Story 4
Project Chicago Revive - House Tour
I think I can speak for every Interior Designer when I say, that the best projects are not the ones with the most money or the coolest location. They are the ones where there is a certain level of trust and unrestraint that a client gives them to complete the job at hand to the highest possible level. If the team you hire is good, the project will go off without (much) of a hitch. The vision will be more than you expected and the final result should make you fall in love with your home.
To get to work with that client not once, but twice, means you did your job well. That was the case for our Chicago Revive project. This lovely family hired me to design their second home here in Charleston in 2020. As is the case with most of our clients, they were not yet living in Charleston, so we handled everything from the design to the project management of trades, etc. for them. The result was a light and airy beach home that felt modern but timeless. So when they asked if I would be willing to design their new permanent home in Chicago, I jumped at the opportunity.
The home they had purchased in the suburbs of Chicago had incredible bones. The trim work was beautiful and the original hardwood floors had the richest brown stain on them. Easy things to work with, but the finishes throughout the house felt mostly builder grade. The lighting was dated, and the paint color throughout was very…vanilla. We wanted to highlight the beautiful trim by adding contrasting, yet soothing colors and textures. We wanted to merge the warmth from the floors with the rest of the house. Most importantly we wanted to update the home to feel inviting, less stuffy, and modern for the young family.
Paint Color: SW Stardew
We transformed the sitting room into a proper music room and made the clients grand piano the center of attention. We saturated the walls, trim, and ceiling in the same calming grey that has the faintest blue undertone. The drapery was original to the house and I chose to keep it in this room because I loved how the taupe silk really added an understated level of elegance to the space. We switched out the ceiling fixture to a bubble glass chandelier. The furniture is a lovely mixture of different textures; velvet, linen, reclaimed wood, and acyclic. For the art, I chose giclee abstracts that were colorful enough to make the space come alive, but still calming enough to blend all of the rooms elements together.
New Dining Room
The existing Dining room had a neutral brown grasscloth wallpaper on the walls above the wainscoting that I chose to embrace and put our budgeted funds into the furniture and art. We added additional warmth with the beautiful wood dining table and leather backed chairs. The rattan light adds some nice texture to the space. The accessories in here are all natural pottery or stoneware and bring the space full circle.
Walls & Trim: SW Pure White
Perhaps my favorite room in the house is the living room. Again, the millwork was incredible. We painted everything in a beautiful buttery white and added a neutral tan grasscloth wallpaper behind the bookcase. The furniture is classic but with a more modern style in what has typically been traditional fabrics. A charcoal gray velvet on the sofa and a boucle on the chairs. The coffee table has a classic herringbone inlay pattern on it. The rug in here has a faint light pale blue undertone to it which helped lightened the furnishings and allowed us to incorporate some of the previous coastal art from our client’s Charleston Home.
The second floor was much like the first in that the bones were good; the millwork was classic and the tile in each bathroom was all a beautiful Carrara marble. Again, our objective was to highlight all of that and bring the spaces to life. I wanted the primary bedroom suite to feel like a retreat. Soothing, sensual, a little bit sexy for this busy mom of three little ones. We had an existing rug and canopy wood bed that we had made and used in Charleston. We were able to fit in the new space. I also chose to embrace the custom made silk drapery panels already in the room. Not a normal fabric for me but they felt so elegant and added that little dose of lusciousness I was looking for.
New Primary bedroom Video Tour
I painted the walls and trim in SW Morning Fog. A soothing gray color with a purple undertone to it. It really added so much gracefulness to the space. The light floods through those doors and it is just so peaceful. We ordered new, off white wood nightstands to fit the smaller space. Other than the artwork I chose not to add a ton of other colors in the space, opting instead to stick to a more monochromatic color palette.
In the video above, you can see a glimpse of the hallways the leads into the owner’s closets and Primary Bathroom Space. I found a wallpaper that to this day, is one of my favorite Wallpaper’s I have ever used. It is breathtaking. From the image you can see that it is a flowing pattern of palms in various blue tones. What you can’t see from afar is that it is a grasscloth and that there is actually quite a bit of lavendar color tones weaving their way through the wallpaper. The in person affect is mesmerizing. We switched out all of the lighting in the primary bath including the beautiful glass cascade Chandelier we installed over the tub. Then I styled the space with some soothing coastal art pieces as well as some hand drawn figurines (not shown).
Finally, this house was not short of useable space for this busy family. There was an existing office space / library off the main living room on the first floor that we turned into a chic playroom. We painted all of the millwork and existing built ins in here to match the rest of the house then wallpapered the walls in a pretty gray modern wallpaper that had the faintest lilac undertone.
The upstairs featured three extra bedrooms here for the kids with bathrooms for them to share. We didn’t want to break the budget in these spaces so we left the bathrooms mostly intact but upgraded all of the lighting, mirrors and artwork. The girls bedrooms are the sweetest. We chose an accent wallpaper for each of their rooms to match their personalities then coordinated the rest of the room with a fun paint color, new window dressings, art, and furnishings. As in most of our kids rooms, we like to choose things that could grow with them so that our clients can get many years of use out of the rooms before their kids are grown and have strong opinions about what they want their coveted room to look like!
The last remaining spaces were on the third floor of the home. Up here we had a large loft area that had a lot of space for toys, arts and crafts, as well as lounging and watching movies. These areas were where we spent the least amount of our clients budget. The walls were a neutral gray so I chose to not paint them but added a fun lemon decal on the back wall. Paired with performance comfy fabrics, a soft rug to play, and some fun colorful art, we were able to make the space come alive without breaking the bank.