Modern Whimsy

In Georgetown

By Dylan Roche | Photography by David Burroughs

Sometimes the best things in art and design can happen entirely by chance. Even when the talent, the inspiration, and the passion are all there, a vision may not come together until coincidence works its magic. This is what happened in a home designed by Courtney Ulrich of Interior Concepts in the Georgetown community of Washington, D.C.

She came to the project when Jorge Euceda of George Construction was working on spec houses along three adjacent lots. The first houses were more traditional, but Euceda looked to Ulrich to be more creative with the third house. As she puts it, “He wanted to do this house a little different.”

That ‘different’ proved to be just what the soon-to-be homeowners, Christian and Annabel, wanted when they bought the house halfway through the process. By that point, Ulrich had done the flooring, the cabinetry, and the fireplace—principal elements of the home’s contemporary design. “It just so happened it was all their taste, so it was a really good fit,” Ulrich recalls, describing the couple as “fun and hip and bougie.” They proceeded to work with her, envisioning a home that was contemporary with elements of whimsy and layers of personality.

For the most part, a neutral palette—walls done in Snowbound by Sherwin-Williams, eight-inch European white oak flooring, and several furniture pieces in soft grays and beiges—serves as a backdrop to bold pops of bright color. Because the clients are avid art connoisseurs who have built a collection of pieces from New York galleries, Ulrich was able to start with their art and plan much of the design around it. In addition to the artwork, Ulrich let herself be guided by how the clients planned to live in their home, something she says is always important when designing a residential project. What was initially supposed to be a formal dining room ended up being a gathering and entertaining room. A marble table with a fluted base can be used for meals when they have guests over, but the space works equally well if they’re simply relaxing and enjoying a glass of wine from the adjacent wine room. “Each room naturally has its own personality and has different requirements that your clients give you and what it needs to be,” Ulrich says. In the case of the sitting room, she explains, “That’s how they use that space—and that space then has its own personality more than a basic dining room. It becomes more interesting.”

Much of the whimsy in the home comes from sculptural light fixtures and the soft, curved shapes of the furniture. The kitchen’s natural elements—wood cabinetry and a Cristallo quartzite island—balance out some of the pops of neon and fluorescence in other spaces, such as the custom-made Czech glass orbs by SkLO Studio hanging in the foyer. The bedrooms are also spaces where purpose leads design. The clients’ daughters had ideas for their own rooms, such as the combination of bright pink and cheetah print in the younger daughter’s bedroom and the artist-painted graffiti in the older daughter’s. Because the guest bedroom is in the basement, Ulrich took the opportunity to do something different and saturated the space in olive green, a shade taken from the modern art hanging on the wall.

With personality and purpose guiding each room of the house, Ulrich achieved a sense of consistency in a space characterized by surprise and whimsy, proving that sometimes being brave enough to be different is the best approach.