Old Is New in This Five Points Stone House

Robert Cox and Matt Bliss did a thoughtful renovation of their 1920s home to turn it into a comfortable space for their young family.
by Ayn-Monique Klahre | photography Trey Thomas

It sort of happened by accident, the purchase of this house. Robert Cox and Matt Bliss had passed by it a number of times on their walks around Hayes Barton, and one day they noticed a “For Sale” sign. “We thought, we’ll just look into this… and after some back and forth, we wound up getting it,” says Cox.

The 1929 home had originally been built as a duplex and converted to a single-family home in the 1970s, with a few additions and changes made in the meantime. But it had sat empty for a few years, without even the front door locked. Water damage, rotting wood and aging surfaces were evident from the get-go.

“What we ended up with was a house with no heat and no AC; the electrical was largely shot and the plumbing was off — we had to do a gut renovation,” says Cox.

So the couple set about peeling back the layers — removing old wallpaper, lifting up linoleum that covered hardwood, undoing wonky additions — to make the home their own. They leaned into some of the home’s quirks, like the pink-tiled bathroom and stone wall in a first-floor addition, and made small renovations to get every space more functional.

Cox, an architect, designed the plans for the biggest major structural change they made: breaking through the back of a closet to connect their bedroom to a bathroom to complete the primary suite. “We didn’t move any walls; it was more of a surface incision,” Cox says.

Downstairs, they stripped out a half bathroom and closet from an 1990s-era addition to convert a bedroom into a family room for themselves and their toddler son, Charlie. They also removed aluminum-and-glass paneling from the adjoining porch to restore it to its original, open-air glory. “It felt too closed off before! We love to sit on our porch and chat with neighbors walking by,” says Bliss.

Robert Cox and Matt Bliss with their son, Charlie.

In nearly every room, they removed multiple layers of wallpaper to get down to the home’s original plaster. “Some of it was magnificent — we uncovered one paper that had hand-painted dogwood flowers on it — but most of it was in bad shape,” says Cox. “We also spent a lot of time surfacing and restoring the plaster. That’s why we have picture rails now; we’re committed to not putting any more holes in the walls!” They were able to keep the wallpaper in one spot, a bold floral print at the top of the landing to the second floor.

The overall decor scheme is eclectic, a mix of vintage pieces, art and decorative items found on travels and gathered over time. “A lot of things in our home come from both of us just wanting to poke around an antique store without anything in particular in mind,” says Bliss. “Not even capital-A antiques stores, but junk stores.”

One of his favorite pieces is a modular candlestick that’s currently on display on the mantel. “I have such a collector gene,” says Bliss. “I’ve picked up pieces to add to that all over Europe — in Paris, Amsterdam. Whenever I travel I keep an eye out for pieces.” Around here, they love browsing Pigfish Lane, Union Camp Collective, Raleigh Vintage, Aisle 3 Modern, Hunt & Gather and Trunk Show. “There is so much amazingly built furniture that needs a new home,” says Cox.

Their efforts have turned this nearly 100-year-old home into a comfortable space that feels collected but unfussy. “We love the idea of giving something old a new life,” says Cox.  

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A 1960s-era Broyhill dining table anchors the formal dining room, which the family uses for everyday meals. On either side of the French doors are built-in cabinets. One set was there when they bought the home, and they had a cabinetmaker make a mirror image of it for the other side. It connects to the living room and the butler’s pantry.

Starting from the front door, the whole house has been updated, including restoring aging plaster and refreshing the woodwork and floors. Cox and Bliss took advantage of NC Historic Preservation tax credits to do the renovation. “One of the first things that drew us to the home was the huge windows in the front room (right),” says Cox. “It gets such great light!” Here, they include a pair of Mid-century modern chairs that had belonged to Bliss’s grandparents, as well as art collected from various sources. “I was a history major, so I love having older art in the house,” says Cox

The butler’s pantry was a selling point for the house. “I love that there are just these little moments in old houses that are so special,” says Bliss. They painted it navy from top to bottom and use their shelves to display their collection of ombre metallic glassware. “We just loved how the rich blue offsets our Dorothy Thorpe glasses,” Bliss says. They got a metal table from a restaurant supply store to create a bar there. The art in here plays off the cocktail theme, including a shadowbox with a collection of matchbooks (below) they’ve gathered over the years. In the kitchen, they painted the walls a dark green to lend the wood cabinets some richness. Though they have plans to one day renovate it, for now Cox loves how “in a world of very bright white kitchens, it feels different and cozy.”

Bliss and Cox embraced the 1950s-era pink tile in the downstairs bathroom. “I say, don’t fight the house, let’s just celebrate what’s there! We painted the whole room pink,” says Cox. Says Bliss: “Honestly, it makes your skin look so good!” That room also has the original cast-iron tub and enamel sink, and they chose new fixtures and fittings to keep with the original vibe. They created a gallery wall in the hallway that connects the kitchen to the family, dining and living rooms. “With all the art that we’ve collected and continued to collect, it’s nice to have a big open space that we can play with,” says Bliss.

Of the family room, Cox says: “We spend the majority of our time here. We love that it’s cozy and dark.” Here, a bookcase covers the window to the powder room; they also removed a closet and bathroom that had been in this space before

The primary bedroom has the same footprint of the living room downstairs. “It does feel very grand, but we love that Charlie has a place to play while we’re getting ready in the morning,” says Cox.

They knocked down a closet wall to turn a bedroom into the primary bath, then added built-ins along the hallway connecting the two to serve as a walk-through closet. “We kept coming back to the idea of having it look like a high end athletic club,” says Bliss. 

 The only wallpaper they were able to preserve is on the landing at the top of the stairs to the second floor. “We loved it, and luckily it was in great shape,” says Cox. They paired it with a hutch from the late 1800s that they found in the former Broughton House on Anderson Drive, which was demolished in 2020. “Together, we think they make a very cool statement,” says Cox. 

The home was built as a duplex, so Charlie’s room was actually originally the kitchen. “It’s the exact same footprint as the kitchen below!” says Cox. They made the room fun with a yo-yo-inspired light fixture, a rug picked up on a trip to India and a painting Cox did in high school. “We just try to use primary colors and numbers to create as much visual interest as possible,” Cox says. “We knew Charlie was going to have all sorts of crazy colors in there with his toys, so we just decided to embrace it.”
 The attic space, which is accessed through the primary closet, was totally unfinished when the couple moved in. They turned it into an office, gym and television-watching space, with clever storage added by combining IKEA bookcases and framing them out. “We did it as economically as possible, but made use of what otherwise was not a usable space,” says Bliss.

This article originally appeared in the September 2024 issue of WALTER magazine.

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