The Indoor-Outdoor Dining Room in This San Francisco Victorian is Goals
When you start with an old San Francisco Victorian—where classic moldings and ceiling medallions are still intact—and you tack on a steel-and-glass addition, you’re going to need some clever transitions.
Interior designer Heather Peterson calls herself a mix master, yet at first she questioned how best to blend together the past and the present in this Mission District home. “How do you marry design in a left-alone, non-updated Victorian with a super modern addition?” she asked. Her answer was to pull contemporary elements into the untouched rooms and aged materials into the fresh spaces, fusing both time periods with equal weight: “You have to honor the old and the new.”
Kids' Room
“The old part of the house has many early elements done in a modern way,” Peterson says. In the girls’ room, most of the furnishings are materials that could have been original, such as wicker, Persian rugs, a wingback chair, and wallpaper.
However, these wicker beds are open and airy, the rug is overdyed, and the wallpaper a modern take on a botanical that also nods to San Francisco. “The Mission has a tradition of street art and murals, the birds came from the neighborhood,” she says. “Digital printing is a modern technique of what could have been in spirit original to the house.”
Mural: Walls Need Love. Beds: Serena and Lily. Quilts: Ballard Design. Sheets and throws: PBTeen. Custom lumbar pillows: Christopher Farr Cloth with Link fringe. Lamp: PB Teen. Rug: Pottery Barn. Secretary/chest: vintage.
Kids Bath
The family’s personal art collection is a mix of graphics, abstracts, and works by Joseph Albers. The Bauhaus-inspired squares set the tone for the home’s color palette and geometric design, which stretches to every corner, even the kids’ bath, where simple, strong lines in Scion Nuevo wallpaper makes a bold statement and wakes up the existing bath vanity and fixtures.
Wallpaper: Scion Nuevo. Shower curtain: Serena and Lily. Art: by Sarah Bienvenu via Winterowd Fine Art.
Living Room
A trio of art hanging above the sofa informed the yellows in the living room that Peterson paired with pale purples. She also used the artwork to kick off color-blocking on the slipper chairs, a modern technique she used throughout the home. While the palette and design are contemporary, most of the materials are true to the era. “All of the fabrics, flame-stitch, tweed, mohair, and fringe—they’re all Victorian, just deployed in a fresh way,” she says.
Rug: Faye and Belle. Sectional: Clad Home Coronado. Coffee table: Arteriors Slater. Console table: Madegoods Benjamin. Leather stools: Madegoods Vaughn. Side table: Madegoods Nemi. Lamp: Robert Abbey. Throw pillow fabrics: Flamestitch and Lilac Velvet, Clarence House. Throw pillow fringe: Link. Slipper chairs: RH, Restoration Hardware. Slipper chair textile: custom, in Clarence House brushed cotton. Window seat and custom triangle bolster fabric: Harlequin Cestino.
Dining Room
The open dining room is part of the modern addition done in steel, concrete, and glass. Stained wood-paneled walls offer a backdrop to graphic, lettered triptych artwork, giving a jolt of color to the room. Metal chairs and mid-century lighting are juxtaposed with a soft, traditional Herringbone bench seat while a vertical garden outside gives an enchanting, Secret Garden-like alternative to looking at the neighbor’s wall.
Chandelier: Elegant Lighting Berkley. Table: James and James, custom Arkwright. Chairs: Remy Side Chair, RH, Restoration Hardware. Benches: Lee Industries in Thibaut Crypton Herringbone fabric.
Master Bedroom
The master bedroom, also part of the addition, is a modern counterpoint to the vintage-inspired kids’ room, situated at either ends of a hallway. This started with a rug, striated and color-blocked, and “one of the most contemporary gestures in the home.” This created a ripple effect of geometrics to the mohair throw to the grasscloth-studded wallpaper to the shapely lamps and pillows. The yellow pocket door was already in place, adding one more moment of design to work with. “The home was already color-blocked!” Peterson laughs.
Rug: Jaipur Unstring by Kavi. Bed: Ella, Room and Board. Custom throw pillow fabrics: Schumacher. Nightstands: Hedge House. Lamps: Arteriors Lorna. Wallpaper: Thibaut Union Square. Draperies: Mokum Grassland. Throw blanket: Mantas Ezcary. Chair: Anthropologie. Stool: Eames through DWR. Custom embroidery: Alice Wiese.
Office
A third-floor office is the most modern of all the rooms with a yellow door and wall echoing the living room tones paired with black and white, hand-blocked Kelly Wearstler wallpaper jazzing up the ceiling.
Mid-century furniture, a concrete desk, and metal accents nod to other new parts of the house, bringing the energy of the addition all the way upstairs. “Standing from the front hall, the most traditional part of the home with the original banister and ceiling medallion, you can look up and see a sliver of this space,” Peterson says, adding that this glimpse is her favorite moment of past meets present. “These two points give you the full spectrum.”
Rug: DWR Arguto. Sofabed: American Leather. Pillow fabric: Pierre Frey. Throw pillow: CB2. Floor lamp: Arteriors Linden. Brass cube tables: CB2. Bentwood chair: Gus Modern. Desk: CB2. Desk lamp: Rejuvenation. Desk chair: Laura Davidson Direct. Ceiling wallpaper: Kelly Wearstler for Groundworks. Wall color (niche): Dunn Edwards Alameda Ochre. Art: Sarah Bienvenu, Winterowd Fine Art.
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