It’s an honor to feature the Veth family this month! Mark is an optometrist and the owner of Be Spectacled, our go-to spot for optical needs and chic eyewear, and he and his wife Kerry, along with their four children, call Tosa home. They recently completed a major addition and renovation project, and here they share a bit about the process, plus what they enjoy most about living near the Village and how Mark, a Chicago native, decided to put down roots in Wisconsin.
Tell us a little bit about your family. How many children do you have? And what are their ages?
Our children are Freddy (13), Ozzie (12), Clyde (9), and Cleo (7).
We understand that you chose to remodel your own home instead of moving. Can you tell us a bit about how you arrived at that decision?
Oh, boy. About four years ago, we started thinking that we wanted a fourth bedroom and a second upstairs bathroom. We looked pretty casually around Tosa for houses that were coming on the market, but in the end decided that we loved our location, neighbors, and the work we had already done on the house enough to pull the trigger on an addition. We added a primary suite and laundry room to our second floor, and a walk-in pantry, family room, and back entry area to the first floor.
As many families chose a similar route of renovating versus buying new, what advice do you have for surviving a remodel with kids?
On the first day the demo team broke through a wall into our house, I told the kids to just stay in the front rooms of the house that day after school. One of the kids looked at me and said, “I’m not sure this is going to be worth it, Mom!” Ha. We were very fortunate that we weren’t out of our kitchen, and no one had to move out of their bedrooms. We did lose most of our backyard for a year, which was rough on the kids, but they survived. We tried to keep the mindset that this wasn’t something that we had to do, it was something we chose to do, and that we were so fortunate to be able to do it.
What do you and your kids enjoy doing in and around Wauwatosa?
Mark and the boys love playing sports, so they’re out playing baseball, basketball, or football whenever they have the chance. Cleo and I like walking or riding bikes to playgrounds. We all love how close our friends are. Our middle schoolers have a newfound love of the Village—Neimann’s Homemade Candies & Ice Cream, Yo Mama!, and the soda machine at Noodles & Company. Cranky Al’s on Saturday mornings is a regular thing.
We know Mark is originally from Chicago, and then attended Marquette University. What ultimately drew him back to Wisconsin? And to Wauwatosa specifically?
After Marquette, Mark went to optometry school in Illinois, then moved back to Milwaukee for a job. Mark first bought a house on the west side of Tosa that his friend’s sister was selling, because he was about to turn 30 and decided it was time to move out of the rental house he shared with his friends on the East Side of Milwaukee. In 2010, Mark opened Be Spectacled in the Village, and by 2012 we had the two boys and it seemed like the business wasn’t going to fail. So, we started looking for something bigger and loved the idea of being within walking distance of the Village.
