When she sat atop the staircase and surveyed the house, Paula Lynn-Meridis knew this 1970s side-split was going to be her family’s next home.

She could see the kitchen straight ahead, the quiet street out the front door to the right, a spacious yard through the living room window to her left and the door leading to the covered patio just below her. She remembers thinking it was a rather open layout for a ‘70s side-split and it gave her a good feeling.

Paula Lynn-Meridis and husband Bill Meridis totally renovated this 70s side-split on a beautiful street in Midland.

Paula, founder and owner of the Saturday Afternoons Home Stores franchise, and her husband, Bill Meridis, moved into this 2,800-sq. ft. house in Midland three-and-a-half years ago. They’ve just wrapped up renovations and the beautiful transformation will inspire fans of her boutique shops.

“My stores are a reflection of my home,” says Paula. “Anything you see here is part of Saturday Afternoons Home Stores,” the franchise she named after everyone’s favourite part of the week. “Everything fun happens on Saturday afternoons,” Paula says.

The couple worked as a team on the complete renovation, with Bill heavily involved in the construction and Paula taking charge of spatial planning, furnishings and décor. Their home is located on what they call the best street in Midland, only a short walk from the shores of Georgian Bay.

Paula’s living room is warm and inviting. She sourced all her furnishings from Saturday Afternoons Home Stores and has an eye for special details. Her colour scheme is neutral, with soft blue-green accents and chocolate furniture.

Paula describes her style as a bit modern, a bit traditional, with a touch of cottage. This is evident in her favourite area – the living/dining room. A large bay window offers a view from every seat. On top of the coffee table, between the sofa and two soft blue-green chairs, sits one of many bouquets of fresh-cut flowers that Paula displays throughout her home.

“If I can’t have fresh flowers from the store, I’ll go to my garden. It’s a part of who I am,” says Paula, who creatively arranged a bouquet of Hosta leaves.

Paula likes to work with a neutral palette and has painted the house with a variety of colours from the Benjamin Moore line. The top half of the walls in the living/dining room are Manchester Tan, or “Saturday Afternoons beige” as they have come to know it at Tripp’s Paint & Decorating Shoppe, since it’s used in all seven stores (located in Barrie, Midland, Orillia, Bala, Huntsville, Aurora and Port Dover).

“When I feel like seeing colour, I’ll throw in a cushion or a piece of art,” says Paula.

For the living room, she commissioned a colourful, and cottage-like, acrylic painting (inspired by Georgian Bay) from local artist Sharon MacKinnon.

The original kitchen was gutted and totally redone. The update includes a long granite-topped island, shelves for display and lots of storage behind custom-cabinetry.

Her modern taste can be seen throughout the room and in the glamorous mirrored console unit, complete with crystal door knobs. The unit, from Saturday Afternoons, pairs well with the layered mirrors over the painted fireplace mantel. The glamour continues in the dining room, where a silver chandelier with a white shade hangs beautifully over a chocolate rectangular table and six beige suede high-back chairs. The table is dressed and three more gorgeous bouquets in green-glass globes add to the look.

The painted mantel marks the transition between the living and dining rooms. The lower walls, beneath a slim chair-rail, are white. A simple square trim in the dining room offers the illusion of raised panels, adding an elegant dimension to the space. Crown moulding, installed by Jason Vanderkooy of Midland Door and Trim, rings the room up high.

An entrance off the dining room leads to the completely renovated kitchen. The couple gutted the room and opened the space by removing a divider between the former mud room and kitchen. They put a long island in the centre, creating a great space for casual meals with their children – six-year-old Thomas and 17-month-old Ava. A rustic, trestle table, built for the corner by Mike Desroches from Perkinsfield Kitchen & Bath, adds an old-world feel to this contemporary kitchen with clean, uncomplicated lines.

“The table already has natural flaws in it, so when it gets beat up by the kids, it doesn’t bother me,” says Paula, who has a keen sense of style, form and function, and an uncanny ability to finish rooms that accommodate her busy, young family.

The beautiful basement is for everyone. T There’s an office, room to exercise and a big comfy couch for the whole family to cuddle up on.

Desroches also built the all-white cabinetry. The floor-to-ceiling cupboards house all that every kitchen needs. There’s open shelving to display a collection and an appliance garage that hides the toaster and blender. The island includes a sorting system for recycling. The counters are topped with a speckled sand-coloured granite from Hiltz Marble & Granite in Barrie. The walls are painted Green Brier Beige and blend well with the Turkish marble floor tile.

Paula wanted her home to flow seamlessly from one room to another – and it does. The cabinetry is repeated in the entranceway, where you’ll find a floor-to-ceiling white cupboard with double doors.

“I like that it looks like a piece of furniture and not like a closet,” says Paula.

The front door was one of the couple’s special finds. The frame of the glass-paned door, from Tim-Br Mart in Midland, came painted black on the outside, but bare on the inside. They chose a mocha colour to match the console table in the entrance.

Bill installed dark brown walnut, engineered hardwood throughout most of the home. It runs into the living/dining room, up the stairs to four bedrooms and down the stairs into the comfy, multi-functional family room. The dramatic transformation of the lower level started with the removal of a wall at the bottom of the stairs to open up the space.

Thomas is the envy of every boy. His room has a nifty roll-top desk and plenty of room to play.

Additional white built-ins anchor the room and frame a flat-screen television and gas fireplace on one wall. A brilliantly designed home office fills the opposite wall. Having the office here brings everyone together – Mom or Dad can work while the others rest on the ultra-comfy overstuffed sofa with chaise – the family favourite.

The couple converted a dance floor (yes, a dance floor) adjacent to the family room into a large bathroom. They lined the shower wall with unique Carrera marble tiles and found a long, narrow, white porcelain sink to add shape to the room. However, finding a base to match the odd-sized sink was difficult, so Desroches’s craftsmanship was used again to create a walnut base to complement the space.

Another door off the family room leads to the lowest level of the house, and one of the key selling features for the Meridis family – a playroom where the kids can be themselves. The room is filled with toys and Thomas’s artwork.

The couple’s vision extends to the cheerful backyard, where they spend a lot of time once the nice weather appears. A walkout from the family room leads to a lovely covered porch, furnished in a neutral palette with lots of candles to light the night.

The backyard pool was a bonus when Paula and Bill decided to purchase the home.

A large concrete, rectangular pool is the big attraction. With a staircase stretching the width of the pool, the family likes to relax here. Four teak lounge chairs line the deck and the family eats breakfast under a canopy.

Each year the backyard is the setting for Thomas’s birthday party. It’s a tradition the Meridis family started the year they moved in and one they plan to continue. This tradition is part of what Paula imagined when she sat on the staircase before buying the house, and looked out the big bay window into the backyard of her family’s next home.