When a husband surprised his wife with renovations to their summer home, some twists and turns led to a modern style with extraordinary lake views.
Written by Stacey Manganelli / Photographed by Ashlee Glen
In 2019, David and Kristen Eads found the perfect summer getaway home on Smith Mountain Lake. When they renovated a few years later, David took over the process so he could surprise Kristen with the results. While the renovation was full of unforeseen complications, the end product delighted everyone.
Love at First Sight
When the Eads family started touring summer lake houses, they looked at one particular home despite being double Kristen’s budget. As soon as she walked to the lakeside, her budget concerns dissipated. Absorbing the breadth and beauty of the water from the back of the house, she exclaimed, “I want this one.”
Their realtor snapped a photo for Kristen and David to look at as they navigated their decision-making. Kristen reasoned that you could change a house with time and effort, but you couldn’t change the view. The realtor soon hung a “Sold” sign in the front yard.
The Renovation Vision
After enjoying the house for a few summers, David and Kristen consulted with Eric Buck, local architect of Comprehensive Home Design, Inc. The Eads told Buck they wanted a modern, open design that would capitalize on the views.
Buck warned the Eads that the renovation would be complex and might necessitate a bit of creativity. The house was built in 1972, and no one knew how additions were completed over the years. When Buck completed the plans, he recommended Construction Marketing, LLC for a contractor to manage the complexity of the project.
A Husband’s Romantic Gesture
When renovations started, David asked Kristen if she wanted an HGTV home reveal at the end. She said yes! David consequently took over logistics and told Kristen to relax.
But what started as a romantic gesture soon had David with his head in his hands.
As construction commenced, they discovered that the home was severely underbuilt. When workers saw the infrastructure wasn’t up to code, they wouldn’t walk across one of the hallways for fear of it collapsing.
The problems were numerous and complex: the living room ceiling sagged, beams were too small and improperly located, roof rafters were too small to pass code, floor joists were smaller than expected, the inner roof had no supporting ridge, etc. What had started as a fun cosmetic renovation became a profound structural overhaul.
Double Margaritas for Problem-Solving
After hearing the news about the problems with the home’s infrastructure, David went to lunch. He ordered a margarita. Then he ordered a second margarita. He’d been keeping a construction diary throughout renovations. He renamed it “The Renovation Saga” as he sipped his drink.
With his second margarita flowing through him, David relaxed enough to consider his options. The first option was to build supports that would make the home structurally sound but possibly prevent them from ever seeing out the back of the home because the supports would block the views.
The second option was to double the scope of the project without Kristen’s knowledge. This option would provide a glass back of the house for full lake views.
As David mulled over the maxim “Go big or go home,” he decided to go big. He made another entry in “The Renovation Saga” as he finished his Cali burrito. He detailed how the project had grown without Kristen’s knowledge. He ended by writing, “The contractor is excited. I’m nervous.”
The Bridge
Once the need for a major structural overhaul of the house became apparent, David mentally reframed the complications as an opportunity to pursue the home of their dreams.
David wanted a design feature like the bridge long before they did this renovation. But it was on a list of potential future ideas. Now—with all the other necessary, dramatic changes-—it seemed worth doing rather than putting off.
After going through revisions to make the bridge as light as possible, the team at Construction Marketing, LLC came up with an amalgam of things David had seen and liked. They worked through ways to place duct work elsewhere so the bridge could be open on the bottom with glass on the sides to see through to the lake beyond.
Bathroom Luxury
The Eads family enjoys the feeling of warm, worn leather beneath their feet in the bathrooms thanks to leathered soapstone flooring and heated floors. Leathered soapstone is a natural stone finish with a textured, matte surface that feels velvety against bare skin. In the shower, touch screen controls allow the Eadses to be doused with 11 gallons of water per minute versus the standard 2.5 gallons.
To keep the look of the bathroom seamless, the leathered soapstone is a single piece. The shower surround is also a seamless, single piece of solid marble. The single slope shower construction with linear drain allows for curbless entry in keeping with the modern look of the renovations.
David, who has been woodworking as a hobby since college, custom built all the cabinetry himself to fit inside the bathrooms.
A Bar Downstairs
Before renovations, the home had a wet bar underneath the stairs. During the bathroom renovation, Construction Marketing eliminated the bar and a coat closet. Then they repurposed the wet bar space as a new coat closet and built a new, bigger bar in the living room.
Putting his woodworking skills to work again, David built cherry cabinets over refrigerated and frozen drawers for storing lakeside beverages. He also built paneling over the dishwasher for an integrated, seamless look and installed a sink.
The Porch
Because the porch is Kristen’s favorite part of the house, she made the decisions about its look. She embraced her southern roots by selecting Southern Yellow Pine for a floor-grade ceiling, painted haint blue, and a cable railing she can see straight through.
Construction Marketing raised the cathedral ceiling of the porch up to a dramatic and beautiful 26 feet when redoing the bridge. The huge panels of glass rise to the peak of an A-frame, reflecting the lake, and revealing the coveted views that David pursued in opting for the more challenging renovation.
The porch is deep, so Kristen can sit outside during storms and watch rain pelt the lake. As lightning crashes and thunder roars, Kristen remains safe and dry, pumping her legs on her porch swing.
The HGTV Reveal
Because Kristen was never clued into the change of the scope of the project, the reveal was a huge surprise. As she gazed around and absorbed the new look, she marveled, “The end result was so much different and so much better than what I expected.”
Kristen said she understood why David had been losing sleep for six months, but that he also nailed every detail. “I’m not an emotional person,” she explained. “But everything looked so good that I started crying.”
David quickly put his arm around her shoulder and confirmed that they were happy tears. They were.
HGTV reveal results? Success!
The story above first appeared in our July/August 2026 issue.
