the
Family
in
All
This design pro purchased her husband’s childhood home, then gave it a refresh for a new generation to enjoy.
For Sara Charlesworth, the design expert behind @chalkwhitearrow; her husband, Camden; and their two young boys, the road to homeownership was a family affair, ignited by Camden’s father’s decision to sell a beloved (albeit slightly dated) bungalow in Salt Lake City.
“My husband lived in the house for the first five years of his life,” Sara shares; in fact, both she and her husband grew up in Utah. But while her father-in-law continued to own the property for 30 years, it had remained mostly unoccupied since then. When they got the itch to come home after a stint in Phoenix, it all just clicked. “What if we bought it?” asked Sara.
Located in the city’s up-and-coming Sugar Hill neighborhood,
an eclectic mix of single-family brick-and-tile homes, the fixer-upper would give the Charlesworths an instant community
of young families (and they’d be a stone’s throw from a few
buzzing local breweries).
Purchasing the home from Sara’s father-in-law and returning to the hometown they knew like the back of their hand certainly made this family’s decision easier, but other newcomers also have their own secret weapon: partnering with real-estate agency Windermere. Its seasoned agents dedicated to Salt Lake City provide a similar depth of localized knowledge to help you find your perfect property.
Once everyone was officially on board (which understandably took several weeks and multiple family discussions), Sara sunk her teeth into a yearlong aesthetic renovation to make the old home feel distinctly theirs without any major structural changes. The project list ran the gamut from a European-inspired kitchen to a subway-tiled bathroom with vintage fixtures and hardware, but the couple treaded carefully. There were three decades’ worth of memories within its walls, after all: Camden’s first steps embedded in the well-worn carpet, wallpaper left over from childhood days. “My father-in-law had such a sentimental attachment to this place and everything that had happened here,” says Sara.
So she retained the bungalow’s original charm wherever possible. While the kitchen was stripped back to the studs and the bathroom completely gutted, the remaining rooms simply received a fresh lick of paint. The couple also spent the better part of three days stenciling the burgundy checkerboard pattern on the timeworn kitchen floorboards, an edit that feels as retro as it does relevant.
The final space Sara reworked was the home’s entryway, a welcoming nook now awash in a powdery mauve. The designer turned to Pinterest for color palette inspiration, eventually landing on an image of a mudroom coated in Farrow & Ball’s Sulking Room Pink. She mixed and matched a few paint samples to create the perfect custom hue. “I literally held my breath when Camden painted the room last spring, but I instantly fell in love with it,” she recalls.
Sara was in no rush to bring in the final touches. “The room sat unfinished for many months as I waited for very specific furniture pieces to catch my eye,” she says. Eventually, though, the couple retired the awkward, oversize table, swapping it for a wavy accent chair by designer Sarah Sherman Samuel, which took weeks to restock. “It’s now the perfect room to sit in and take off your
shoes,” says Sara.
Twelve months of renovations also meant 12 months of ups and downs for the entire family, but as the seasons changed and the final coat of paint dried, Sara’s design decisions made way for new memories to be created, from celebrating milestone birthdays to breakfasts together before the first day of school.
And as for that first walk-through with her father-in-law? “He was just so relieved!” says Sara.
Photography by Malissa Mabey
Words by Ashley Ropati
Styling by Sara Charlesworth and Brit Ashcraft
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“The room sat unfinished for many months as I waited for very specific furniture pieces to catch my eye.”
My father-in-law had such a sentimental attachment to
this place and everything that had happened here.”
“
“The room sat unfinished
for many months as I waited for very specific furniture pieces to catch my eye.”
“My father-in-law had such a sentimental attachment to
this place and everything that had happened here.”
