When the owner of this home toured a condominium with interiors designed by Dona Rosene, she made sure to pick up her card and clung to it for more than two years. When she bought her dream house, she pulled out Rosene's card and gave her a call.
"My client had seen how I'd used a lot of color and wanted to do that herself," explains Rosene. "She had bought a traditional home but wanted to keep things fresh; she was afraid that 'traditional' would equal 'granny.'"
The house is located in historic Ryan Place in Fort Worth and was built in 1926. One big plus was that it had not gone through any major renovations and retained its original character. "The house had been well taken care of and was in good shape, including the floors, original light fixtures, bathrooms, wood moldings, and drapery rods," says Rosene.
The clients, who had a new baby at the time, needed Rosene to guide them in terms of paint colors, furniture, fabrics, finishes, flow, arrangement, and artwork. "Clients who know what they like are the best kinds of clients," she says. "We never actually went shopping together ... we wrapped up the entire project in about four months. We just hit it and did it!"
Rosene and her client loved the honey-colored entryway, so they left it. Warm gold tones and finishes is a theme that runs throughout the home.
"My client was resistant to the stair runner at first because of her fear of the grandma look, but it cuts so much noise and is good when one has babies around," says Rosene. "Now she tells me she gets lots of compliments on it."
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The living room is painted a vibrant Chinese red, which carries through to the dining room. Rosene kept the spectacular chandeliers original to the house, raised the drapery rods, added window treatments, and some furniture and accessories.
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While the client mulls over a kitchen renovation, the kitchen currently offers a lot of vintage charm, if not a lot of storage space. The salvaged sink that the client professes "an irrational love for" is original to the house, as are the cabinets.
An adjacent breakfast room provides a large seating area and more storage. The built-in cabinets are original to the house, and the homeowner uses them to store most of her dishes. A rustic table base and wooden ladderback dining chairs with rush seats add to the farmhouse warmth of the room.
In the master bedroom, Rosene worked the color palette around the client's bedding, connecting it to the rest of the home, but more importantly to the master bath (which had blue tiles on the floor) and a small sitting area. The sitting area is located over a covered porch and provides a cozy area for reading and lots of built-in storage original to the house.
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Finally, the master bathroom is full of vintage details original to the house, including the tiles, the pedestal sinks, and the door with built-in mirror. "I used the shower curtain fabric to tie the colors of this bathroom to the colors in the master bedroom," says Rosene.
Both parties are glad the client held onto that business card for two years. "People who can visualize and who know what they like make for wonderful clients," says Rosene.
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Warm gold tones and finishes is a theme that runs throughout the home.
