Chris & Saule’s Clean Eclectic Family Home

published Mar 29, 2011
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(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

Name: Saule & Chris and their three young children
Location: Frederick, Maryland
Size: 2,800 square feet — 4 bedrooms
Years lived in: 9 — owned (and still changing it every day)

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

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The front door (situated to the left of this photo) opens into the open floorplan living room/dining room/entry/main staircase. (Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

My first thought on walking through Saule’s door was, “how on earth does this stylish woman keep her house looking this perfect with three young kids and a busy career?” She and Chris have mastered the art of balancing interesting and unique accents with durable, practical materials. Furniture textiles and flooring are attractive and kid-friendly, storage is well-thought out, and every room has it’s own strong stylistic sense. The result is a comfortable and inviting home that manages to retain its clean, open feel even when bustling with activity.

Additionally, although the home is quite narrow — only 20 feet wide— Saule and Chris have taken advantage of its depth, keeping window treatments simple, sticking mostly with clean-lined, perfectly-scaled furniture, and adding a few key narrow but lengthy storage pieces such as the stainless steel industrial cabinets in her kitchen. They’ve also made the most of the main floor’s height, choosing high back chairs for the living and family rooms, adding lots of vertical shelving in the kitchen and family room, and building a high breakfast bar— Chris poured the concrete counter tops himself— which makes the kitchen appear larger.

When it came to decorating their children’s rooms, Saule and Chris followed their leads, making for a happy infusion of colors, textures, and patterns in each room. I was especially smitten with their son’s room which houses a fun mix of Southern California flavor with vintage objects and classic kid wares.

For more details and a better sense of the home’s flow, check out the captions in the full House Tour gallery.

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

Apartment Therapy Survey:

Style: Clean Eclectic

Inspiration: Fashion + Art + My Children (I frequently ask my oldest son and daughter for their advice, and they almost always have a meaningful opinion!)

Favorite Element: Collection of Art

Biggest Challenge: Making vertical square footage meet the needs of our family. Narrow rooms and lack of storage have made furnishing the house and living in the house with 3 children challenging, but have helped us edit the amount of “stuff” we collect. We have to “LOVE it” or “NEED it” to keep it.

What Friends Say: Everyone is surprised by how big it feels on the inside based on what they expect from seeing the outside (it is only 20 feet wide-built as an infill project in an urban setting).

Biggest Embarrassment: Unfinished Laundry Room and (GASP!) A very messy storage room which houses what most people would shove in their garage!

Proudest DIY: Kitchen Renovation on a budget during our first pregnancy. Ikea cabinets, sears appliances, and my husbands first try at concrete counter tops.

Biggest Indulgence: Grange Trestle Dining Table. We will keep it forever, no regrets! And custom built-ins in our family room. We would do those ten times over! Don’t know how we lived without them.

Best Advice: Always buy what you love and use objects that have personal meaning whenever possible.

Dream Sources: Shine by S.H.O., Quadrille Fabric

Other Inspiration: color trends, things that remind me of California my home state, vintage textiles, and music.

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

Resources of Note:

Paint:
Living/Dining: Benjamin Moore Philadelphia Cream.
Kitchen: Benjamin Moore PT210 Base coat for Metallic Paints.
Family Room: Benjamin Moore Plymouth Rock.
Kid’s Room 1: Benjamin Moore Sweet Taffy.

Appliances: Kenmore, Jenn Air, Kitchen Aid

Furniture: Living Room: Lee Sofa, Plexi Craft waterfall coffee table, Vintage
Side Chairs, Vintage bench with Marble top. Family Room: Lee Slip Covered Sofa,
Reproduction Egg Chair, Hand-me-downs (my in-laws once oak round coffee table and
once plaid wing chair, both refurbished), Vintage Desk with Brocade Home carved
Chair. Basement: Vintage Factory Cart, Room+Board Sofa, Lee Mohair ottoman, vintage
side table, vintage sideboard, industrial console table from Silk&Burlap. Dining
Room: Grange Trestle Dining Table, Vintage Bench passed down from my husband’s
grandparent’s farmhouse. Kitchen: Ghost stool from Silk&Burlap. Girls Room: Vintage
Metal Chippendale Chair, Ghost Chair. Boys Room: Vintage Red Bench passed down
through family, Vintage Herman Miller Chair. Back Porch: Emu extension table and
chairs

Accessories: Pillows: Home made and custom made pillows, Anthropologie bolster (living
room),Pier One Ivory Ruffle Pillows (bench and family room sofa), Trina Turk Pillow (kitchen). Up-cycled kitchen mirror (painted turquoise), up cycled vintage frame turned bulletin board (painted white), Vintage Frankoma candlesticks, BOOKS: Cook books, art and fashion books (oh and kids books galore!). Vintage dress form. On dining table: Crystal Wedding Gifts, Ruben Toledo dessert plates. Boys Room: Seth Thomas Vintage Clock.

Lighting:
dining room chandelier: Pottery Barn
kids rooms and kitchen pendants: Lowes
Vintage lamp on desk
crystal living room lamp: through Ann Marie’s Interior Details,
vintage living room glass chandelier on vintage bird cage stand.

Rugs and Carpets: Seagrass rugs through NaturalAreaRugs.com, zebra printed hide,
Dash and Albert indoor/outdoor runner (kitchen) through Silk&Burlap, Dash and Albert indoor/outdoor rug (back porch) through Silk&Burlap.

Tiles and Stone: tumbled marble backsplash (kitchen)

Beds: Pottery Barn Teen Upholstered Headboard Girls Room, Vintage bed painted pink
Girls Room, Nautica Home-MB, Bunk Beds put end to end- Boys Room

Artwork: (Living Room) H.I. Gates Abstract painting on canvas, Pop Art Prints on canvas (of my Children), (Dining Room) Large Whimsical Canvas by Doug Group, Chesepeake Watershed Sign by Molly Strong, Floral Art by Naomi Smariga, “Elizabeth’s Stomach” (seattle artist), “Small Harlequin” by Jennifer Cohen, “Laughter and Forgetting” by Joe Thomas, Marc by Marc Jacobs Fashion Print by Ruben Toledo. (Family Room) “Life is so Frustrating” Anton Smariga. (Kitchen) Missing California Print by Alicia Peck/Bellamuse, Ruben Toledo Card/Note. (daughter’s Room) Framed Nanette Lepore Fashion show invite, Wallpaper Mural through Sherwin Williams. Naomi’s Room: 4 Beach Girls Prints by Lisa Petrucci, Mermaid by Japanese artist Yumiko Kayukawa, Self Portrait by Naomi. (son’s Room) Tim Biskup print hanging over 2 pieces of NYC Street Art, “Landscapes USA-Allhoffs” by Elizabeth Cavanaugh Cohen, “What” by Bansky,
Original oil freeway landscape by unknown artist.

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

Thanks, Saule and Chris!

Images: Leah Moss

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