Patty Phillips knew she wanted to trade in her three-bedroom Mission Hills home for a faster-paced urban lifestyle with smaller digs. Her options were plentiful, but finding the right condo proved a bit of a challenge. She started looking directly downtown but felt it came up short in safety. Some friends lived in Townsend Place on the Plaza and alerted her to an available unit in the building. It was perfectly sized for a single person, including an entry, open kitchen and living area, one bedroom and two full baths, plus a wraparound balcony with a superb view of Kansas City’s famous Spanish-inspired architecture. It was move-in ready but rather dated and bland, with pale cream walls and blonde hardwood floors.



“I didn’t know what I wanted to do with it at that point,” Patty says. “I figured it would come to me, so I made it up as I went.” She interviewed several contractors and picked Eddie Surface with Surface to Surface Interior Design and Renovation, who came by recommendation. “I got a good feeling about Eddie, and he was the only one who would roll with it,” she explains. 

They started renovations by tearing out the old kitchen, which was U-shaped, replacing it with perimeter cabinets and an island. Because Patty eats out more than she cooks, she opted for luxurious materials that come with warnings, such as Italian marble countertops. They could stain easily but look great, with the brown and creamy veining bringing a sense of nature up to her six stories in the air. (She also brings home plenty of fresh flowers and plants, although her unit’s elevation is windier and hotter than the ground, leaving her with a learning curve as to what can survive.)

All the soffits were removed and the cabinets taken to the ceiling to make the room seem taller. Patty used this same trick elsewhere — on the windows, in the entry bath and the opening to her bedroom — hanging fabric from the ceiling rather than normal bar height.



One thing that bothered Patty since she purchased the unit was that there were only three structural columns bulging curvaceously out of the perimeter walls with an unusually large gap between two of them that jarred her sense of symmetry. To fix it, Eddie created a concrete form that mimicked the size and shape of the others. The one in the kitchen had to be boxed out to fit the cabinets, but didn’t affect the look.

Because space was at a premium, Eddie removed a clunky built-in entertainment system, making room for Patty’s lovely, oversized rustic red chest of drawers. “Once that was out, the space immediately felt bigger,” Eddie adds. Today’s technology needs much less space — in this case, just a mantel-sized sliver above the see-through fireplace. Patty hung two flat-screen TVs on an angled wall separating the living room and the bedroom, hiding all the equipment in between. She can access the machines and wires via pull-down panels, all the rest of the while gazing at hip patterns of natural stone mosaics.



Patty’s bathroom was wired for sound and TV as well, but its focus is on spacious luxury. “I told her to pick out a tub and I’d design around it,” Eddie says. She selected a bubble tub that constantly heats the water and self-cleans. He installed it abutting the back of the walk-in shower with only a piece of glass in between, making the room appear larger. Glamorous glass tile and Kohler’s clever Hatbox toilet give the room added punch. Her closet with washer/dryer is conveniently just beyond. While it’s a nice size and professionally compartmentalized, Eddie told Patty she would have to discard some things. She took the news considerably well. “I don’t have a lot of ‘stuff,’” she admits. “But it was hard for me to pare down my shoes.”

She took the less-is-more approach for the rest of the rooms in stride, choosing large-scale pieces that substantiated rather than diminished the spaces they obliged. Much of the furniture placement required trial and error, and if it erred, it was out. “A lot of people benefited from my furniture disposal!” Patty exclaims. “I said, ‘This is it, I’ve got no more room.’ It’s good to purge. I kept what I loved, and if I wasn’t sure about it, it wasn’t that hard to let go. It was freeing.”

Patty’s new style of living allowed her to cut any emotional ties with her old house. “From the moment I stayed here, I never missed it,” she shrugs.