photo by: Mike Yoder

Steve Rausch and Ashley McCaskill, 805 Sunset Dr., have renovated much of their five bedroom, four bathroom 4,858-square-foot mid-century modern style home built in 1958. They've aimed to match those renovations to the home's original design.

When the home at 805 Sunset Drive in Lawrence’s Hillcrest neighborhood went up for sale in 2020, couple Ashley McCaskill and Steve Rausch jumped at the chance to take a look.

McCaskill and Rausch actually viewed the five-bedroom, four-bathroom, midcentury modern home just for fun, as a way to get out of the house a few months into the coronavirus pandemic. But the 4,858-square-foot home, which was built in 1958, quickly captured more than just their passing attention.

“After we saw it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” McCaskill said. “I was like, ‘I’m terrified that someone’s going to buy that house and tear it down and put something new there.’ It’s such a cool house, that can’t happen to it.”

photo by: Mike Yoder

Steve Rausch and Ashley McCaskill’s home at 805 Sunset Dr. is in Lawrence’s Hillcrest neighborhood.

So they made an offer, and two days later they got the confirmation they’d be moving in. They closed the sale in August of 2020. Since then, they’ve set to work renovating and restoring a significant portion of the home, documenting the entire process on Instagram.

But renovations actually didn’t start until a while after McCaskill and Rausch moved in, because they first wanted to live in the home as it was.

“I’m really glad we did,” McCaskill said. “We would’ve done things differently, I think, if we’d just started and not taken the time to live in it. But after living in it, we really understood better some of the decisions (the original owners) made and why it was the way it was and really changed our mind on a lot of stuff.”

photo by: Mike Yoder

The couple added wallpaper and new tile to a first-floor bathroom but left the original pink sinks and toilet.

Rausch said they started the design process for the renovations last year during the summer, and the physical work didn’t begin until January of this year. McCaskill added that the work isn’t finished yet, either, but it’s very close. The handful of items still on the to-do list include restoring the basement floor, renovating the deck in the indoor pool room, and cleaning up the trim and landscaping outside the house.

“Most of the stuff that is the first priority on our list, just like with the rest of it, is just taking care of the house so it can continue to live for as long as it has,” McCaskill said.

photo by: Mike Yoder

Plant and display shelves are a nice built-in feature in the kitchen.

During the renovations themselves, the pair first spent three months living in a rental, during which time McCaskill said the house was like a “skeleton” of what it would become. Then, they spent another three more months living in the basement of 805 Sunset Drive while work continued upstairs.

The space down there certainly sufficed; along with an open area with a pool table, seating and a television, there are more rooms that now house Rausch’s home office and another guest bedroom, plus another bathroom. On the other side of the basement, there’s a small kitchen area. McCaskill said the woman who originally designed the house, an artist, used the space as her studio.

“I don’t know if I could actually calculate the amount of hours I’ve put into renovating (upstairs); it’s a lot,” McCaskill said.

Throughout the home, McCaskill and Rausch took pains to keep the original features of every room they could. But if they did make any changes, the pair made a concerted effort to make them as close to the original as possible, or at least to match the style. One example was matching the wood for the cabinets in the kitchen to the existing cabinets on the other side of the wall in the living room. The cabinets were the work of Kansas City-based architecture firm Studio Build.

photo by: Mike Yoder

The couple opted for vaulted ceilings in the kitchen to match the living room. Likewise, as part of renovations, they sought to match the wood for the cabinets in the kitchen to the existing cabinets on the other side of the wall in the living room. The cabinets were the work of Kansas City-based architecture firm Studio Build.

In the dining room, which also borders the living room, the couple replaced some existing carpet with new tiling that looks nearly identical to the original tiling in the living room, another example of that philosophy in action.

“I looked extremely hard to find one that matched this close, and I’m glad I finally found a company that does it,” McCaskill said.

photo by: Mike Yoder

The dining room features a wall collage of art and a lamp, table and chairs that fit the mid-century modern style.

In yet another change along those lines, they opted for vaulted ceilings in the kitchen, which again matches the living room. That was a change from the kitchen’s original drop ceilings.

Speaking of the high ceilings in the living room, they’re just one of its eye-catching features. Other highlights include the floor-to-ceiling windows facing the back deck and a wood-burning fireplace with an interesting shape that sits in the corner. It’s one of three fireplaces in the house, and McCaskill said this one’s her favorite.

photo by: Mike Yoder

Highlights in the living room include the floor-to-ceiling windows facing the back deck and a wood-burning fireplace with an interesting shape that sits in the corner.

Just down the hall in the master bedroom, original elements mix with modern updates. The room has its original carpet, but had to have its wallpaper replaced with a design as close to the original as possible.

This room’s also something of a measure of how far the couple have come. Rausch said when doing some measurements, they realized the bedroom is about 25% smaller than the entire square footage of the first house they moved into together. There have been a few stops along the way, but to go from that to a nearly 5,000-square-foot home is quite the journey.

As far as additions go, some of the most substantial are in the master bathroom. For one, the room didn’t originally have a door, so the couple added a pocket door.

photo by: Mike Yoder

A sliding pocket door separates the couple’s bedroom from the bathroom.

The bathroom itself is completely renovated, which McCaskill said is in large part because it originally had a drop ceiling that they wanted to remove. That meant that the original wallpaper couldn’t stay, and it’s since been replaced mostly with tiling, with a portion in wallpaper paying homage to the original bird pattern that decorated the room. The cabinets are the work of Adam Hess, the owner of local custom furniture and fixture company Bevel Wood and Metal.

The shower still steps down below the floor level of the rest of the room, but some of its original features were lost.

“It actually was a steam sauna and had like an infrared sauna in there, too,” McCaskill said. “And it had a tub spout, so they filled the bottom of it with water and could use it like a bathtub … It was really awesome but it was broken, so we couldn’t use it that way. And steam showers are extremely expensive, so we didn’t end up getting a new one of those.”

photo by: Mike Yoder

The couple’s master bathroom is completely renovated. The cabinets are the work of Adam Hess, the owner of local custom furniture and fixture company Bevel Wood and Metal.

Despite the changes, McCaskill and Rausch agreed that the shower renovation and vaulted ceilings mirroring from the living room into the kitchen were their two favorite changes they’ve made to the home.

“Because the ceiling was vaulted in (the living room), it just feels like it always was meant to be this way,” McCaskill said.

Perhaps the most significant changes are centered on the kitchen, because this space involves some shuffling of walls and entryways. There are a number of openings that either were much smaller originally or existed in different places. Near the home’s front door, what used to be two different entrances to the room are now cabinets designed to mirror the originals, with an entryway centered in between. That opening previously was a wall with a built-in desk. On one side, there used to be a closet, McCaskill said, with accordion doors that opened on both sides for entry, and on the other side there were two swinging doors for another kitchen entry.

photo by: Mike Yoder

After entering the home’s front door, what used to be two different entrances to the room are now cabinets designed to mirror the originals, with an entryway centered in-between. This shows the back side of the cabinets and the entryway to the kitchen.

There’s also a pass-through window facing the living room, which McCaskill said was originally about half the size it is now. A floating shelf directly underneath the window on the living room side was moved when expanding that window and has now found a new home in the kitchen.

“Stylistically, the kitchen was maybe the farthest off of the rest of the house,” Rausch said. “It was very traditional, so I think if anything, that was the biggest way we brought in the whole house, to be a more warm personality than the four or five (different styles) it was before.”

photo by: Mike Yoder

The couple relocated an original floating shelf from the living room to a new home in the kitchen.

That trio of rooms — the living room, master bedroom and master bathroom — were an addition to the home in the 1960s.

Arguably the home’s most unique feature, though, is an indoor pool right off the kitchen. There haven’t been any renovations in this room, save for having the pool worked on and maintained. The pool was originally outside, though. The room’s roof is something of a modified garage door, which McCaskill said was added by the previous owners in the 1990s to make maintenance easier. With the press of a button, the doors open to let in the heat of a summer day.

photo by: Mike Yoder

What might be the home’s most unique feature is an indoor pool right off the kitchen. The pool was originally outside but a retractable roof — something of a modified garage door — was added in the 1990s.

“This is what we really wanted to see when we saw the listing for the house,” McCaskill said. “Like ‘We have to see that, that’s insane.'”

Other miscellaneous rooms with original features include the laundry room, complete with original wallpaper and housing the original kitchen countertops and cabinets. Just down the hall from there is an especially eclectic room wallpapered in a bright red floral design.

photo by: Mike Yoder

An especially eclectic bedroom, in its original state, is wallpapered — over both walls and closet — in a bright red floral design.

“We actually learned from some friends that went to the (home’s) estate sale that the bedding in here, the shams and the bedding was the exact same pattern as (the wallpaper),” McCaskill said.

McCaskill said she’s been able to talk with one of the women who grew up in the home, who still lives in Lawrence, and one of the more important parts of the process for her is ensuring she and Rausch are doing their best to honor the home’s original design.

“We really do think that the people who we bought from, the people who designed and built it and lived in it their whole lives, it’s such a beautiful house and everything we did, we did just to try to continue what they were doing with the house and honor what they had done and basically stick with what they’d already built,” McCaskill said. “We feel less like now we’ve made this house ours and more that we’ve tried to do right by it, if that makes sense.”