Selected project
A house built around one shape.
Plaster arches, an entry floor laid by hand, and a kitchen island made like a piece of furniture rather than a run of cabinets.
One move, made everywhere.
Every house has a decision in it that the rest of the house then has to answer to. Here it was the arch — struck once at the entry, then repeated either side of the living room fireplace, again into the dining room, and once more in the shape of the mirror over the chest. Nothing about it is loud. You notice it three rooms in, which is when a motif is doing its job.
The panelling runs floor to ceiling in the entry and stops at the plaster elsewhere, so the house reads as two textures rather than one treatment applied out of habit.
The floor is the welcome.
Terracotta octagons with a small stone dot at every joint, laid across the entry and stopped clean where the white oak begins. It is the first thing underfoot and the last thing anyone would think to replace.
Against it, a walnut chest that does not match anything else in the room. That is the point. A brass mirror above it, a globe lamp, a jug of something dried and going over. The room is finished and still looks like somebody lives there.
A kitchen that is not all kitchen.
The island is a table. Stained oak, turned legs, two deep drawers and brass bail pulls — built as furniture and standing free of the run behind it, so the room does not read as one continuous fitted wall. The marble carries a violet vein that most people would have talked themselves out of, and it is the best thing in there.
Beyond the arch, a trestle table, sculpted oak chairs in bouclé, and a limestone fireplace at the end of the room. A dining room you can eat in on a Tuesday, which is the only real test of one.
Thinking about something like this?
Thirty minutes on the phone, no charge and no pitch. Tell us about the house.
Or call (216) 236-3883
Monday to Friday, 9am–7pm