The homeowners, Joe Thomas and Beki Shaw, relax with their rescue dogs, Harvey and Zoe.
When visiting the home of Joe Thomas and Rebecca (Beki) Shaw, guests are likely to be greeted by their rescue dogs, Zoe, a Pekingese-Chihuahua mix, and Harvey, part poodle, Pomeranian and Lhasa Apso. Jerry and Kramer, two cats rescued from the Richmond Animal League, usually won’t be far behind.
The couple’s home is a classic two-story Fan house that was built in 1911. “What I loved about this home is the layout, because so many Fan houses are closed off or are in sections,” Shaw explains. “This house just had a really nice flow to it.”
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A wall was removed from Thomas and Shaw’s living room to improve its functionality and create a more open floor plan. The couch is from Crate and Barrel, and the woven art was purchased on eBay. The walls are painted Sherwin Williams SW-6244 “Naval.”
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The original columns were preserved during the renovation and stand in contrast to minimal, modern furnishings. The light and table are from Crate and Barrel. The rug is from Class and Trash.
Thomas is a Richmond-area native who graduated from Hermitage High School and Virginia Commonwealth University. Shaw moved to Richmond from Loudoun County to attend VCU. Both work as the sole employees of Thomas Tickets, an online ticket-brokering firm that Thomas launched nearly a decade ago after a brief career as a high-school history teacher. Shaw, a former event planner, has worked with Thomas for the last two years.
Shortly after their June 2016 move-in date, the couple began renovating the living room and kitchen. To improve the home’s functionality, they expanded the living room by knocking down a wall separating it from the front parlor. They quickly realized they needed the help of an interior designer to help furnish the suddenly large empty space. Through the recommendation of a friend and a survey of her work on Instagram, Thomas and Shaw connected with Samantha Heyl, of interior design company Native Nest.
“When I came into their living room, they were in the beginning stages of the renovation,” Heyl says. “They had just taken down a wall and still had plaster exposed. There was nothing in the space at all, and [they] wanted to start from scratch.” Heyl’s focus was to elongate the living room and stretch the space into one big entertainment area, with space for relaxing on the couch and watching TV, an area for listening to records, and a wet bar for entertaining.
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Interior designer Samantha Heyl of Native Nest created separate entertaining areas within the living room and added a wet bar. The chairs and chandelier are from CB2.
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Although the kitchen had already been remodeled, the homeowners updated the cabinetry and replaced the countertops with quartz. The stools are from CB2, and the pendant lights are from West Elm.
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Thomas and Shaw’s Fan home was built in 1911.
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The simple dining room gains warmth from a striped rug from 68 Home and an earthy woven wall-hanging from Target. The table is from Eviction, and the chairs are from West End Antiques Mall. The Richmond print is from Studio Two Three, and the chandelier is from West Elm.
Heyl describes the home as a combination of her own influences — worldly, modern and a little punk-rock. “It’s not just about aesthetics and having something pretty to look at,” she says. “It’s about how the space makes people in it feel and finding a balance of elements, whether it’s wood [or] metal, and the lighting.”
Thomas and Shaw were fortunate in that the kitchen in the home had already been redone. They used the same layout that was already in place but updated the cabinetry and selected quartz for the countertops and island.
Heyl was originally hired to assist with the interior design of the living room, and to source the light fixtures and wall paints for use throughout the home. Once the work in the living room was finished and the kitchen renovation completed (with work done by Richmond Decorating Center), the couple recruited Heyl for another major project — the master bathroom.
That project took more than four months, resulting in a lighter and brighter space with one particularly stunning feature, a 10-foot-long by 7-foot-tall dual-head shower.
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The large shower features porcelain slabs from Ceramic Technics, the first time they were used in a home in Virginia. “I wanted to achieve a more uniform look with dramatic patterning, and these panels eliminate the need for grout lines altogether,” explains Samantha Heyl of Native Nest.
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The bathroom vanity was custom-designed by Native Nest and fabricated by Iron Oak. The mirrors are from Rejuvenation, and the pendant lights are by Maija Puoskari for Mater.
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A free-standing acrylic tub is cozy beside an electric insert fireplace. The surround tile is set in a herringbone pattern and is from Floor & Decor. The shade was designed by Native Nest and made by Haleh Pedram. The art is from Eviction.
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The walls of the master bedroom are painted in Benjamin Moore’s “Narraganset Green.” The side tables are from Pottery Barn, and the wall hanging is from World Market.
Heyl describes the construction of the shower as the only major challenge of the project. The massive porcelain wall panels were the first residential install in Virginia. Ceramic Technics, a tile company that primarily works on hotel and commercial spaces, provided the panels. Coordinating with the contractor on getting the panels up to the second floor of the home without snapping them was a challenge solved by cutting them with a special saw belonging to Heyl’s stone fabricator so that the grains matched.
When not at home, the couple is likely pursuing one of their three main hobbies: attending VCU basketball games as season-ticket holders, eating out, or traveling. One of the things they love most about living in The Fan is its proximity to many of their favorite restaurants such as Heritage, 8 1/2 and the recently opened Idle Hands Bread Company on Strawberry Street. The couple traveled to more than 10 locations in 2017 including the Maldives, Hong Kong, Amsterdam and Prague. Shaw documents their trips on her hobbyist travel blog, “Beki Set Go.”
There are numerous trinkets from their travels scattered throughout the house, such as a small tea kettle the couple found at a Hong Kong antique market, combined with the accessories Heyl chose to match the couple’s personality.
Despite having previously owned a house in The Fan, this is the first time the couple has put extensive work into a home to make it uniquely theirs. Says Shaw, “We just knew when we bought this one that we were going to live here a while, so we spent a lot of time making it exactly what we wanted.”
