary can be done oh-so-right. There’s a comfortable mix of modern lines with soft fabrics, and solid colors teaming up with splashes and dashes of patterns.

You would guess the Tomlinsons had professional interior design help, and they did: Trish herself. With an interior design degree from Sinclair Community College, Trish is also the owner of her own company, Designed Interiors.

The 4,000-square-foot contemporary floor plan allows Trish to release her creativity. There are six separate levels in the home, with small or large flights of stairs leading to each.

Working on her own home was a labor of love.

“The previous owner had a fabulous eye, so I had a good base to start,” she says. “The interior was largely white walls and floors, with black accents, which showcased her art collection. It was like walking into a beautiful museum.”

Trish kept the stunning limestone flooring that begins in the entryway and flows down a few steps into the two-story-high living room and dining area. She softened up the walls with a baguette-color paint, interspersed with walls sporting a slightly darker suede-finish paint. Area rugs in assorted shapes deliver pattern and colors on the limestone flooring, and define seating areas.

Trish and Terry brought some furnishings from their Oakwood home, but most items were purchased new. Cool modern exists quite comfortably with more ornate pieces.

Many items were acquired through Internet shopping. For instance, the facing sofas in a fireplace seating area are from Room & Board.

“I selected these only using a photo,” Trish recalls. “The first time we sat in the sofas was when they were delivered.”

To the left of the entry, a hallway leads to a recently renovated spa, a cozy habitat of pebble-look flooring and wooden ceilings.

A nearby guest bath, the only room in the home with dark walls, reveals a surprise for visitors: A slanted glass panel runs from wall to wall, and the faucet above is the only indication that the glass panel is really a sink.

Farther down the hallway is the generous-sized master suite, with a fireplace seating area and two walls of book-filled shelving. The patterned carpeting is from Bockrath Flooring and Rugs, a supplier the Tomlinsons chose for flooring in other areas of the house.

“Not only do I love Bockrath’s products, but they have fabulous installers,” Trish says.

Metal open stairs lead to another level of the house, directly above the master suite. Two bedrooms are occupied when the college kids are at home.

A catwalk high above the entry connects the bedrooms with a loft area on the other side of the house. The loft begins with a home office for Terry. White and black furnishings play off a backdrop of rust-amber walls. The office features an interesting combination: modern shelving of black wood displaying period milk glass vases. The vase collection was used when Trish was one of the designers at the 2007 Designers’ Show House.

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