A Victorian row house of generous proportions — five stories, rare backyard — this Lincoln Park home had been renovated many times over, each pass stripping a little more of its original character. Our work was part restoration, part reinvention, honoring what deserved to be saved, updating what didn’t, and creating a place where the two approaches created a beautiful tension.

At points, we reached for the historic marrow: reading the lines of the room, Wendy deftly predicted that an original fireplace surround hid behind drywall (she was right!) Elsewhere, the studio leaned into the contemporary, fitting the kitchen in eye-catching Calacatta Viola marble and flat-panel cabinetry. Most rooms get a touch of each — the living room fireplace is flanked by hutches, one midcentury, and one made custom for the space (but 19th century in feel). Both hide children’s toys, allowing beauty to have the first and last word, but offering a lot of life in between. 

The home’s contemporary strokes proved an apt canvas for saturated color and bold decorative moves — a Venetian plaster primary bathroom, a garnet library, a wavy mallard green headboard that wraps and anchors the primary bedroom. Cleverly, the home is outfitted with materials like velvet and mohair that are designed to delight—and stand up to—hands young and old.  A sense of possibility and play unites the space. Even the kids feel it.