vintage spaces
athi Hardin doesn’t wear a cape. She doesn’t fight crime or leap tall buildings in a single bound. But she is a hero. With one sweeping glance, Kathi can size up a decrepit, frazzled piece of furniture and know there is life left beneath the distress. She can see past the hours of wear on a rusty old clock and know there’s still a tick of beauty inside, waiting to come back out. Kathi is a true champion of the objects that time and kindness forgot—and she’s rescuing them, one at a time. “I’ve always had a knack for finding uses for things that nobody else wants,” says Kathi, a stay-at-home mom and mother of two young boys. “It started as a hobby and has grown into a life’s work for me.” She has spent just shy of a decade fixing up and decorating her home in Leawood, an endeavor that didn’t come easily. When she and her husband Mike moved into the three bed, two bath ranch home, it was nothing short of a design disaster. Though some less enthusiastic homeowners would have been intimidated at the amount of work ahead, Kathi saw the home as a labor of love. “I remember orange shag carpeting and brown paneling,” Kathi says with a grimace. “To me, it was an exciting new project. We gutted a lot of it, including the kitchen. I’ve put years of my work and ideas into this house, and I’m very proud of it.” Design on a Dime Leawood resident Kathi Harden shares her advice on taking a piece of nothing, and turning it into a beautiful something. By Kim Antisdel K
VintageKC / Fall 2012 14
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker