Empty Nesters Give a Contemporary Kick to Their Home's Century-Old Charm

With kids off to college and a transition from the suburbs to the city in their sights, the fun- and color-loving couple who purchased this 1910 home in Richmond, Virginia’s Museum District were ready for big changes. They turned to designers Adrianne Bugg and Brandeis Short of Pillar & Peacock to realize their dream of a bold new family headquarters.

“The house is older and they wanted to completely gut the first floor – mainly the kitchen area in the back of the house,” Adrianne recalls. “They wanted us to design the entry/hall, dining room, living room, and kitchen/powder room/breakfast room. We also designed the laundry room upstairs and lightly consulted on a few other spaces.” Going big was key: “They were willing to be more daring with color, which we loved. I would call their style classic-yet-effervescent, relaxed [and] bohemian.” Ready for an inspirational spin through one of Richmond’s newest works of art? Come on in.

The team darkened the stairs’ newel post and handrail with Farrow & Ball Purbeck Stone, a mid-grey that accentuates woodwork details, and created contrast on the millwork and balusters with Benjamin Moore White Dove, a creamy off-white.

To transform the heart pine and red oak flooring to create an integrated new look, in turn, “we had to go darker on the floor stain than originally planned in order to cut the red in those two wood species,” Adrianne recalls. “We worked with the floor finisher to mix several stain options on-site; I think we settled on a combination of Jacobean and Ebony.” The takeaway here? A bit of fancy footwork might seem excessive, but it can make all the difference in your space.

Based on an abstract painting, this Lindsay Cowles wallpaper makes an elegant statement that repeats across this narrow powder room (and multiplies beautifully in the golden mirror mounted above the vanity). The olive tone in the wallpaper picks up in the framed landscapes hung across from that vanity — and their soft, looping shapes don’t compete with the art as, say, a botanical print might.

“The paint color was a custom stain to match Farrow & Ball Pitch Blue [a strong cobalt with black pigment],” Adrianne says. Narrow, Art Deco-inspired frosted glass sconces above carry on the warm metallic tones in the mirror, sink and cabinet hardware (and provide maximum functionality in an itty-bitty footprint).

The charming, stained-glass demilune window is original to the home. Adrianne pulled its rich, warm tones into the ikat fabric on the upholstered entryway bench. “Our client loves colorful patterned art, as you can see throughout other rooms,” she says. “However, this narrow room was lined with windows, leaving no room for her large paintings. This fabric took the place of art.”

This inlaid console table and the riotous print on the upholstered bench beneath it pack even more style in the foyer. Flanked with traditional chairs and topped with both delicate glass and a delightfully eye-popping table lamp, they add up to a layered vignette that celebrates the home’s past and speaks to its present.

The kitchen’s library ladder is charming, to be sure, but it’s also the linchpin of the space’s optimized-storage strategy. “A highly organized kitchen uses every inch of the galley-style layout — therefore we needed a rolling ladder to reach those uppers,” Adrianne says. Her team tucked functionality everywhere: “We even have drawers in the cabinetry toe kick for platters and placemats.” The drawers beneath the walnut-topped end of the island, in turn, conceal Sub Zero under-the-counter beverage storage.

Given the clients’ stated love of color, it may seem surprising that the kitchen features calm off-white tones — but that neutrality has an important purpose. The kitchen design “serves as a timeless, classic and grounding ‘base’ for the fun and lively fabrics we used on the furnishings and the graphic wallpaper on the ceiling in the dining room,” Adrianne explains.

The same goes for the foyer, where the team could have stripped and restored original woodwork… but opted to reimagine it as a blank canvas. “The homeowner’s furnishings and art are full of pattern — we needed a quiet shell for those to live in,” she says. “Painting out existing millwork allows us to curate any style by drawing your attention to more intentional design elements.”

The kitchen’s spectacular, bespoke range hood’s impact resounds throughout the space, thanks to glass sconces and sinuous pendants that extend its silhouette. “The hood design was first, made from burnished copper with brass straps — the double-compound chamfered front corners [that is, cuts that remove 90-degree angles] were a fun challenge for our metal artisan to fabricate,” Adrianne says. “He did an exquisite job on the shape and finish. We were lucky to find those somewhat quirky-feminine chandeliers in the same finish as the hood.”

Veined Calacatta Crema marble flows across the island, countertops and backsplash. “The cabinets are painted Cornforth White,” Adrianne says. The homeowners love to cook and entertain in their kitchen, and “a light warm neutral is much more forgiving and durable than white — which [they] originally had their minds set on,” she recalls. And it’s just as dazzling.

Roman shades in a textural-but-tame organic material are the perfect complement to the painterly print that splashes across the seating in this nook. “We all fell in love with Lindsay Cowles’ indigo fabric for this spot and didn’t want to compete with that pattern,” Adrianne explains. “We highlighted it with a berry trim and pillows — pink is the homeowner’s other favorite color, [so] we tried to use touches of it whenever we needed that highlight or pop. But with those tall white walls, we needed other ways to add warmth — that’s where the natural woven shades came into play.”

The hammered brass hardware that spreads warmth across the kitchen’s fixtures converges here in a gleaming round table that suits this space beautifully (and doesn’t need chargers or placemats to look luxe).

Inspired by moody Scottish skies, the deep blue-grey of Farrow & Ball's Inchyra Blue serves as the foundation for an explosion of bright and airy patterns in the living room. Many of those brights originate in the avian art on the wall, a beloved piece the homeowners brought from their previous home in the suburbs.

The color story continues by the ornate radiator and mantel, where a deep, solid aubergine chair gives that delicate metal- and woodwork room to shine. A teardrop-printed pillow recalls the shapes in the unframed painting on the wall behind it, and a glass-topped occasional table provides just enough space for an amber vase.

“We always love a combination of patterned pillows that pull colors in from the rest of the room,” Adrianne says. “And throws — we love a throw to break up the neutrals. It’s also practical and comfy.”

One of the cleverest details in this console-table vignette is also one of the subtlest: the team used delicate, textural handmade paper to wrap and create a unified look for hardcover books above and beneath it. “We wrap books in handmade papers to fit a room’s palette. They are great fillers and add height to smaller accessories,” Adrianne says.

These bespoke mirrored doors could be one of the hardest-working installations in this project: they conceal a washer and dryer, they amplify light from the window, and they make the narrow room feel much larger. “This turquoise hue is one of the client’s favorites, and this laundry and powder room is a saturated focal point at the end of the neutral stair hall,” Adrianne explains.

The teal, pink and coral shapes on the dining room ceiling express the home’s contemporary palette and sense of fun in a downright spectacular statement—and its pendant serves as the exclamation point. “The chandelier looks like a piece of boho jewelry — exactly the homeowner’s style. Fell in love with it instantly,” Adrianne recalls. “Its hammered brass droplets nod to a historic crystal chandelier that would have hung in this home originally.”

Given that this home is in Richmond’s Museum District, one could argue that there could be no such thing as too much art in its rooms — but Adrianne’s team recognized the importance of mixing it up to keep things interesting. That’s where this skull and the feathered juju hat come in. “Dimensional artwork was needed to break up the homeowner’s large collection of paintings on canvas,” she says.