In 2020, Kim Stoegbauer, designer/REALTOR®, founder of The TomKat Studio, and broker/owner of TomKat Real Estate, along with her husband, Dan, who is the CRO of Offerpad, purchased this home in The Island at Ocotillo.
It had been on the market for many months and not only was very outdated but had a unique, challenging layout.
Through The TomKat Studio, Stoegbauer offers remodeling and design services, and she quickly turned her attention to this home.
Drawn to what they felt they could do with it—not to mention the stunning views it offered—they took on the challenge.
“The character of the exterior of the home was not typical Arizona style,” Stoegbauer says. “It was a French Country Farmhouse style. And when we purchased the home, that charming cottage look didn’t match the interior at all—the inside was very contemporary.”
They went to work, first tackling the floor plan.
“We wanted to open the kitchen to the family room, and we had to bring in an engineer to figure out what walls could come down and which couldn’t,” she says.
When one odd diagonal wall couldn’t be removed—it was needed structurally—she created a new focal point by building a new fireplace around the wall.
In the end, the home—both inside and out—was almost completely redone and remodeled. Walls and soffits came down, the laundry room became a walk-in pantry, and a wine room was converted to a laundry room. The hardwood flooring, cabinetry, countertops, lighting, fixtures, and tile are all new. In the backyard, trees were removed in order to open up the stunning view of the golf course, and new pavers and pool tile were added, as well as a new modern fireplace.
Stoegbauer calls the new design “signature TomKat style.”
“With this house, because it’s on the water, I wanted it to have a more Modern Coastal feel. We gave it an open, airy, beachy feel while bringing in our signature black, white, and wood tones,” she says.
The remodel took five months.
As they do with many of the homes they purchase and remodel—their prior home was in Fulton Ranch—this one too was sold after they enjoyed the home for just over a year.
“It ended up even so much better than we first imagined,” Stoegbauer says of the finished home. “You have to really be able to see potential in different homes. Even if they’re very unique, there are ways to make them better.”
