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By Kymberly Taylor
Photography by Stacy Zarin Goldberg
As light floats through the pristine living room in this spacious two-story home on the Severn River, you would never know it had a troubled past. When the homeowner, a master electrician, and his wife purchased the property six years ago, the pool was caving in, walls were uneven, and it needed a new roof, among other things. He points to the living room’s gleaming porcelain wall. “To put up that porcelain, you have to get the walls perfectly straight. It took three years,” he recalls. He became the job’s general contractor and supervised many improvements.
When Katalin Farnady of Farnady Interiors stepped in, there was no design plan, and much of the drywall was unfinished. Then, she received a call from the homeowner’s wife. “She told me she loved the color grey,” says Farnady, who integrated the color into all aspects of the décor.
Grey is sophisticated and elegant, but a color most of us would find monotonous if used in large quantities. However, to Farnady and the homeowners, grey has many possibilities. For Farnady, grey is not defined by the absence of color but rather by the presence of a hundred or more shades. In her hands, grey becomes a powerful grammar, providing structure to the design scheme yet inviting variation and expression. She used many of its warmer tones, which include browns and taupes, to shape an interior she calls “warm modern.” The palette subtly lightens as you move toward the more active areas of the home, the family room, kitchen, and breakfast nook, and almost imperceptibly darkens as you approach the calmer spaces of the primary bedroom suite.
Not a single shade of gray is duplicated, which is the secret to success, explains Farnady. “A lot of people think that things have to be exactly matching. And they don’t! Look around. Nothing in nature matches. Even if you look at a tree, you see that not all of the leaves are the same. The sky is not the same colors. Look at a blooming flower! As long as you stay inside the same family.”
Farnady draws from grey’s extended family, found in abundance in nature. The great room, distinguished by a generous bay window, is awash in dove-white greys, with twin curved sofas and an ottoman placed low so nothing interrupts the view. The living room is long, with abundant seating. The pillars separating it from the foyer are a coal grey, which makes them seem to disappear, in keeping with the home’s modern aesthetic, favoring the absence of excess ornamentation. An entire wall of Neolith stone porcelain with a straight-edged fireplace seems to mirror the play of clouds against a windswept sky. “The porcelain is multi-colored with taupes, not grey grey, and is in like a cloud pattern,” she says.
Materials and textures add visual complexity. “On top of all the greys and dark wood, you have a lot of plush materials in the living room,” says Farnady, pointing out the carpet, chenille sofa, woven sofa, and chair woven with a mini-checkered pattern. A dark walnut coffee table and ebony wall cabinetry by Porcelanosa provide contrast.
Like the shining wall in the living room that took three years to perfect, the wall in the dining area is also porcelain tile but with more texture in a deeper shade of grey. Pillars are three-dimensional architectural elements that define the dining area. Intriguing cut-outs framed in black are unassuming until one takes a deeper look. Like many things in this home, including the snakeskin wallpaper on the ceiling of the laundry room, special features are understated. This is especially true in the family room. A striking dark wallcovering by Phillips Jeffries is traversed by a wild ribbon of gold, capturing the eye and inviting one into the room. “It provides warmth, and people gravitate to it,” says Farnady. Touches of gold, metal, and glass glimmer here and there throughout the home, adding surprise and touches of warmth.
In the kitchen, a modern horizontal space with clean lines, the grey palette is reinforced by dark cabinetry and a jet grey island by Porcelanosa. The island adjoins a breakfast bar where the lighting fixture by Hammerton Studio mirrors the organic formation of a sudden rain shower. In fact, most of the light fixtures in this home are sculptural, a formal counterpoint to the many shades of grey. This includes the prominent brass fixtures by Visual Comfort in the primary bedroom, which provide a stark contrast to the dark wood veneer wallpaper. Behind the bed’s velvet-covered headboard, mica wallpaper glistens with stars that seem light years away. The mosaic tile and ceramic stone in the shower and bathing area are a mix of warm whites and taupes, with a grey counterpane in the generous shower.
As one travels from room to room, the greys seem to merge, converge, and dissipate in a steady flow that carries one along, for there is unity; not an inch of this home is ignored. Farnady believes that the secret to successful interior design is finishing a home, from light fixtures to wall plates to door pulls to towels and soap. Upon close inspection, everything in this home has been tended to, and nothing is left “unpunctuated.” “When you walk into a room that is complete, you can relax,” she says. And this home is tranquil. In calm spaces etched in grey, one is free to recalibrate, to rest.
INTERIOR DESIGN: Katalin Farnady, Farnady Interiors
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN: Valeria Design Studio
Contractor: Hi Tech Electric
Stone: In Home Stone
Kitchen: Porcelanosa
Shades: Window Expressions
Wallpaper: Paper and Mud | wallcovering installation
Paint: Annapolis Painting Services
© Annapolis Home Magazine
Vol. 16, No. 3 2025