Cooper Drive home’s renovation expands second-floor, creates larger garage

After two renovations of the Cooper Drive house they purchased six years ago, Jessica and Brandon Ray now consider it their forever home.

With almost everything on their wish list for the two-story house checked off, the Rays are ready to watch their twin daughters, Caroline and Madeline, grow up there. They’re looking forward to the girls beginning kindergarten this fall at Cassidy Elementary, just a few blocks away.

The Rays had been married for two years when they bought the Cooper Drive house, on the corner of Cassidy Avenue, because it had more potential for renovation/expansion than the Colony Boulevard house Brandon had purchased during graduate school.

“It was a lovely home,” Jessica said about their Colony house, just a few blocks away. “We did a little bit of work to it, but like a lot of homes in this neighborhood, we would have had to blow out the back” to enlarge the house for the family they were planning.

Jessica, who grew up in a rural setting, likes to see the footprint of a house from the street. On Colony Boulevard, that would have been impossible.

Before they moved into the Cooper Drive house, the Rays hired Kitchen Concepts to renovate the kitchen. They also refinished the hardwood floors and painted before they settled into the 2,300-square-foot house, whose driveway is on Cassidy Avenue.

Once they became parents, the couple gave their daughters the largest upstairs bedroom. They took the second largest bedroom and used the smallest as their guest room. The entire family shared the single bathroom upstairs.

The Rays took their time planning their second renovation, which would include adding an owners’ suite on the second level.

“We wanted the girls to each have their own bedroom by the time they started kindergarten,” Jessica said. Caroline and Madeline will be 5 years old in March.

Brandon, a physical therapist, works for a Mount Sterling home health agency; his clients include people who have had total joint replacement surgery and the elderly. Jessica, a stay-at-home mom, plans to resume her career as a personal trainer when the girls start school.

Renovation project

Brandon, who had gone to high school with builder Drew Brester of DB Homes, approached him to see if he would tackle a renovation project since it involved mostly new construction.

“I hoped it would be a platform for him,” Brandon said.

Brester agreed. Foreman Chris Edmonds was on site daily. Brester’s wife, Erin, who works in the design side of their company, helped Jessica stay on budget while making selections for faucets, hardware and lighting.

Jessica’s father and brother, who own Carmicle Masonry, tore off all the brick and installed new brick on the expanded home. Their business does masonry work for commercial businesses only, but they made an exception for Jessica and Brandon.

The addition, which included a new garage, totaled 1,800 square feet. The couple tore down the existing garage because Jessica’s Suburban was too tall to park it inside.

“Now we have a humongous garage and we can both park in it,” Brandon said.

Originally, their house had a breezeway connecting it to the old detached garage. The Rays enclosed the breezeway, so they could create a mudroom off the side porch entrance. The new mudroom and garage are Brandon’s favorite parts of the renovation/addition.

Jessica, on the other hand, loves the upstairs addition. Instead of merely having a hallway connecting the original part of the house to the new wing, the couple made the walkway into a study area for the girls.

A large wall of windows on the right opens up the space and provides a lot of natural light. On the left, the girls each have a built-in desk area with a small rectangular window directly above it. Their chairs are covered in pink fabric with each girl’s monogram on the back.

Down the hall, the Rays installed a washer and a dryer in a closet. They have a second laundry area in their basement.

The new owners’ suite includes a bedroom on the right and a sitting area on the left. Pocket doors lead into the bathroom, which features a soaking tub with a floor-mount tub filler, a separate shower and double vanities.

The Rays love their white tile flooring, which was hand cut by Rodgers Floor Covering to create a herringbone pattern. Another set of pocket doors leads into their spacious walk-in closet.

Davida Patrick of Anderson Patrick Design Studio helped Jessica select furniture fabric and wallpaper. Jessica chose her lighting fixtures at Kentucky Lighting.

In addition, the Rays updated the hallway bathroom, now shared by Caroline and Madeline. They have a new shower and a double-sink vanity.

Although they lived in the house during the 2015 renovation, the family appreciated Brester’s decision to build a temporary staircase to the second level, so his construction crew did not need to come inside the main house until later in the process.

The renovation also included reinsulating the home, installing new windows and creating a stamped concrete patio. In the future, Brandon would like to cover the patio.

He and his dad are rebuilding the wood privacy fence in the back yard. On the Cassidy Avenue side, three brick columns have been installed, with plans for black aluminum fencing to be added there. Barry Harlow of Harlow Landscaping LLC designed their new landscaping.

As they put the finishing touches on the renovation and Jessica decorates separate bedrooms for their daughters, the Rays can’t imagine ever moving.

“We’re here,” Brandon said. “The neighborhood is great and the girls have made lots of friends.”

Because they purchased the house during the recession, when home prices were lower, the Rays know they have greatly increased its value with their improvements.

When Jessica looks around her home and thinks of her family’s future there, she says, “It’s pretty priceless.”

This story was originally published February 7, 2016 at 1:00 AM with the headline "Cooper Drive home’s renovation expands second-floor, creates larger garage."