Have you heard? We created another design guide this winter! This passion project is made with the intent of helping you create a home you LOVE. Its purpose is to deliver some inspiration for how to live well and feel good in your place today, before you’re even considering selling!
And for my client feature this time, I chose Christina and Mark Leitzel. I had the fortune of meeting them a few years ago when they were searching for a rental while in school. We stayed in touch over the years and like many people, they ended up buying and settling down here. It’s always a treat to discover that you really LIKE your clients as human beings!
Mark and Christina are fabulously funny, smart, good-natured, and they happen to have the cutest baby on the planet, so we just had to have the guide feature their impossibly gorgeous child. I mean, their accent wall. It’s really about the accent wall (wink, wink). Really though, we could all use more handsome babies and accent walls in our lives, right?!
Hear more from Christina below!
Accent Wall with Christina Leitzel
What inspired this design idea?
I had been wanting to do something cool in our bedroom because the wall behind our bed is gigantic. Nothing I hung there looked right to me. I came up with this idea from watching my favorite Peloton instructor, Emma Lovewell, remodel her home on Instagram. She posted a ton of stories about her DIY modern board and batten bathroom and I thought “hey, I could do that!”
Upon doing a little research into what it would take (wood, a circular saw, caulk, sander, paint), I thought to myself – “Self, you could do this, but you’ll probably regret it. Hire someone to do it for you.” I also was one month postpartum when I got this idea, so while I was not working and slightly bored, I also didn’t really have the free time to dedicate to a project.
I reached out to Shen and asked her if she knew of someone who could do something like this. She recommended talking to Dave Bennett, owner of Carborro Handyman Services. Dave was eager to help. He said his crew would jump at the chance for an indoor job during the winter and a chance to get creative.
Sebastian Holcomb and Dave came to look at the space and I showed them some pictures of what I wanted. My walls weren’t exactly like the pictures, so we had to make a few adjustments. Sebastian then sketched some options for me and I picked my favorite. It took about a week to complete the whole project.
A Little About the Leitzel's
We met Shen the first time we moved to NC way back in 2017. We were coming here for just one year for Mark’s fellowship at UNC, and were looking for a rental. She happened to be the agent on a rental listing in Durham. We did not end up renting that place, but Shen was so kind and stayed in touch with us. When we moved back to NC in 2019, she was my first call to find a house.
My husband, Mark, and I have been married for four years. We are both originally from Pennsylvania and moved down here for Mark’s job. I work in Stock Plan Services at Fidelity Investments in RTP and Mark is a Transplant Nephrologist at UNC. We just had our first (human) child, Teddy, in December 2020. Our first baby was our cat, Lady Puppy, who we rescued in 2016.
A Note from Shen
This beautiful project was done by Sebastian Holcomb & Dave Bennett from Carrboro Handyman Services. Fast Action Sebastian does everything from beautiful light remodels to your traditional ceiling fan installations and clogged sink drains.
