DORÉ

I can’t remember if I’ve shared this with you or not…but Josh and I bought our first house!

I’d love to wax poetic about the uniqueness of our situation and circumstance, but let’s be honest, we’re very much following the trend of the last year of people leaving cities for space, nature, serenity…but, I will say, we had been thinking about leaving New York before the pandemic began. We even went to look at Doris’ house in Garrison a month before New York locked down.

But, like many of our *very lucky* fellow urbanites, we decamped to Cape Cod last March and ended up finding our new home, in Bedford, New York, last June. The house was basically move in ready when we found it, which was ideal as we were not looking for a huge renovation project after the stress/anxiety/what the f!*k-ness of this past year. But this led us to the interesting task of trying to make a house that felt nothing like us, into a home that felt very much like us, without breaking a wall or re-tiling a bathroom. A unique challenge given that Josh and I have pretty much opposite taste in interiors.

We decided to tackle the house on our own, without the help of a designer, which was definitely overwhelming at times. Where we did bring in help was with choosing colors. Enter Farrow & Ball and their color consultancy program which we were able to do virtually with the brilliant Patrick O’Donnell — an international brand ambassador for Farrow & Ball who gave us guidance and wisdom on how to bring color into our home to give it character without looking it looking like a disjointed mess. We followed most of his suggestions (Card Room Green on the walls, Studio Green on the trim in the living room) and only went rogue in a few spaces—like our bright yellow Babouche powder room—and I’m happy to report it worked out! And really laid the foundation for how we approached the rest of the house.

For the kitchen, which the previous owners re-did just a few years ago, we made it our own by simply switching out the cabinet hardware to give the space more contrast with new knobs and pulls from Rejuvenation. For the dining area, a new light fixture to tie in with the kitchen and some new tableware from our dear friend Tina Frey helped pull our contrast-vibe together. Simple and clean.

For our media room, we went a bit more whimsical and deep with dark Studio Green walls and ceiling, velvet curtains and a tiger print rug for a playful touch. And we had to upgrade our sofa to a larger sectional when we adopted our second dog, Hugo, who is enormous and loves to cuddle. This Gabriel sectional from Sixpenny in their Warm Oatmeal Medium Weight Linen with washable slipcovers was the lifesaver we were looking for to ground the room.

In general we wanted to keep the house feeling more eclectic and not too perfect—hard to do when you can’t travel and pick up odds and ends to break things up. But our living room has a mix of old—a vintage desk bought at auction—and new—this velvet sofa from Lulu & Georgia that is incredibly comfortable—for a mix of mid-century and more traditional shapes.

When it comes to bedrooms and bathrooms my favorite is to make the space feel like an incredibly comfortable hotel room. I find I always sleep well in a beautiful hotel. For this, you need a big bed with a great mattress and incredibly luxurious bedding—Frette or bust!—and dark curtains to block the light. We used the same velvet that’s in our media room. I still fantasize about adding a soaking tub to our bathroom, but in the meantime the plush Frette towels still make every shower feel totally luxurious.

But what is perhaps my favorite part of our new home is the land it sits on. We have an acre filled with trees, lush grass and an ever changing array of flowers and plants. We’ve become obsessed with time outside. I’ve spent the spring sitting on this Outer set with a cup of coffee and a crossword in the mornings and our weekends are now spent gardening, adding new flowers into the mix. I just can’t wait until we start to entertain here—but I guess we’ll have to make some friends first!