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The Ferris' Heritage Hills English Cottage
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This weekend is the annual Heritage Hills Home Tour in Oklahoma City, and you don't want to miss it! I always enjoy a good home tour and looking forward to this one in particular, because it features the beautiful home of our longtime "friends slash clients" David and Merideth Ferris. Their charming 1907 english cottage is sure to be a darling of the tour and you won't want to miss it. It is the perfect blend of historic architecture and pretty period pieces, punctuated with lots of personality... making it uniquely their own! See the living room featured in Slice Magazine.
The Ferris' moved into their new OKC home not long before we moved to Norman and I was so excited when Merideth asked me to help her with design work in the powder bath and kitchen. Let me start by saying that Merideth knows her own style and has some major decorating chops to begin with! She just needed help turning her vision into a reality.
When working with a registered historic home that is over 100 years old, I knew it was important to honor the architecture of the home, so the pre-design phase started with a little architectural history homework.
After establishing some basic design ground-rules, the first order of business was to address the powder bath, since it is the only downstairs bath and was already gutted!
Step one is always to identify design challenges: low ceilings, lack of character, funky mirror set into what used to be a window.
Then comes the fun part... creatively coming up with design solutions! In this case they were: to embrace the low ceilings with an interesting wallpaper we had imported from England, add architectural interest with wainscoting and crown molding, and to remove the existing window/mirror in order to re-orient the focus of the room.
We were also able to salvage a fabulous antique sunburst light fixture from another part of the house. It was in a big open hallway upstairs and was swallowed up due to it's petite scale, which was perfect for the small powder bath.
After a pricey bid from a trim carpenter, Dave decided to tackle the wainscoting himself, leaving more budget for the "fun stuff" i.e. fixtures, mirror and wallpaper!
To make sure the wainscoting height was perfect, I drew the room out with everything exactly drawn to scale... I wanted to make sure it hit above the pedestal, but below the mirror.
And good thing Dave is a perfectionist / engineer, because it turned out beautifully! Let's just say if my gifted-in-other-areas hubby attempted this job there would not be a home tour going on in our house (love you honey).
I am happy to report that the powder bath has officially transformed into a stunner, and is now a feature point of the house. And Merideth, who has a serious knack for art walls (seriously she should go into business), finished off the room with a cool collection of wall art that will get her guests talking.
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The Ferris' home featured in Slice Magazine || photos: Carli Wentworth || styling: Brie Dorr
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When working with a registered historic home that is over 100 years old, I knew it was important to honor the architecture of the home, so the pre-design phase started with a little architectural history homework.
After establishing some basic design ground-rules, the first order of business was to address the powder bath, since it is the only downstairs bath and was already gutted!
Step one is always to identify design challenges: low ceilings, lack of character, funky mirror set into what used to be a window.
Then comes the fun part... creatively coming up with design solutions! In this case they were: to embrace the low ceilings with an interesting wallpaper we had imported from England, add architectural interest with wainscoting and crown molding, and to remove the existing window/mirror in order to re-orient the focus of the room.
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We were also able to salvage a fabulous antique sunburst light fixture from another part of the house. It was in a big open hallway upstairs and was swallowed up due to it's petite scale, which was perfect for the small powder bath.
After a pricey bid from a trim carpenter, Dave decided to tackle the wainscoting himself, leaving more budget for the "fun stuff" i.e. fixtures, mirror and wallpaper!
To make sure the wainscoting height was perfect, I drew the room out with everything exactly drawn to scale... I wanted to make sure it hit above the pedestal, but below the mirror.
And good thing Dave is a perfectionist / engineer, because it turned out beautifully! Let's just say if my gifted-in-other-areas hubby attempted this job there would not be a home tour going on in our house (love you honey).
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| mirror: Restoration Hardware || faucet: Rohl || toilet and pedestal: Kohler || wallcovering: Cole & Sons |
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| "Sneak Peak" of the art that fills the powder bath walls, including a historic black and white photo of the home. |
To see the finished powder bath, you'll just have to venture out to the home tour! You can buy tickets here. It should be a great time complete with food trucks, live music, OKC ballet performance and pop-up shops at the Overholser Mansion. And for a unique way to view the neighborhood, you can even ride the trolley! See you there!
