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Family first: HERMANTOWN COUPLE DESIGNS NEW HOME

By Megan Keller

Thismonth's home is located in a quiet country setting — only minutes from Hermantown — for privacy and convenience. The couple designed their perfect home to include three bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths and a three-stall garage with an open living floor plan. There’s also a bonus room above the garage, putting the total space at 2,700 square feet.

Learning from their experiences

Jason Carlson and Missy Francisco Carlson, both born in Hermantown, aren’t rookies to building a home. This was their second time building, and they have lived in four different homes with some renovation experience adding to their resume. They started building their home three years ago in 2019.

Jason said one of the big things he has learned from these experiences is “There is always something that can be adjusted. You grow with all your houses and your family grows … learning through those experiences.”

Missy added, “It's different with every house, but I think you also find out what works for your family and what flow works for your family.”

With still having children in the school district, it was important to be close to all of their activities. They also wanted to downsize their home.

“(Our previous house) was double the size of what ours is now, and because of being gone so much we didn’t use the house as we had originally planned and wanted to be closer to the schools,” Missy said.

The Carlsons decided to move to a more

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“You still feel like you are in the woods, which I really enjoy, but only 10 minutes to Target,” Missy said.

Jason added, “We can walk out our back door (and) there are 5 miles of trails behind us that we can walk on.”

The couple worked with Heather Hiner, with Hiner Designs.

“One of the big things for me (was) we brought a plan to her, but we weren’t sure how certain things would fit,” Jason said. “We knew we wanted an open floor plan, and bedrooms at each end of the house. She brought forth the idea of the L-shaped house, and different angles to roof lines. She made it more appealing.”

The general contractor was Gilbert’s Contracting, led by

Gary and Jeff Gilbert. Aaron Kangas and Everest Construction built the house.

Touring the home

The home’s exterior is covered in LP Smart navy-blue siding.

“The color was custom,” Missy said. “We had a hard time. We went back and forth on colors (because) we wanted something a little bit different. They color-matched it to a Sherwin WIlliams color for us.”

The home has white trim, and white carriage garage doors. The rock work, which blends beautifully with the cedar columns for the main entry, was provided by Brock White.

“This provided a more welcoming cottage-like feel to it,” Jason said.

The homeowners also added more cedar accents with decorative gables on the home. Behind the home, there is a stamped concrete patio that Jason completed. Beyond the patio is one of their favorite places — an in-ground fire pit for their summer outings and access to miles of trails.

As you enter the home, you walk into an open floor plan with vaulted ceilings. One of the first things you notice are the large windows (all from Marvin Windows) providing a lot of natural light and a scenic view of the woods behind them.

It was important to Missy that there was a flow throughout the house. They carefully picked the lighting and windows to match throughout the house.

“All the lighting was ordered online,” Missy said. “The lighting was something I had looked for for a long time. They are all black with accents of glass. We knew we wanted the windows to be black with white trim, and we knew we wanted that to flow and tie the rest of the house in.”

Another design element that Missy made sure to include was to have the same blue accents flow throughout the house, which is a similar color to the home’s exterior.

The home has forced air heat and air conditioning, as well as in-floor heat.

Bedrooms

Two of the bedrooms are located on one end of the home off of the main living space and have walk-in closets. Between the rooms they placed a large bathroom with a private toilet room and shower. For this bathroom, they knew they needed a divider for privacy. They initially were looking at a Jack-andJill-style bathroom; however, Hiner suggested this route which was a more efficient use of the space.

The granite countertops came from Granite Works, with two undermount sinks.

The custom cabinets were designed and built by Creative Woodmasters in Canyon, Minnesota.

“We worked one on one with Allen Logelin, owner of Creative Woodmasters,” Missy said. “This is the third time we have worked with him; he is fantastic to work with … very creative, artsy, very into detail.”

On the opposite end of the home is the master suite. This bedroom has a large walk-in closet and in-suite bathroom. The bedroom furniture in the master suite was a set the homeowners owned for many years, so they renovated the set to match the rest of the woodwork in the home.

The in-suite bathroom also has granite countertops by Granite Works, and cabinetry by Creative Woodmasters. Jason installed all the tile on the floor, and the shower tiling in all the bathrooms was done by Hedley Construction. The master bathroom has two undermount sinks, a walk-in shower with specialty shower heads ordered from Ferguson, two closets, and a private toilet room. The couple also wanted a jet deep soaker tub that looks out into the woods.

The main living space

The living room has a gas fireplace, wrapped by custom cabinets from Creative Woodmasters. The large windows and patio doors lead to the outdoor patio space. Next to the living room is the kitchen, adding to the open floor concept. In the vaulted ceilings, it was important to the homeowners to have a soft-can lighting set on dimmer switches.

“The sunshine is very important to us to let in, and Heather

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Hiner made sure to design and build around that,” Missy said. “Nothing is better than sitting down, turning on the fireplace to cozy up and see the outdoors. It just feels cozy.”

The AC comes from the ceiling and there is also a surround sound system installed throughout the entire home with the exception of the bedrooms. The system, from Nex Tec Systems, has the capability of being controlled by their cell phones. The vinyl plank flooring is from T&C Flooring, which was installed by Jason.

The kitchen

The kitchen is the hub of the Carlsons’ home.

“Another thing that Heather Hiner had helped us with was the island, we appreciated her input with this design,” Missy said. “We do everything at this island — we eat here, we sit and talk and gather here. One unique addition to the island that Allen did, where the bar stools are, are cabinets for storage.”

The countertops, with veins of gray and solid white, are quartz from Granite Works. The kitchen was specifically designed to have a lot of storage.

“One of the things I liked about the kitchen, when working with Allen at Creative Woodmasters, (was) he designed the unique drawers under the window so we didn’t have to run the cabinets around the walls and to keep the open feel with the windows,” Missy said.

The black stainless-steel appliances were purchased from Best Buy. The undermount sink is graphite composite that they purchased online, and the sink fixtures came from Ferguson. The tiling for the backsplash was all installed by Jason on the island and above the stovetop. Near the kitchen is also a walk-in pantry.

Off of the garage is another entrance to the home, which takes you into a mud room where the lighting is motion controlled. There is additional cabinetry and closet space, as well as more storage under the stairs going to the second floor entertainment room. On this side of the home, you can enter the entertainment room above the garage.

“This is kind of the kids’ hangout, to have friends over and watch movies,” Missy said.

Jason’s office is also located on this floor. They really worked

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