When Bob Della Sala decided the time had come to update his Lower Macungie Township home, he had a plan. “I knew I wanted to upgrade the kitchen,” he says. “The kitchen cabinets were the original builder’s grade, they were peeling, they were coming apart.” So, kitchen overhaul? Check. That was the entirety of the to-do list. Easy enough. Then that plan went right out the window. “It turned out to be the whole first floor of the house,” Della Sala says.
Della Sala, the president and CEO of Keystone Sales & Associatesand owner of Allentown's Trendz Salon, purchased the home in 2006. It was a new build, a typical center-hall Colonial. “Nothing too fancy,” Della Sala says. Fancy or not, nearly 20 years later, it’s safe to say some elements of the home were showing their age. But what’s a bachelor to do? “I’m not good with colors, I’m not good with matching,” he says. “I knew I would need somebody to help me.”
That somebody was Amy Bloom, founder and owner of Lehigh Valley-based Spundesign. It was Bloom who gave Della Sala the gentle (and necessary) nudge in the direction of a more extensive home renovation; after all, a modern, refreshed kitchen would look out of place smack dab in the middle of the early 2000s vibe that permeated the rest of the place. “I couldn’t just do a kitchen with the peach walls peeking out from the fireplace room,” she says, which prompts a laugh from Della Sala.
By the time Bloom was finished working her magic, frequent visitors to the home probably didn’t recognize the place. For starters, the floor plan had changed. They decided to open up the first floor by knocking out a wall between the old kitchen and the formal dining room behind it, and then shifting the new kitchen into that dining area.
The look of the new kitchen is clean and classic without skewing too traditional; no white Shaker cabinets or subway tile here. Instead, Bloom opted for flat cabinets from Swartz Kitchens & Baths in two colors—black and walnut brown. The upper cabinets glow with soft interior illumination.
The walls are overlaid with marble hexagon tile from Creative Tile that extends all the way to the ceiling. A backsplash that ends below the oven hood is a pet peeve of Bloom’s: “It looks like it’s not finished,” she says.
When it was time to pick the quartz countertops, Bloom again veered away from predictable: “I saw black with white lightning in it. I thought, ‘That’s Bob,’” she says.
The overall kitchen color scheme when first proposed had its skeptics in the Della Sala camp. Ultimately, though, Bloom won them over: “I
said, ‘Trust me, trust me,’” she recalled. Della Sala conceded he was glad he did, describing the final look as soft, but manly.
That cycle—hesitation, assurance, satisfaction—would repeat itself more than once during the entirety of the project, which took about a year from planning the design in the spring of 2023 to adding the finishing touches. “She pretty much had full rein in picking all the stuff out,” Della Sala says. “She obviously wanted me to give my approval. Most of the time I said, ‘If you think that’s the way we should go, that’s the way we’re going to go.’”
For the new dining area, now an extension of the eat-in kitchen, Bloom chose a walnut table (a nod to the kitchen cabinets of the same hue) from Crate & Barrel with seating room for 10; the modern white chairs are from Arhaus. To one side of the table are two pairs of sliding glass doors that lead outside to the pool and hot tub, as well as a sizeable patio that’s been upgraded with a kitchen, refrigerator and seating area (couches and high tops), all protected from the elements
by a newly installed roof.
To the other side of the dining room table is a generously sized wine cooler, dry bar and hanging shelves custom made for Della Sala by 142 Ironworks. The roomy countertop is the perfect spot to whip up an old-fashioned or a Woodford Reserve on the rocks (Della Sala is a bourbon guy). It’s a reinvention of
an area that Della Sala says previously was just wasted space.
Remember those peach walls that Bloom detested so much? They’re long gone. In two rooms on the first floor she employed the drenching technique, meaning everything in the room—walls, ceiling, trim, doors, windowpanes—is painted the same color. “It packs a punch,” says Bloom of the look. “But it also cozies up the space. It’s like being wrapped up in a warm blanket.” It’s also cost effective—one room, one color—and it makes the painting process a little less stressful. Drips on the baseboards? No problem. It’s all going to be the same color, anyway.
But, before any cans could be cracked open and any paint could be poured, Bloom again had to do a little arm-twisting. Initially Della Sala wasn’t sold on the monochromatic theme, and lamented the loss of the home’s traditional white crown molding. Again, though, he decided to defer to Bloom: “She was right. I was very happy when it was all done.”
The game room off to the side of the kitchen got drenched in Sherwin-Williams’ Grizzle Gray, one of Bloom’s go-to darker hues, and now conjures up
a speakeasy vibe.
The living room is bathed in a creamy gray beige, with the exception of an accent wall that serves as the backdrop for the fireplace, which is sporting a new walnut mantle from AWM Carpentry. The wall is noteworthy for its three-dimensional flourish as well as its color: Little Black Dress from Behr. Think black with hints of blue. Della Sala says it’s a crowd-pleaser. “When people come into my home now, they look at that and go, 'Wow, that’s really cool.' That’s really something that grabs their attention.”
And that blue, while subtle, was intentional: Della Sala is a Dallas Cowboys fan. The color also makes an appearance in a stairwell leading up to the second floor, as well as in the picture frames that encase Della Sala’s high school and college football jerseys. Those hang on the wall in his office, another room that was drenched, this time in Sherwin-Williams’ Bunglehouse Gray.
The jerseys are one example of personalized décor that Bloom curated for the home. Another is on an adjoining wall in the office: a wood carving of the Keystone company logo, fashioned by one of Della Sala’s employees, hangs between a pair of matching cabinet units. A single-light wall sconce was added above it to create a pop of dramatic illumination.
Bloom also made sure that an American flag Della Sala’s father received for his military service, as well as a picture of Della Sala and his mother, were positioned in places of prominence in the home. These special touches make all the difference, Bloom says. A house should be filled with meaningful items, not just stuff.
The completion of the first-floor renovation doesn’t mean Bloom has seen the last of the Della Sala home. He was so pleased with her work, he decided to enlist her expertise again, this time for an overhaul of the second floor. Although the start date isn’t set in stone (it’ll happen sometime in 2025), Bloom
says she’s already brain-storming ideas.
When that project is done, there won’t be much in the home’s interior that Spundesign hasn’t enhanced in some way. And it all started with a kitchen.
Published as “Making It Modern: A Masculine Lower Macungie Home Makeover” in the February 2025 edition of Lehigh Valley Style magazine.
