Name: Jessica and Charley Wheelock (and their two kids)
Location: Southeast — Portland, Oregon
Size: 1,700 square feet
Years lived in: 6 — owned
Charley and Jessica moved from New York to South East Portland about six years ago and haven't looked back. Their 1920's era home took a lot of love and care to fix up, but now it is the perfect canvas for their laid back, perfectly imperfect, handmade style. This home is lived in and loved wholeheartedly.
Charley and Jessica have worked in the visual world for many years; Charley as an industrial designer and Jessica serving multiple stints at style magazines such as Martha Stewart. Collectively they have great taste and their home perfectly merges their unique talents. Charley is a wonderful woodworker with a talent for building things with practical elegance (as well as ridiculousness, but that's another story). Jessica sews and styles little touches that give the house real personality.
The couple remodeled their kitchen with almost no budget, with great effect. They opened up a small, hall/like galley kitchen into an airy space where they can cook and be apart of family life at the attached dining and living areas. The white subway tiles, salvaged shelves and Ikea butcher block come together seamlessly to create a homey, social vibe that is both modern and timeless. It's good they figured this part of the home out because Charley and Jessica create their bean–to–bar chocolate line, Woodblock Chocolates, in this very space. They are in the process of moving to a commercial kitchen, but for now they are able to work, create and parent all from this wonderful kitchen and dining room.
This home gets plenty of natural light and the greyish tones of most of the walls reflect and change with the patterns of clouds throughout the day. The effect is most lovely, giving each room a slightly different feel depending on what time it is. In grey Portland, this balance of color and light is so critical and Jessica and Charley have come up with a great solution.
Apartment Therapy Survey:
Our Style:
Patina Clean. It is a new movement. It is where wabi sabi meets palimpsest with some Scandinavian sensibility but grounded with some American girth.
Inspiration:
Raw material, process, craftsmanship, budget.
Favorite Element:
Fire! We have a fireplace in the dining room!
Biggest Challenge:
Landscaping has been no gimme. We were apartment dwellers for years so when we got a yard we made a bunch of hasty decisions that have not worked out. When you put a chair in the corner, it stays there. It doesn't grow Oregon huge.
What Friends Say:
Mmm Smells like roasty chocolate in here.
Biggest Embarrassment:
I am probably the main source of embarrassment in our household.(-Charley)
Proudest DIY:
Kitchen remodel. We took out the old boxy cabinets, took out an inexplicable wall and made the kitchen a bright, warm, functional, social area. We managed to make our new kitchen without spending much money at all.
Biggest Indulgence:
Until we made some adjustments to our fireplace, we would always smoke out our whole house, causing the fire alarms to go off every time we lit the fire. We wanted the fire so badly that we would hide the fire alarms in the basement and open all the doors, letting our expensive heat escape, but allowing us to have dinner by a crackling fire...in our jackets.
Best Advice:
Get cool, used furniture! Don't get seduced by Ikea! Of course we have some Ikea stuff but be better than us!
Dream Sources:
Craigslist score! We love getting stuff from Craigslist because along with the thing, you get some story. History is a good catalyst for an emotional connection between humans and stuff.
Resources of Note:
PAINT & COLORS
- • Glidden: Southern Shadow (entryway)
• Yolo: Leaf (kitchen)
• Yolo: Leaf (master bedroom)
LIVING ROOM
- • coffee table and shelving unit: I (Charley) designed and built
• chair: Eames
KITCHEN
- • shelves: made from wood extracted from upstairs bathroom remodel
• counter tops: refashioned Ikea butcher block
BEDROOM
- • bedside tables: Brooklyn Flea
• bench: My Dad made it in High School
• Japanese prints: Jessica's Grandmother's
• Visit Charley and Jessica's Chocolate company: WoodBlock Chocolate
Thanks, Charley and Jessica!
Images: Leela Cyd Ross
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Even the dollhouse decor has good style! Very nice cozy home, lots of interesting things to look at. From the first photo, I could tell that these are New Yorkers.
It's absolutely perfect, and it looks like real people with a normal budget/lifestyle live there!
I'd love to know where they got the curtains for the dining room.
Love the kitchen!
That is a really, really nice house! And I like the butcher block a lot. I'm curious though; I didn't see a sink nearby, but I know there has to be one. Is Ikea butcher block okay near water? Seems like it would get musty, no? Or would crack, even if it was sealed properly. I'm also wondering whether they would look okay with black cabinetry, as that is what we are thinking of doing.
The good folks at IKEAFANS have lots of hints about butcher block and sinks -- I think a lot of people use a sealant called waterlox, but it is not food safe so you can't cut on it.
Here is a traditional kitchen with a dark island with butcher block: http://www.ikeafans.com/home/1840-farmhouse-kitchen/
The surrounding countertops are also butcherblock but dyed black with india ink.
I too am curious about the dining room curtains!
It feels icy -- the miminalism, the seafoam color, the blank walls. I'm not from the US, so it has a foreign/exotic quality to me.
source for that kids tricycle with trailer?
I love it, minimalism is definitely my thing. Love the different pendant shades. I also love the east coast migration to the west coast story. I just moved from NYC to Cali and I haven't looked back either...not yet anyway.
I love the minimalism. The simple lines make it really attractive for me.
Great house! @ PI - I think I spotted the sink just to the right of the diswasher in the 12th picture. I think it is a white ceramic sink.
Did Charley build the twin bed in the first kid's room? If not I would love to get the source.
Nice and cute house. Love the minimalistic attitude. Finally a house for us normal people...
NIce.
For a hot second, i thought that light fixture was a thought bubble over his head ;)
Very nice! Can you tell where you got the globe light fixture in the DR?
Thank you so much for sharing! The kitchen is full of inspiration! We live in SE Portland too (well, we are "deep SE") and it's fun to get a vicarious peak into another Portland home, especially one whose taste overlaps so much with our own. We have some of the same vintage finds in our own home! And, yep, that same ikea bamboo lamp that I both love and feel shamefaced about.
I knew this was Portland right away. So wonderful. Can I move in?!
Very easy on the eyes. Comfortable and relaxing without pretense. Well done.
I too would really like to know where the tricycle and trailer came from.
Always exciting to see other Portland homes -- and the kitchen is lovely! Really hoping to do butcher block in my kitchen and would love to know how it's holding up as well.
@Joy - I read some reviews but most of them seemed to be people who had recently had them installed. I want to read reviews from people who have a) had them for years b) cook a lot and c) got the cheaper Ikea counters (we like the John Boos counters, but they're much more expensive!).
I love the kitchen and the shelves especially (were those the ceiling joists?). Looks like a great place to spend time, cook and eat chocolate.
Charley and/or Jessica: "History is a good catalyst for an emotional connection between humans and stuff." Thank you for putting into words something I've always tried to express!
I'm also an East Coast refugee... our space is still a rental right now (I dream of the day when I can have floors like this), but after the crowding of the East, I was so happy to have blank walls and nothing under the bed. It's not so much minimalist as it is breathing space (for me). I've noticed a number of East Coast people do likewise when we escape the crush of people on the other coast.
Hey everybody! Thank you for the nice comments about our house! We are so comfortable here and if the dining room was bigger, we could have you all over for dinner!
The Ikea butcher block is great. To maintain it, we just clean it and put some mineral oil on it a couple times per year. We do our chopping on a cutting board to keep the surface flat and we don't worry about stains. As a matter of fact, I did some passive aggressive spills and burns by mistakeonpurpose to get us past that first blemish. The sooner you get to the point where you aren't so concerned, the better. Besides, a ring builds character.
The little wood car with the trailer is from a company called Sirch. We got it from our favorite furniture store in NYC called Regeneration.
The globe light in the dining room is trick photography. It is actually a super cheap chinatown paper lantern. $1.79.
Thanks everybody!
cool house, clean, simple, original - real!
( but I still like Ikea stuff here and there:))
ps: Jessica made the the dining room curtains are from a textile she found at... Ikea.
The bed in our boy's room was a Craigslist score.
Cheers
Wow, so clean and practical, yet so relaxed and homey. Interesting to see the details of how you accomplished this rare balance. Thanks for the house tour!
Gorgeous shelving in the kitchen. It wouldn't hold all my stuff, but I'd just have to have more of those beautiful boards :-).
Awww, that gorgeous sweet smile between the two of them just melted my heart. And then I saw the beautiful Eva Zeisel porcelain in the kitchen - I adore the gravy boat. I never ever have gravy, and I just don't give a damn, I love it! Love the house, and love the silhouette kid's scooter roller toy.
They seem like a really nice couple who have worked out their space to beautifully fit their needs.
Your place is great! What brand of tea kettle is that?
It doesn't look decorated, just comfortable and cozy. I mean that in the best possible way.
"Of course we have some Ikea stuff, but be better than us!"
Hee. Best interview I've read....'wabi sabi palimpset Scandinavian'. I bet dinner at their house would be fun. I would donate some colored pillows for the favor.
My husband and I drove from Vancouver Island to Portland last summer (only 7 hours!) and fell in LOVE with the city! It instantly became my new favorite American city (sorry NY and SF). We were surprised by the genuine friendliness of the people, even in the more hipster areas and for a week we adventured through all the different neighborhoods, cafes, food cart pods, bookstores and streets. We drove and walked up and down the streets admiring all the Victorian homes and I nearly cried when we visited a real estate office for fun. The house of my DREAMS, an 1867, 1300 ft bungalow (in Hawthorne) for less than 2 grand! It was painful! So Portland has excellent cafes, coffee, nature, bookstores, restaurants, thrift shops, art, breweries and most importantly...great people! Seeing this house tour makes me want to get back there as soon as it warms up a bit (with my bike this time)! This family seems very "Portland" to me. Down to earth, conscientious in their consuming of material things and not at all pretentious. I love the whole house but especially the kitchen! It is pretty much totally my taste. I appreciate the light and simplicity of the paint but I would need to paint some walls for warmth (and never a black wall in a home but that is just me...). I can tell this is a family I would love to hang out with! Next time I am there I will bring home some Woodblock Chocolate for my chocolate-loving friends. Thanks for the wonderful tour!
oops, I meant the house of my dreams was less than 200,000.00 - not 2 grand!
Your home is lovely and comfortable. It is so bright and simple and real. Love all of the white curtains and the play room.
I know this is a little silly, but can you tell me where you found the roller shades in the kitchen? I've been looking for some nice ones. Thanks!
While your answering the roller shade question, can you also tell me what color grout that is in the kitchen (because I feel silly asking too...). Thanks!
Lori, I agree. I visited a friend in Portland from NYC and instantly fell in love with the city. It was sophisticated, hip, clean and friendly yet relaxed and casual. The restaurants were amazing too.
Just looked at this again because it's stuck in my mind. So lovely! One of my favorite things is the desk in the to picture--that angle makes it fit right in that space. Is it a custom piece of a vintage find?
Still dying to know about that tea kettle! :) Who made it? Gimme!
In case anyone was curious about another review of the IKEA counters: We have had ours (the oak, and we also have the beech in one area) for about 5 years. It has worn unbelievably well. It really doesn't stain, but we treated ours with something called Salad Bowl Finish. It is technically a polyurethane product but is "food safe when cured." I don't cut on the counter, though. I mainly did it to protect the sink area. It took a lot of coats (wipes on easily), maybe 7 originally, and I add another coat once or twice a year just to freshen it. The water area needs it or the wood will blacken over time from moisture left sitting on it. Many folks use Waterlox and I might have too but it's pretty stinky/fume-y so I chose something milder (small house/small kids/no garage to treat the counters in advance). Honestly you can't go wrong with these counters but you do have to do something around water areas IMO. We are pretty hard on the counters (red wine, tomatoes, etc) and it doesn't stain at all--even a hot pan won't (but again I have treated mine). IKEAFANS has lots of advice!
what about those green and white curtains in the dining room??