The story below is from our January/February 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
One couple’s desire for a tight-knit neighborhood drove them to make hyperlocal moves until they found their perfect place in Grandin, which they renovated with CIRCLE Design Studios.
Kip Dawkins
Most items in the home are curated from estates and second-hand stores, including the dining room table and chairs. Theresa Dorlini’s philosophy is, “If you have things you love, we’ll make it work.” Amanda notes that “You need a designer to make it work in a way that doesn’t look hodgepodge.”
Ben and Amanda Ostrander have satisfied a primal human need in the location of their home: the need for a strong community. Thanks to renovating with CIRCLE Design Studios, they’re happily settled in a place that supports their social needs. Having lived in over 15 houses together, they believe this house may finally be their forever home.
Organizing Priorities
Kip Dawkins
Theresa Dorlini called repurposing these bricks the “biggest reward” of this renovation.
The Ostranders moved to Roanoke from Washington, D.C., in 2015, where their daily life didn’t foster a strong community. Since then, they have moved four times within Roanoke. Three of those moves have been within Grandin as they pinpointed their perfect spot within that community.
One of their primary considerations when moving to Virginia was balancing their desire to be in the thick of Grandin life, with optimal walkability, while also enjoying family life. Their first Grandin home was walkable, but “you were sweaty by the time you got there,” Amanda explains.
This prompted them to move twice more, once right under the Roanoke star and once again in Grandin, before settling on their current home. They’re now on a block in Grandin where the streets are quieter, with mature trees and a more relaxed vibe without sacrificing location.
The Ostranders can now walk everywhere while remaining cool. They relish easy access to the co-op, Grandin farmers market, library, post office and to the greenway. They have three elementary schools within walking distance and are able to walk their daughter, Adrienne, to her first grade classroom each morning.
As they walk, they make friends they couldn’t have made living in D.C. Amanda explains, “I like knowing my mailman here in Roanoke. When I lived in D.C., I never knew who my mailman even was. We craved community when we moved here, and now we have it.”
Bringing the Vision to Life with CIRCLE
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Kip Dawkins
The kitchen cabinets are from Adams Custom Cabinets Inc. in Danville, VA. The countertops are from Stone Dynamics in Martinsville, VA.
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Kip Dawkins
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Kip Dawkins
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Kip Dawkins
The fact that the home was perfectly located doesn’t mean it was move-in ready. Before the renovation, the Ostranders knew “it needed everything.” It even needed to be restructured, as it was built as a single-family home in the 1920s but later converted to a duplex. The first order of business was to convert the space back to a single-family home.
Choosing a contractor for the renovation wasn’t hard, as Ben and Amanda had already been friends with the owners of CIRCLE design for a few years and recommended them to others for renovations.
The team at CIRCLE did not disappoint.
Amanda gushes that Theresa Dorlini, the owner, principal interior designer and creative director, and John Dorlini, the owner and principal architect, “are wonderful at what they do” and masterfully combined the vision she and Ben individually had by “turning it into one thing.”
Kip Dawkins
Ben and Amanda’s daughter, Adrienne, told them, “I want blue everywhere!” when they moved into this home. CIRCLE honored this request by even painting the ceiling blue.
Ben and Amanda wanted their home to be “sweet, warm, a blend of timeless and old world charm with modern updates.” They knew they didn’t want to be “trendy,” as trends come and go, and that it had to support family life.
To achieve a family-functional home that looked the way the Ostranders imagined, CIRCLE first moved the kitchen from being tucked away in a back addition. They relocated it to a traditional placement on the lower level of the home, in a space that was a second living room before the renovation.
CIRCLE also redid the floor plan, as the original plan was cramped with rooms that weren’t the size that most homeowners are used to today. This opened the home up and gave it a lighter, more airy feeling.
CIRCLE then “stripped away years of add-ons and anything that didn’t appear original to the house,” sanded the floors down to their original wood and put a coat of polyurethane on top.
While John and Theresa did the heavy lifting for converting the space into a single family home, Amanda enjoyed putting in some sweat equity herself. After putting their daughter to bed many nights, she stripped “about eight coats of paint” off the pocket doors of the living room. As she worked, she entertained herself by listening to true crime podcasts, an evening activity she describes as “therapeutic.”
When it was time to decorate, Theresa incorporated things that the Ostranders already owned and loved. Amanda explains that Theresa supports you using what you have “so you’re not starting from scratch.” Theresa then incorporated Ben and Amanda’s personal style through light fixtures, hardware and decorative tile to pull the look together.
Remembering Roanoke
Kip Dawkins
In alignment with the community spirit that brought them to their current home, the Ostranders built community through a unique gift for friends and neighbors: extra bricks that they found throughout the property.
CIRCLE dug the bricks up and reglazed them to make them a pretty coppery color. Theresa then placed them behind the kitchen stove to serve as the backsplash to showcase them in a prominent location. Ben and Amanda then matched the grout color to the brick, making a show stopping kitchen backsplash.
Kip Dawkins
The Ostranders wanted to share these uniquely beautiful remnants of Roanoke’s past with as many people as they could. Until they were used up, the Ostranders gave them to friends and neighbors as needed for use in their own homes. When a neighbor was moving out of state, Ben and Amanda gifted her 10 of the extra bricks so she can always remember Roanoke.
Peaceful Porch Living
While the Ostranders describe themselves as “not very attached to physical things,” their wraparound porch has special meaning to them because it provides connection to neighbors.
Most days, Amanda says, “We sit on our porch and drink coffee for a half hour, so we get to say hi to everyone that’s around.” Their dog, Murphy, is also “the ultimate porch dog,” so they need to have a luxurious porch for him to interact with everyone too.
This porch time is sacred to the Ostranders and is a way of preserving a higher level of interaction that Amanda thinks was eliminated when garages became commonplace.
Kip Dawkins
Amanda wanted green for the backsplash behind the sinks and Teresa found it. Amanda says, “The green tile gives it warmth and elegance rather than just being a regular bathroom.”
“It’s just my theory and I can’t prove it, but think about it,” she explains. “When everyone started installing a garage in their home, people came back to their house and entered through the garage. The time that they would normally walk from their driveway to get inside and see their neighbors was eliminated.”
The porch then, is an antidote to isolation and the dissolution of community ties.
With such a love for deep community, it’s no surprise that the Ostranders support their local community through shopping and eating. They love grabbing food at The Community Inn, known as CI to those who frequent it.
The Ostranders also frequently shop right on Grandin. They bought the rugs to decorate their home from New to Me, and their living room couch is originally from Reid’s Fine Furnishings.
With so many different homeowning experiences, the Ostranders believe there is no perfect place. But they’re happy they’ve ended up in Grandin because it allows them to have the walkable community that’s most important to them.
When they want to experience the Grandin community, all they have to do is walk there from their beloved front porch. And they can do it all without breaking a sweat.
The story above is from our January/February 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!