#CAKE HOUSE DESIGN WINDOWS#

However, they specified that they didn’t want the rooms to be overly formal. “We were looking to go traditional but a little bit cleaner.” Along with vibrant art picked up on their travels, the couple brought numerous antiques to their new home. The new living room, painted soft yellow, feels cozy with its large bay window and easy access to the side porch.Įlliott’s goal for the décor was “to make it fresh and make it work for a young, active family,” she says. “The clients didn’t want color on the wall here and I knew if we left the ceiling white it would look washed-out,” she explains.

In a playful nod to the Victorian penchant for wallpaper, Elliott papered the dining-room ceiling with blue-gray Phillip Jeffries grasscloth. A swinging door was installed between the butler’s pantry and the new dining room. One of the clients’ first design decisions was to flip the living room-formerly to the right of the foyer-with the dining room at the back of the house. We absorbed a small adjacent bedroom to create those elements.” The finished space features a spacious dressing room, complete with built-ins, that opens onto his-and-her closets and an elegant, marble-clad bath. But, Treacy recounts, “the missing piece was a good dressing room, master bath, and closets. Upstairs, the master bedroom and adjoining sitting room/study remained intact. Cabinetmaker Stroba, Inc., which installed all the millwork, worked with Elliott and the owners on finishes that included kitchen cabinetry in Benjamin Moore’s Kensington Blue, Bianco Crystal granite countertops and a backsplash in white ceramic by Waterworks that mimics the look of tin ceiling tiles. The butler’s pantry has been enlarged with space borrowed from the adjacent powder room. Reconfigured around a new center island, the renovated kitchen flows into an existing breakfast nook.

#CAKE HOUSE DESIGN WINDOWS#

“Taking advantage of that space gave the kitchen a visual connection to the rear yard,” says the architect, whose airy redesign enlarged a bank of existing windows and added a built-in window seat with storage cubbies. “We knew we weren’t going to add to it, but there was some rearranging we wanted to do inside.” Changes would include overhauling the kitchen, butler’s pantry, and bathrooms creating a spacious and functional master suite improving bedroom closets for the couple’s two kids and reorganizing the main-floor rooms for better use.Įmbarking on the kitchen renovation, Treacy and her clients worked within the room’s original footprint but removed a wall separating it from a small mudroom/laundry by the back door. The 6,200-square-foot abode already contained three large, finished levels, so “it was plenty big,” Treacy says. The couple tapped architect Jane Treacy, who had worked on their previous home, and designer Annie Elliott to make the house more modern and functional while respecting its considerable history and charm. “But the last time the house had been touched was during a renovation in the early ’80s, so we wanted a more modern-day update.” “The bones were in great shape,” recalls the husband. However, when new owners-a government affairs executive and his wife, a scientist, and professor-purchased the house in 2015, they had a list of improvements they wished to make inside. Over the years, its curvaceous front porch, tiered architecture and frothy, decorative frieze have earned it this moniker-and thanks to historic-district regulations, the distinctive front façade remains happily intact. Perched atop a gently sloping lot on a picture-perfect block, the Wedding Cake House exemplifies the venerable district’s offerings. Washington’s Cleveland Park neighborhood is known for ornate Victorians nestled along tree-lined streets.

Cake house design