The Heart of the Home
text by laurie lamountain photos by maillett photography
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before
In general, I like to make sure that there is enough space for you to be able to have three different types of things happening at the same time. Because when are you ever just making one thing when you have people coming over? Do you ever find yourself just making bread or just making cookies? Or are you making the pot roast while you’re making mashed potatoes, while you’re making brussel sprouts, while you’re prepping dessert?
14 lakelivingmaine .com
t twenty-five, Hannah Guilford is a force to be reckoned with: forthright, energetic and incredibly focused. She and her husband, Cody, launched Heart & Hammer Homes in March of 2019 and have been busy ever since. As a team, they provide home remodeling, general contracting, and interior design. ous owner in order return the kitchen to its The couple met when Hannah was fiforiginal structure and gain space. Walls and teen and Cody seventeen, and married five floors were shored up and reframed for propyears later. Their first house was a fixerer structural integrity, and trim work was repupper that they quickly flipped. They then licated to fill in where it had been removed. bought a piece of land on which they built Part of Hannah’s design process was their second home. While they were building researching and having a sense and underit, they decided to build a business. standing of the era in which the home was Hannah has always had a flair for design built, and using that as a driving force in and an entrepreneurial spirit (she made creating her own design. jewelry and headbands as a kid). Despite the fact that the kitchen was in “I remember constantly trying to change disrepair and didn’t flow well, most of the the paint color in my room, trying to redecoarchitectural interior was intact, allowing rate the house.” her to preserve the 1800s authenticity of the She recently completed her first high-end kitchen, while adding some of the decidedly kitchen redesign in an early 1800s New Engmodern elements the owner desired. And, land farmhouse for a client who has modof course, make it an attractive and fullyern, eclectic tastes and likes to entertain. functional 21st century kitchen. After meeting with him several times, “His knowing what he wanted actually both in person and virtually, to determine helped me to be able to push his boundaries a layout that suited the way he, an experiand bring in new things that he might not enced home chef, and his family function have chosen otherwise. He had a specific in the kitchen, Hannah’s vision sufficiently floor tile and backsplash tile that he liked,” impressed him to give her free reign and a says Hannah, “and from there it was my nice budget with which to work. responsibility to find other elements that The first order of business was removing a worked well with them.” bathroom that had been added on by a previ-
