Names: Anna and Dan
Occupation: co-owners of Goodwood DC; Anna is also a co-owner of the interior designer firm "Old School Interiors"
Other Occupants: cats Mouse and Doddy (18 and 19 years old)
Location: Logan Circle, Washington DC
Building Type: industrial building built between 1890 and 1911; functioned as an upscale laundry facility whose clients included the White House
Size: about 2000 sq.ft.
Lived in: owned for 7 months; lived in for 5 months
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Almost every day, Anna and Dan wake up grateful to be living in The Louise Hand Laundry Loft. The building is rich in history, glamor, and legend. The industrial space was built to house a laundry facility, which cleaned White House laundry from the Roosevelt through Kennedy administrations. DC architect Robert Lewis and artist Sanford Shapiro bought it in 1979 and revamped it for residential use. Anna and Dan have heard great stories about their home: the basement once housed a shower for 12 and was famous for its wild parties in the 1980's! Anna now uses the space as her closet/dressing room.
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Anna and Dan are constantly reminded of the industrial beginnings of their home - they have become used to the noisy systems in their home, which they say sound like a rainforest. Born and raised in the DC area, Anna's grew up appreciating antiques and history because of her grandmother, who was born in the 1800's, and her Spanish mother, who gave birth to Anna in her 40's. Anna has a strong love of nostalgia and she and Dan found the perfect historic building to make their home. Anna and Dan always wanted the kind of house where people just pop by and they've found it.
Read more about Anna and Dan in The Louise Hand Laundry Loft: At Home With Old-Time Industry; A Laundry Building Near Logan Circle Cleaned Up Well (The Washington Post, March 21, 2009)
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AT SURVEY
Our Style: bo-ho Moroccan disco
Inspiration: The building itself.
Favorite Elements: Dan: the flow of the place and one-level living with the courtyard right off the main room. With so much industry to the place, you can tone it down. Anna: the light, soaring ceilings, and neighborhood.
What Friends Say: when can we come back?
Biggest Embarrassment: the cat litter section. We plan to put up a beaded curtain or screen to hide it.
Proudest DIY: the way the plan was executed. The space spoke to us and we knew what to do next. The bathroom for Anna come out just as we wanted and the dressing room in the basement was a girlhood fantasy made real.
Biggest Indulgence: it's coming: peacock blue leather upholstery dining room chairs.
Best Advice: Make do with what you have and find and make it beautiful (from Anna's mother).
Biggest Challenge: getting the concrete floors right. We had a great architect but we had to keep everyone on the same page. We knew the building had great bones and a story, and we wanted to honor the place.
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Resources:
Paint Colors: Farrow & Cornforth White in the main space and Elephant's Breath in the den
Furniture and Accessories: couches from Craigslist, Knoll club chairs; the rest from estate sales and auctions
Wallpaper: Farrow & Ball
Appliances: Bray and Scarff; kitchen sink from The Brass Knob backdoor warehouse
Doors and Fixtures: doors from The Brass Knob backdoor warehouse; new HVAC duct from AWOYERA in Baltimore
Bathroom Fixtures: bathtubs, sinks, toilet from Vintage Tub; medicine cabinet and towel bars from Restoration Hardware
Lighting: fans and recess lights from Illuminations, Inc. We found the big lantern in the main room at an auction. Artisan Lamp in Cleveland Park hooked up all our finds and helped us with the hand-painted finishes and designs. The round fixture on the wall in the main space came from a bank in Philadelphia. The three pendants lights in the kitchen: the shades came from the Brass Knob, the black wire from Home Depot, and the spiders and caps from Artisan Lamp, who also put them together. The rest of the lighting is from Home Depot.
Floors: in the bedroom Brazilian walnut wooden from Lumber Liquidators
Tile: white stove tiles from Home Depot
Plants: Garden District
Art: the two portraits in the office are by Ken Marlow and Jose Mendez (from Miami); other art in the office by Matt Sesow, a local DC artist; the rest was bought at the Georgetown flea market and the Norfolk, Virginia museum's holding sale
Window Treatments: Pella Windows; see-through curtains from Island Blinds
Rugs: Capitol Carpets on 14th Street. The den rug is made from remnants that were sewed together. The other rugs we picked up at estates and auctions.
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Thanks, Anna & Dan!
(Images: Rachael Grad)
Wow, this is probably the best House Tour I've seen from the DC area. A shower for 12?!?
view fabframes's profile
Louse Hand Laundry? Ewwww.
view Carder's profile
Restful, cozy, not cluttered. Your home looks like a great place to decompress or throw a fun, intimate dinner party - however the mood strikes you. And your flamepoint persian looks just my dearly departed Cinco (who just happened to be from your neck of the woods!)
view Dusa's profile
I love your home. The dressing room made me smile.
view susang's profile
Agree with abframes - best DC house tour! I like this a lot - the exposed brick and character of the building, the eclectic furnishings, the wall treatment, the light, the art, the photos themselves...everything!
Good Wood is a great store too.
view Pixie's profile
Laundry machines in the dressing room--what a great idea. If my house had space for that, I'd love that arrangement.
view brittanykate's profile
Now, this!! This is a cool house!!!!
view jef613's profile
The kitchen is incredible! Love all the exposed brick too
view LeahDC's profile
Absolutely gorgeous and endlessly fascinating - A real inspiration!
- I can easily see from the photos how interesting the individuals who collected all these unique items for their home are.
view bepsf's profile
I love the bathroom and the dressing room/laundry room. I had a dressing room/laundry room once and loved it!
view youngbloop's profile
I love this! Carder--it's Louise, not Louse.
view FantasticMrFaux's profile
I love this look so much. Gorgeous.
view Junobeth's profile
FINALLY! A cool DC house tour. Great job -- I love the bedroom and kitchen especially...
view JeffC's profile
Oh I love that wallpaper. The rest of your place look incredible also!
view baileyb's profile
Of all the things I love about this place -- the big distressed mirror, the bed area including cats, the dressing/laundry room, the vintage bathroom cabinet -- the one that tickles me most is that aluminum lamp balanced on a wee stool to illuminate a portrait. Whimsy is the mother of genius... or invention... or something like that.
view rosenatti's profile
Louise I love your basement dressing room and the tiles in your bathroom are very glam...Thank you for sharing your home. Lovely
view The Teal Sea's profile
I like this a lot. Honest materials, vintage pieces that haven't been gussied up into caricatures of themselves, and the juxtaposition of antique luxury and industrial muscle. There's nothing like off-beat style expressed confidently.
view Blandwagon's profile
I thought this was a very original house. I loved the recycling of the vintage sink in the kitchen and also the vintage kitchen cabinet. Same thing with the tub in the bathroom, although personally I would prefer a tub with a few more inches in length.
The ideas were obviously very much those of the couple's, and I congratulate them for striking out and doing it the way they wanted to do it.
I think this is the kind of place that can grow and improve as the couple goes through life together.
What a clever idea, to have a "dressing" area with an easy chair and a washer and dryer. Now, if someone can think up a reasonable alternative to human slavery over an ironing board, we'll have real progress!
view AustinSarah's profile
I really dig the kitchen and bathroom. And the floors. The other rooms have a bit too much stuff for my taste, but it all works and has a lot of personality.
view jyw's profile
I love the kitchen.
view hrhprincessfiona's profile
Superb!
I would however loved to have been apart of those wild parties within the 80's!
view towel rails's profile
can you please give some detailed information about the concrete floor...what color you chose and about the process and the price per foot? please.
view itsthehouseshow's profile
Love the look of your dressing room - What was the source for the beautiful clothes racks? A small folding screen for the cat boxes would get my vote. They have louvered wood panels at Home Depot you could paint with an antique finish.
view merile's profile
This house shows the owners' strong sense of style. Thank you for a true original.
I love that the laundry is in the dressing room. These small utilitarian details are wonderful with the whimsy of the decoration.
view EconGrrl's profile
This place is funky perfection. One of AT's all-time best! Love all of it!
view PhillyLass's profile
I didn't know there were people in DC with this much style. Gorgeous!
- DC resident
view ftpansy's profile
I adore this place! The damask wall and bed, the kitchen shelving, the coffee table... love it all
view LittleLovables's profile
LOVE the gag dining chairs. lol.
view jamilkb's profile
yay, neighbors! i live around the corner and wondered what the renovations going on here were :) very nice place. the bathroom really is gorgeous!
view gretchenalexis's profile
Love!
view housefulloffur's profile
I've never seen an industrial space warmed up so well! Anna and Dan's sense of style is so excellent - it looks effortless, which is the biggest compliment I can think of. I recommend GoodWood to my clients all the time, too -
view Annie, bossy color's profile
Great house tour. I saw the house I believe was theirs in Mount Pleasant when it was on the market and it was lovely too. Of course you can see where their inspiration comes from--Goodwood is a great store and has a similar industrial-meets-antiques-with-a-utilitarian-edge look.
view Jenny in DC's profile
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. If your home reflects who you are, I bet you're wonderful, too.
Lynn W.
view Lynn W.'s profile