Upon embarking on the interiors for this Litchfield County house, designers Audra Viehland and Michelle Sabin were already aware that they could adhere to their favorite choices. “We love colors, we love textures, as do the clients, and we love it when the architecture of the house itself is notable,” says Viehland from the Bethlehem office she shares with her business partner. The circa-1900 Tudor Revival house provided, as Viehland emphasizes, “a really great canvas for what Michelle and I wanted to do for these clients.”
The four-bedroom brick house first needed some updates. Viehland and Sabin led the contracting efforts, which included pulling up the existing carpeting, re-staining wood floors to a deep coffee hue, replastering walls, and fashioning new millwork. “We love working with any, and all, of the trades,” says Sabin, “and watching the workers expertly accomplish these tasks was very satisfying.”
Both the clients—a married couple with three children—and the designers were in immediate agreement about the use of color everywhere. “They let us really play with what we love, really experiment with colors and patterns,” Viehland says. All parties, too, loved Danish aesthetics—a look that works its way throughout. Among the most conspicuous examples of their mutual taste for all things Scandinavian appears in one of the living room’s windowed nooks. There the designers positioned a midcentury Danish sofa, defined by sinuous wooden arms that appear to almost plié onto the wooden floor. To achieve its unforgettable color scheme, they used Luum’s Marina and Grove felts, adding contrasting blue brushed-wool buttons by Création Baumann for a third dash of hue.
The living room seating area includes a Cisco Home sofa upholstered in a vibrant yellow mohair from Claremont, which is complemented by an Elizabeth Eakins rug.
A living room nook is furnished with a Lawson-Fenning custom day bed upholstered with a soft rose-hued wool from Holland & Sherry, a stool from Hammertown Barn, and an industrial tripod floor lamp through Montage Antiques.
A bar area linking the breakfast nook and kitchen has a faucet from California Faucets and cabinet pulls from Rejuvenation.
The breakfast nook walls are covered in a Marthe Armitage paper through Brooks Thomas, while the Saarinen table is from Design Within Reach.
The kitchen island is painted with Farrow & Ball’s Hague Blue, and the wall tile is from Clé.
A Wendy Cooper rug sets the design agenda for the dining room. Vintage 1960s French chairs through Nickey Kehoe surround the table, which is set with a festive runner from Soil to Studio. A five-lamp chandelier from Lostine is modern and understated.
A Les Indiennes block-printed comforter covers the bed in the primary suite, where a pair of nightstands from Thomasville are illuminated with Visual Comfort sconces.
“You have to start somewhere when undertaking the design of a house,” says Sabin, “and sometimes you pick the rug first, sometimes you don’t.” She and Viehland cite the clients’ penchant for the color blue and, so, the design of the living room, and, indeed, all of the rooms, began with an Elizabeth Eakins blue rug that became the anchor hue and source of inspiration. Blues appear on café chairs, on the staircase and runner, in a sofa in the sunroom, and on the walls of the primary bedroom (Farrow & Ball’s Borrowed Light).
“We like to run a theme through a home,” explains Viehland, “and have it appear subtly, or not, as your eye moves through rooms. As for colors, yes, we like them—a lot—but there’s a fine line between something becoming too circusy and being colorful.”
Viehland and Sabin have an uncanny ability to see beforehand how amorphous spaces can transform into ones that feel expansive and defined. What they refer to as “a former white cube” of a space off the kitchen, is now a cozy eating nook equipped with a high-back bench and walls that sport a blazing brick-red printed pattern from Marthe Armitage. A collection of faux bamboo mirrors on a wall work to visually expand and animate the space. And immediately adjacent to this nook/room is a dedicated bar area, with an arched shelving unit cut into the wall. “This had been an awkward hallway area that now serves a purpose,” says Sabin. “And here was another chance for yet more blue, with the cabinet we designed.”
Although the homeowners—who use this house as their primary residence—brought little from their previous home, they did want to use all of their existing artwork. “They had a lot more wall space in their former house,” notes Viehland, “and Michelle and I had to figure out how to display all that they were bringing.
One response, evident in the dining room, was to group disparate artworks and mirrors in a salon-like hanging. The designers felt fortunate, too, to discover a set of 1960s Danish razorback chairs that they could set around a 1940s French table. “These were two items from two different times and countries, but they work together well,” Viehland emphasizes.
So in sync were the clients and designers that prior to showing off the finished rooms in a “big reveal,” Viehland and Sabin bought house plants that they set around the rooms. “We even included watering instructions for each,” says Viehland. Just as the plants would grow in place, so, too, would the family as they settle into their new old house.