Gail Marie Gil of Franklin Park redesigned her family’s kitchen, den and living room and recently won $1,500 from Better Homes and Gardens magazine for her efforts. (Heidi Murrin, Tribune-Review)

Read all about the Franklin Park woman who wowed editors at Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

The August issue showcases the decorative creativity of homemaker Gail Marie Gil, of Bellwood Drive, a winner in the magazine’s Home Improvement Contest.

Gil, a veteran garage sale shopper, placed first in the public rooms category of the contest’s interior design division. She won $1,500 for reincarnating the kitchen, den and living room in her family’s 23-year-old two-story, four-bedroom home.

“It’s sort of ‘modern country,’” Gil says of the rooms’ new look. “The rustic look always appealed to me. ... I always liked the ‘shabby chic.’”

Eye-catching features range from new cherry floors and French doors to a worn jelly cabinet and other old farmhouse-style furniture, plus an aged leaded-glass window, suspended in mid-air.

“I love white, and I love old and vintage things,” says Gil, a one-time medical research assistant at Allegheny General Hospital. Her husband, Bill Gil, is a profusionist, a person who operates heart-lung machines. The couple have two sons, Ryan, 9, and Sean, 13.

A few years ago, the Gils considered moving to escape the confining discomfort of their formerly dark, drab living room and den. A long paneled wall used to separate the rooms.

“We just wanted to open that up and make it flow better,” Gail Gil says. “So we knocked out as much of that wall as we could ... and kind of opened up the entry way, and put in a French door.”

The Gils then added windows to their family room, plus a window seat. They also sold their old furniture and bought new oversized, upholstered armchairs, sofas and ottomans, with washable slipcovers. They bought a lot of white paint.

Before: The Gils’ old family room had dark wood paneling that made the room feel closed and “not livable,” Gail Gil says.

“The family room was so dark, and so uncomfortable. ... It was just not livable,” Gil says. “We really just reorganized the space and opened it up and brightened it by taking out some dark paneling and adding windows.”

A pocket door now connects the Gils’ former living room—now a quiet reading and TV room with a new Ethan Allen entertainment center—to the family’s old family room—now the “fireplace” room—which feels more like a sunny porch, thanks to all of the room’s new casement windows.

“The wind comes in. It’s really fresh and nice,” Gil says. “When they’re open, you feel like you’re outside.”

Last October, a Better Homes and Gardens photographer spent nearly two days snapping pictures at the Gils’ home.

“They had a lot of reflectors they would position so the light on the inside was just right,” Gil says.

Staffers at Better Homes and Gardens admire how Gil used relatively simple steps to achieve an affordable, dramatic transformation.

“This is a magic makeover. ... She obviously has a great touch,” says Joan McCloskey, editorial marketing director at Better Homes and Gardens.

“Better Homes and Gardens is about inspiring other people to achieve warm, sunny and comfortable spaces for their homes, too,” McCloskey says. Gil launched her prize-winning project with a simple urge to brighten her kitchen and display her vintage china. “The (kitchen) cabinets were dark. There was no lighting. ... So I just said, ‘We’ll try a low-cost thing here and paint them.’ ... I had a collection of 1940s Southwest dishes. ... The whole thing kind of evolved around that,” Gil recalls. “I knocked out some of the panels in the (kitchen) cabinets and replaced them with glass, so I could display these dishes. ... I painted the cabinets and added new hardware ... new lights.”

After: A lot of white paint and new furniture make the Gils’ new family room a much brighter, more inviting space. (Heidi Murrin, Tribune-Review)

A colorful new Tiffany glass-style lampshade hangs over the kitchen table.

“I got this table and these chairs at a garage sale,” says Gil, who learned about the Better Homes and Gardens home improvement competition—a biennial event—while shopping for ways to change her home.

“I was looking through magazines and pulling out pictures,” she recalls. “We were talking to designers.”

Gil eventually spent two weeks preparing her photo-filled entry booklet, one of about 5,200 entries in the magazine’s latest Home Improvement Contest.

The Gils worked with Bogel & Joseph Builders of Franklin Park, along with Squirrel Hill designer Stephen Bourne, to achieve their remodeling goals.

“We used a designer to help with developing a plan to give to a contractor,” Gil says.

Contractors performed the work in early 2000. The Gils lived without a family room or living room for about two months.

“A new deck is the next project,” says Gil, who plans to take a decorating class in the fall. She thinks she might like to help others decorate their homes.

“I guess I have an ‘eye,’” she says. “I’m waiting for a job offer.”

Deborah Deasy can be reached at ddeasy@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7989.

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