Kenny Sharrocks owns an ordinary house, on an ordinary street, in an ordinary Phoenix subdivision. Only subtle landscaping differences and varying shades of tan distinguish one stucco home from another. But the inside of Sharrocks' home is anything but ordinary.

The colors are bold, the dιcor is snappy - and it's filled with creative, space-saving ideas that look as cool as they function.

The project began a year and a half ago, after Sharrocks and his fiancιe, Penny Coleman, realized they felt cramped in the 1,700-square-foot space. They considered buying a larger home, then decided it was more economical to stay.

"We sat down and started brainstorming," he said. "We figured out that rearranging the house was probably the best way to maximize space."

Like many modest tract homes, the front door opened to a room that doubled as a living and dining room. The kitchen was just beyond, part of a family room, with access to the back yard.

Inexpensive chandeliers and outlets installed by the builder defined the space: Put the dining table here, put the TV there. But after four years, it just wasn't working.

"We never used this room at all," Sharrocks said, pointing to the front of the living-dining area, where the dining table once sat. "So we decided to get rid of that and make the whole room just the living room."

Movable feast

Now, it has comfortable seating and an entertainment center, and it's a space they use. The focus of the kitchen/family room became cooking and eating.

This simple reallocation of space was just the beginning.

He ripped up the inexpensive carpet and switched to tile. Then he eyeballed the kitchen.

The fixed island always felt like it was in the way, too close to the refrigerator and cabinets, limiting movement in the space. So Sharrocks ripped the island out - then decided to rebuild it, adding a larger countertop with an overhang, and mounting lockable wheels on the base.

"It seats four people now," he said. "I can move it anywhere I want, and it's completely functional."

Sharrocks designs and builds custom booths, the kind companies use to sell products at trade shows. So he put his carpentry and laminating skills to work on his own house.

He rebuilt the standard, inexpensive cabinets the builder installed and refaced them with a custom laminate, creating a contemporary finish. Then, on the kitchen's other wall, he pulled out that tiny, useless cabinet that sits above the refrigerator space.

"I installed a large cabinet up top, put in side panels and connected everything together so it gives the refrigerator the look of an expensive built-in," he said.

For ceiling lighting, he spent about $350 to replace the home's inexpensive light fixtures with flexible, stainless-steel task lighting, playing off the new contemporary theme of the cabinets.

"You can bend and shape it in any way," he said. "That's the first thing that catches people's eyes, because it's out of the ordinary. It becomes like a piece of art on your ceiling."

He turned his attention to a bathroom, refacing the cabinets and repainting in a contemporary theme.

Not a basic basin

The critical feature was the basin. He eyed several stainless-steel bowls that cost more than $300 each. Then inspiration struck: They weren't much different from a standard stainless salad bowl, so he picked one up for $13 at a discount store and drilled out a hole for the drain, mounted the basin, and relaminated the counter. To add character, he used a stainless kitchen fixture mounted at an angle, rather than a normal bathroom faucet.

Sharrocks likes to think outside the box. He refaced the home's fireplace and mantel using various types of galvanized steel from the roofing department at Home Depot. Then he painted the drywall above the fireplace and mounted 12-inch squares of galvanized sheet metal over the painted surface in a checkerboard pattern.

On another wall, he mounted long metal roof caps - the type that run along the peak of a roof - vertically, topping them with shiny steel balls he found at Target. The result makes the wall appear much taller than it is.

Sharrocks likes the idea of looking for design materials in odd places.

"You'll find a lot of weird things. Just use your imagination and you'll find a place to put them in your house."

Coleman said she often has trouble visualizing where the oddball objects Sharrocks brings home will be used. But after the project is finished, she loves the result.

"I look around the house, from when we moved here until now, and it's just amazing," she said.



Reach the reporter at (602) 444-8745.