A family ditched their dining room and added a primary suite above the garage in a $1 million renovation of their home

Martino, 37, is an interior designer and real-estate agent who lives in Monmouth County, New Jersey, with her partner of 13 years, Mario, and their four children.

In 2022, they were living in the apartment above one of the two restaurants Mario owns in Hoboken. When they found out they were having a third child, the couple knew it was time to find a bigger home.

Martino had her heart set on a colonial-style house they could make into their forever home. The couple searched for months without success.

"We put out maybe five to six offers on different houses, and we kept losing out on them," she said. "Every time, I was so devastated because it's such an emotional process."

In October 2022, they saw a 2,700-square-foot house built in 1979 that spoke to Martino. It had four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and two half bathrooms, one of which was in the three-car garage. It was clearly a family home.

"The owners were there for 20-something years," she said. "It was just dated, but it was very well cared for."

Martino knew she would want to make substantial changes to the house, but the land it sat on made it feel like the perfect place to turn into their home.

"On our property, we have dozens of 100-foot trees," Martino said. "All of the properties that you find for a brand-new build have nothing on them."

She also loved the surrounding area, which offers easy access to apple orchards and horseback riding while remaining within commuting distance of her partner's restaurants.

"It was like right price, right location, and we can do what we need to do to make it look how we wanted to in the end," she said.

They bought the house for $1.075 million.

After they closed on the house on Halloween in 2022, Martino and her partner made plans and tapped professionals to carry out the renovation, which would involve everything from painting to altering the layout.

Martino had some experience in interior design from flipping homes and gutting apartments, so she wasn't going in blind. She wanted to give the house a traditional but welcoming feel.

"I love all styles, but that's what felt most me," she said. "I've always loved colonial homes because they have that charm to them."

"I want it to be new, but I want it to look old," she added. "I love architectural details, and I feel like you get a lot of that with traditional style, a lot of detailing in everything from your millwork to your countertop edge."

Martino and her family continued living in their apartment during the renovation, which took about 15 months.

When they bought the house, it had a blue exterior, which Martino and her partner wanted to update.

It also had a one-story garage. They decided to add a second story above it that could be turned into a primary suite.

The expansion above the garage added 850 square feet to the house and, from the exterior, made it look grander.

A new color palette also made the home look brand-new. The exterior siding was painted white, capturing the colonial look Martino was going for. Paint throughout the home cost $30,000.

She also had the team add new windows to bring more light into the house, and statement shutters completed the look, highlighting Martino's attention to detail in her home.

"A lot of people will just glue shutters onto the house, and they're flat, whereas I wanted the shutters to look functional," she said. "I've got hinges and the tie backs to make them actually look like they work."

When you walked into the home before the renovation, you were greeted by a stairwell on the left, a living room on the right through an archway, and a closet across from the stairs.

You could touch the ceiling for the first floor from the stairwell, as it housed a bedroom directly to the right. Martino didn't love the layout, as the foyer felt pretty dark and cramped. She also didn't like that a bathroom sat in front of the kitchen, cutting off the entryway from the rest of the house.

"I'm all about sightlines, so I wanted to see the backyard from the front door when you walked in," Martino said.

Martino decided to remove the bedroom on the second floor to the right to open up the entryway. They also took out the closet and bathroom that blocked the view to the back of the house, and by adding sliding glass doors to the back wall, you can see all the way to the backyard from the front door, just as she hoped.

"It just felt really grand when you walked in by doing that," Martino said.

Little touches, including pocket French doors leading to the room off the right, also made the space more aesthetically pleasing and functional for Martino's family. For instance, instead of making the room a formal living room, Martino decided to make it a more casual family room, putting the TV on the main floor there rather than in the open-concept living area near the kitchen.

"If we have adults over and the kids want to go play in that room, we can close those pocket doors, and they could do their thing in there while having the adult space in the other area," Martino said. "Now we use the entire floor plan."

The kitchen is positioned at the back of the home, and before the renovation, it was fairly small because of the bathroom and formal dining room that sat near it.

Martino wanted to make some major changes to the space, prioritizing storage, counter space, high-end appliances, and natural light.

The bathroom they removed to make the backyard visible from the front door also made the kitchen larger.

The kitchen sink was in the same place after the renovation, but nearly every other aspect of the space was different.

White cabinets and drawers lined the walls, some featuring glass panes. Martino added high-end touches throughout the space, from marble countertops and backsplash to a massive island with a walnut countertop.

"I feel like with a white kitchen it really adds so much warmth," Martino said of the island. "White kitchens could lean very cold and builder-grade if they're not done right."

They also bought a $12,000 Sub-Zero refrigerator. It was a splurge upfront, but Martino said it's already saving her family money in the long run.

"We didn't want to have to have another refrigerator in the garage, which I feel like most people do," Martino said. "And the great thing about Sub-Zero is that everything lasts longer."

When Martino and her partner were house hunting, she fell in love with an arched window above the sink in the first house they saw.

They put an offer in on the house, but it didn't go through. Still, Martino didn't forget the window, holding onto it as she daydreamed about her perfect home.

When they were designing the kitchen in their new home, she decided to recreate it. The completed window had the same pane style as the sliding doors overlooking the backyard, adding to the bright, airy feel of the space.

Before the renovation, the home's formal dining room was to the left of the foyer. However, Martino and her partner couldn't see themselves using it often, so they decided to get rid of it.

"We had the space for an eat-in kitchen, and now if we ever do have parties where we need more seating, I could put a long table in my entryway, and it'll connect to our kitchen table," she said.

Their dining table sits in the center of their open-concept kitchen and living area.

By giving up the formal dining room, Martino was able to add a pantry and a statement butler's pantry.

"We weren't building for resale value," she said. "Build your house for you, and eventually, if you do happen to have to sell it at some point, there's going to be somebody out there who's going to like it and buy it."

Sitting off the kitchen, the butler's pantry is lined with blue cabinets and drawers that have gold hardware. It has a sink, a microwave, and a few high-end appliances, making it the "entertaining space," as Martino calls it.

"We're big coffee and wine drinkers, so in the butler's pantry, I got this built-in coffee machine," she said. "It's very bougie, but it's like our favorite thing ever. And then we have our wine refrigerator."

The space also has a refrigerator drawer and a freezer drawer, where Martino keeps her kids' go-to snacks. Some of the cabinets they can reach are reserved for their snacks as well.

"It's just perfectly functional for us," Martino said. "I love that it's so moody. I have two paintings of Mario's restaurants in there, so it feels so personal. It's a daily reminder of where we came from and how we were able to do all of the things that we're doing in our house."

Because the living room was set to be part of the open-concept area in Martino's home, she knew she wanted it to match the aesthetic she created in the kitchen.

They replaced the flooring throughout the home, choosing a darker wood. Martino also wanted to update the fireplace and the built-in bookshelves lining the back wall of the living room.

Martino kept the fireplace framed by bookshelves, but she completely changed their look. The fireplace itself is stone, and it's framed by a white mantle.

Likewise, she had custom cabinetry built to modernize the bookshelves, prioritizing high-end millwork, such as molding and trim, in the design.

"I was like, 'I am saving all of my money for millwork,'" Martino told Business Insider. "My builder knew it, and my partner knew it. Millwork, to me, is what makes a home so charming and gives it so much character."

They ended up spending $40,000 on custom millwork. Built-in cabinetry throughout the home also took up a large chunk of their renovation budget, coming in at around $100,000.

The back entrance of the house had a mudroom before the renovation, but Martino wasn't crazy about the layout. There was also a laundry room in the space, but Martino wanted to move the laundry upstairs.

She took out the laundry room, moved the back door, and upgraded the half-bath in the garage to a full bath inside, making up for the bathroom they lost closer to the kitchen. She also lined one wall with locker-style cabinets for her children to use.

Because she knew she was adding a brand-new primary suite, Martino wasn't afraid to remove and reconfigure the existing upstairs rooms.

In addition to removing the bedroom directly to the right of the stairs to make the foyer grander, Martino also enclosed the entrance to the bathroom across from it, making it an en suite for a guest room at the end of the hall.

"Now, my guests can come, and they have their own bathroom," Martino said.

Although they removed a whole room from the second level, Martino said they only lost about 70 square feet, in part because they used some of it to create a walk-in closet in the bedroom directly next to it.

Martino brought some color to her kids' rooms, like the floral wallpaper she chose for her daughter, while making sure they were built with function in mind, including a built-in desk.

Martino also carried the design touches she implemented downstairs, like high-end trim and new hardwood floors, upstairs to create continuity between the spaces.

To the left of the stairwell, the home had two walk-in closets before the renovation. One was, strangely, in the hallway, while the other was in what was formerly the primary bedroom.

Since her family didn't need the closet space, Martino removed the wall between them and turned the closets into a small bedroom.

"It's a nursery for now," Martino said. "It'll probably end up being an office down the line."

Like her daughter's bedroom, the nursery has some colorful touches through green closet doors and wainscotting.

The previous primary bathroom sat on the left side of the upstairs. During the renovation, Martino had a hallway built out that leads to the addition, where the bathroom her kids use now sits.

Although the space was functional, the finishes were dated, from the blue tile floors to the plywood cabinet.

It needed to be modernized to fit with the rest of the house.

The bathroom became a luxury space that could fit the entire family.

A double vanity sink means it's easy for her kids to share, and Martino used round tile to create a traditional feel. Bold wallpaper and dark baseboards add to the moody look.

The space also has a bath now instead of just a shower.

Rather than just having a doorway to the primary bedroom, Martino decided to make an antechamber that separated the primary suite from the rest of the second floor.

"I wanted there to be an area that greets you before you just walk into the bedroom," she said.

The primary suite has a private bedroom and bathroom, bringing the home's total to five bedrooms and four bathrooms. Martino also situated the new laundry room in the suite, splurging on two sets of washers and dryers for $2,500.

Martino said she got her vision for their sunsoaked bathroom on Pinterest, making a large tub the focal point of the room. It also has a massive shower, a double vanity, and big windows.

They added touches to the bathroom with an Italian flair, like a basket-weave tile floor and Calacatta marble detailing, a splurge Martino said "was 100% worth the money" because it reminds her partner of Italy, where he was born.

The marble floor cost nearly $8,000, and the bathroom cost over $84,000 in total, as Martino broke down in a TikTok video.

Martino loves the bathroom, but she said it does have a few flaws. The floors get really cold since the room sits above the garage, so they may add heat to their garage to help fix that problem.

Martino also said the bathroom was bigger than it needed to be. She sometimes wishes she had made it slightly smaller and added a second walk-in closet to the bedroom instead.

Martino and her partner spent over $600,000 renovating the interior of their home, while the exterior changes cost over $400,000. In total, the renovation cost just over $1 million.

Martino has been posting about their renovation on social media, including the cost. She told Business Insider she thinks it can be helpful for others to be transparent about what it takes to transform a house the way she did.

"HGTV, they make you think that you can do what we did for like $200,000, and it's just not the case," Martino said. "I was happy to share all of that information because you know we've helped so many people along the way with their own renovation and planning for it."

Although they worked on the house for 15 months, it isn't finished. Built-in shelving in the primary bedroom and the laundry room isn't complete, and Martino hopes to eventually add an outdoor kitchen to their backyard.

The bedrooms will also need to be reconfigured at some point, as Martino and her partner have welcomed a fourth child since buying the home. They also refinished the basement, but they may make additional changes to it down the line.

For now, though, Martino is enjoying her home with her family, and the renovation has opened a new career path for her. After she started posting TikTok videos of her renovation, people left comments asking if she could work on their homes. She started taking on clients last year, designing for people in New Jersey and across the US remotely.

"At 36 years old, I changed my career," she said. "I said to Mario, 'I really want to start doing this for other people.' It's become such a passion of mine going through this whole process."