Painter Hill Road Residence, Roxbury, CT

What do you do if you fall in love with a site that has great views, but the house on it is anything but? I suppose most people would have simply torn it down. But we had a limited budget, so we called Donald and asked, "Can you do anything with it?" He thought he could - and he did! The original house had been on the market for two years. Nobody wanted it. Now we see cars stop and pull up to look just about every day. People are dying to get into the house!

We had already worked with Donald on the renovation of our previous home in Wyckoff, NJ. We knew we were on the same wavelength. We were so confident in his ability to get into our heads that we didn't select a thing. I didn't pick out one fixture, one door handle, one towel rack - we just turned ourselves over to Donald and felt totally comfortable. Sometimes we joke that this is really Donald's house!

Donald and his team completely transformed a dark and gloomy 1970s Colonial into a crystal clear open space. Everyone who walks in the door comments on that. There's nothing subterranean about the house at all. Even the ground level, which most people would call the basement, has light. Donald really knows how to work with space and make it bigger than you could ever imagine it could be! I think it has a lot to do with working in New York City where space is at a premium. Our master bath, for example, is no bigger in terms of floor space than it was originally. But by rerouting things and creating a landscape with the tub and shower, it now seems three times larger than it ever was.

It was an exciting process to take an underwhelming space and make it into something so different. Donald made it so easy for us to visualize it. He used a set of color-coded blocks on a template to illustrate how changeable it was. The contractor even created a mock-up of the kitchen made from 1x2s to demonstrate the new layout and allow us to make adjustments. Donald said he had never seen a contractor go through that trouble, but I think it was Donald's willingness to listen to their suggestions that made them go the extra mile.

He also picks smart things. We have five "barn doors". As utilitarian as they are, they look like pieces of art. And is there anything cheaper than barn door hardware? Rather than painting the walls of our three-car garage, which also doubles as a studio, we paneled it in plywood. Since the doors are aluminum and glass, the space forces us to make a commitment to live with fewer things. On the outside it's a very modern aesthetic. Everything is very square and angular. But it's also Connecticut white and has the traditional aluminum maritime roof. We like to think of the house as a contemporary interpretation of a New England farmhouse.

The only thing we weren't sure about was the wall! It's 3 ft. tall and creates a courtyard between the house and the garage and acts as a retaining wall. It is very visible from the road, and Donald wanted to paint it orange. We thought it would make the house look like a construction site. So we settled on a very dark gray. Flanked by the giant flowerpot Yvan suggested we buy, it looks sophisticated and inviting, particularly at night. But now that we have lived with the wall for a while, we're thinking of repainting it a different color - the same orange as the Hermes shopping bag Donald showed us? R.M. & M.M.