Belleville renovator gives older homes new life

Kelly Arnold unlocked the front door of a freshly-painted gray brick bungalow on West Main Street.

It’s one of her latest triumphs.

“This house was three efficiency apartments,” said the Belleville renovator, remodeler, decorator and stager. “Rooms were closed in, walled off. It had been abandoned for 15 years. There was no electricity, no furnace, no hot water, no central air. It needed a new roof.”

Kim Littlefield, an orthodontist, had bought the house before offering it to Kelly last summer.

“He stopped at an auction on a fluke and realized he bit off more than he could chew,” said Kelly. “He said, ‘I think I am going to have to bulldoze this house. I see the things you do on the West End. I will give you a great deal if you will do your thing to it.’ He gave me an awesome deal. The rest is history. I came over and started knocking down walls. Everything was gutted down to the studs. Now, it’s a single-family home again.

“It had such great bones, I knew it would be cool. ... It originally was a two-bedroom, one-bath house. I turned it into a three-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath house.”

Kelly manages the projects and hires subcontractors. Her business is TRC Management Inc. Its initials stand for Three Ring Circus.

“That’s what my usual day is like,” she said.

Kelly has the vision, but relies on a team of experts, including right-hand man, Gordon Shepard.

“He’s a phenomenal carpenter, highly knowledgeable,” she said. “I’ve learned a lot from him. I hire licensed city electricians and plumbers. For all of this, I am behind the scenes like the Wizard of Oz. Gordon makes it happen.

“The key is to have the right contractor to do the job. Time is of the essence. At the same time, you want it done right. ... I kissed a lot of frogs before I found the princes of the trades.”

Kelly began working on the 1,300-square-foot older house in July, and completed it in early October. She made sure there were plenty of windows — all new. Floors are wide-plank hardwood. Bedrooms are good-sized. She kept a built-in bookcase alongside a living room fireplace with a brick mantel and dentil trim. Kitchen cabinetry is white-painted birch. Countertops (from Tisch Monuments in Belleville) are granite. Drawers have that rich slow-to-close thing going. Once a few window-seat cushions arrive, the kitchen will be complete.

“Now, it’s such a bright, light house,” she said. “I put $65,000 into the house. That doesn’t include my staging or my time in it. That’s the cost of all the work done.”

She decorates with eclectic charm. A black leather sofa and ottoman fit perfectly into a front room alcove. Its mix of pillows match the room’s palette of grays and pale golds. Two cream-colored club chairs gather around a small, round glass-topped table. A large mirror, composed of 12 wood frames, adds interest.

“I bought it because it has depth and dimension,” she said. “I don’t like flat mirrors on walls. I look for mirrors that are chunky or interesting, something to give a room texture ... I am the queen of bargain shopping. Most of the time, people will purchase some of the items in a house, but I end up with things. They start accumulating.”

That’s why she recently opened West End Upscale Resale at 6966 W. Main St. The shop sells a mix of tables, chairs, dressers, bed frames, couches, mirrors, lamps and more.

Light fixtures are a Kelly signature item.

“I go way overboard on lighting,” she said. “I love big dramatic lights.”

Maybe because the houses she works on have been in the dark for a while.

“This was an old, abandoned house,” said Kelly. “I want to do something to make a difference. People who live on both sides of this house are super nice people. A nice young couple put a contract on it.

“It’s very satisfying to see the finished result. To know that I have turned something into a nice family home for somebody. This house won’t need anything for 25 years. ... So many homes in Belleville need some love.”

Entrepreneur at heart

Kelly always has liked fixing things up.

“I started out with a 100-year-old house in the mid-1990s. I thought I was Mrs. Bob Vila (of TV’s “This Old House.”). I wasn’t ... I learned a lot through trial and error as I sold that and bought the next home. They all needed something. I learned I needed to hire a professional to do electric, wiring, plaster, stuff like that.”

She also learned how to assess bids.

“Contractors who can do what they say usually fall within same range, give or take a few hundred, depending on how much they want job,” she said. “You will pay more for licensed and insured, but then (you are) covered.”

Kelly, the mother of two and grandmother of three, put herself through college and worked traditional middle-management jobs while her children were growing up.

“I had to keep that steady paycheck thing,” she said. “I was not a stay-at-home mom. I had to work. You have to do what you have to do. I was always an entrepreneur at heart. After they were gone from the home, I have more opportunity to delve into that — not that I don’t have to earn a living.”

Now, she can be more adventurous, take a few risks. In the past four years, Kelly has completed work on 10 area homes.

Deborah Brennan and husband Ryan own one of them. Deborah met Kelly in May 2014 at an open house in Belleville’s Country Club Place neighborhood.

“I walked in and I was floored,” said Deborah, office manager at Ryan’s law firm. “Kelly has an eye for designing like no one I have ever known. Her knack for turning an ordinary house into something amazing is like no other. Her style is eclectic. She mixes modern with antiques.”

Deborah bought the house and all the furniture in it.

“Everyone who sees it, loves it,” she said.

Kelly has two houses on the market and two more in progress.

“The first thing I do is a walk-through,” she said. “I have an idea if it’s doable. I bring in a plumber, electrician, HVAC guy .... I have them walk through and tell me if I am crazy. ... My rule of thumb is: Can we make this house that was originally a one-bedroom with attic space into a three- or four-bedroom house with a minimum 1 1/2 baths? For investors to get a return on their investment, I make sure on my end to really lay it out and add value.”

It’s a delicate balance.

“It’s not all about making money, but do we have to make money, of course. Nobody works for free.”

That gray weekday morning, hands-on Kelly wore a pair of paint-splattered jeans.

“I do some of the work, as much as I can. If someone says, ‘Go pick up six toilets,’ I get them. I do the small stuff so guys doing the work can stay on a project.”

Hardwood floors and a charming alcove

A few blocks away at 223 N. 74th St., Kelly pulled into a driveway alongside a white frame three-bedroom house with a large backyard.

“This place was a train wreck,” said Kelly, walking into the living room-dining room. “The walls were covered with purple and lime green paint. There were hundreds of nails in the floors where they nailed carpet down. The house was empty when I first saw it. I pulled up the corner of carpeting and saw the hardwood.”

Bingo. The refinished hardwood adds a richness throughout the first floor, including the kitchen.

“My favorite thing is this little seating area,” said Kelly, facing a kitchen alcove she furnished with small corner hutches, a farm table and chairs she borrowed from her sister. Overhead is a light fixture that was once shiny brass, but had great lines.

“I just spray-painted it and put new white candle covers on it.

“I try to find things that nobody has in their house and make them work. I’ve been known to take a few things out of my own house if I think I need them over here.”

She reconfigured the house’s layout to create two good-sized bedrooms on the main level and redid the first-floor bathroom.

“I try to keep things that are original,” she said. “Somebody put two or three floors over mosaic tile (in the bathroom). I spent days scraping and scraping, but I couldn’t bring the tile back to life. Now, it’s ceramic faux wood tile.”

Compromise is part of the deal.

“For example, I had to choose to either take the (staircase) wall out and have an open banister or have a bathroom on the second floor,” said Kelly. “Putting a bathroom on the second floor is more more important than having an open staircase. You can’t have kids going up and down the steps all the time.”

An upstairs bonus? Original pine floors. Kelly had Gordon add built-ins, including recessed closets and shelving for bedrooms on either end of a Jack and Jill bathroom.

The house has new plaster, dry wall, a new furnace, hot water heater and central air. It’s listed with Coldwell Banker for $110,000.

She hopped into her SUV to check a house-in-progress on East Main, then over to Signal Hill Boulevard, her latest project. She’s also staging a four-bedroom home at 3324 Dovershire.

“The most fun part of the job for me,” she said, “is when someone walks into a room and says, ‘I would never have thought of this.’ That’s when I feel like I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish.”

To contact Kelly Arnold, call 618-795-0217.

This story was originally published March 18, 2016 at 4:03 PM with the headline "Belleville renovator gives older homes new life."