October Home of the Month becomes a family affair after remodel

The house is what lured her to Minnesota.

The home had once belonged to Mary Gurley’s sister and brother-in-law before the couple moved five doors down to gain more space for their growing family. Gurley had been a frequent visitor, especially once her nieces and nephews were born, and came to appreciate the neighborhood.

So when the 1916 Merriam Park cottage came on the market in 2016, she pounced.

“If it weren’t for this house, I’d still be in Chicago,” Gurley said, adding she “loved everything” about the St. Paul home.

At around 1,400 square feet with two bedrooms and one bathroom, the house gave Gurley ample space to live, entertain and work remotely. But when she decided to start her own family, Gurley realized her home needed adjustments: an additional bedroom and a main floor powder room.

“For potty training,” she explained.

There were flow issues, too, such as a tight kitchen and a side door but no back door, which created awkward access to the back patio and alley garage. Once again following her sister’s lead, Gurley hired architect Todd Hansen with Albertsson Hansen. He’d done a project at her sister’s house down the street about fifteen years ago, and Gurley had seen how he worked when she visited during the remodel.

In addition to the bedroom and powder room, Gurley also wanted a mudroom and new back entrance. The kitchen needed a remodel, too, and she asked for an island for casual meals and food prep.

Hansen extended the house over an existing flat roof to gain an additional 176 square feet upstairs to create two side-by-side kids’ rooms using the same gable-roof style to preserve the home’s charming exterior. Downstairs, it was a little trickier.

“In order to have enough room for the kitchen island, we had to share space with the dining room,” he said.

To accomplish this, Hansen removed parts of the two walls forming a corner of the dining room. 

“It’s a bit unusual, but we’d opened up a corner of a room on a similar project, so we knew it could work as a solution,” he explained.

The additional breathing room created a clear path around the island and to the new powder room, mudroom and back door.

“It was a small, but [an] important move that allowed all of this to work with the finite space available,” he added.

With all that work, the project earned a 2024-25 Home of the Month honor, a partnership between the Star Tribune and the Minnesota chapter of the American Institute of Architects that recognizes residential architecture.

The kitchen has two walls of white offset subway tiles, shaker-style cabinets and a mix of marble and maple countertops that give the room the fresh Scandinavian feel Gurley wanted.

“This is a kitchen I want to spend time in now,” she said.

Hansen placed the farmhouse sink under windows that face the backyard and added high windows on the neighbor side for light and privacy. Simple floating shelves with Ikea brackets provide additional storage without the bulk of upper cabinets.

The project did stir up a little family controversy when it came to painting the home’s existing dark woodwork.

“My brother-in-law and dad were completely against it,” Gurley said. “But my sister said it was something she’d always wanted to do when she lived here.”

With Hansen’s support, Gurley went for it, painting all the dark woodwork, trim and kitchen cabinets a pale putty color that contrasts slightly with the decorator white walls. The end result changed hearts and minds.

“When my father saw it, he agreed with me,” Gurley said, “and my brother-in-law totally loves it.”

According to plan, Gurley is now the mother of a two-year-old daughter and four-year-old son, plus rescue dog, Betty. The house has worked in expected and unexpected ways, for example, a niche in the kitchen intended for flour and sugar canisters ended up being the perfect spot for Gurley’s Baby Brezza formula system, in constant use when the kids were babies.

She loves being able to see the kids from the kitchen as they play with their toys in the living room. And after a day of dirty work in the yard or at the playground, she appreciates that they can all clean up quickly in the big powder room sink just inside the back door.

Potty training, too, is coming right along. 

“It’s been absolutely, amazingly perfect,” Gurley said.

Designing firm: Albertsson Hansen Architecture and Interior Design

Project team: Todd Hansen, AIA; Jim Kuipers, Associate AIA

Project partners: EK Johnson Construction

Laurie Junker is a Twin Cities-based writer specializing in home design and architecture. Instagram: @fojunk