Gorman was raising Lily on her own when she met Roger Johansson, a Swedish-born trader in Scandinavian equities. He eventually moved in, and when their daughter Eve was born, the couple gave her the guest room; a spare room downstairs has gone to an au pair. "We've maxed out, space-wise," says the six-foot, two-inch Gorman, who finds time to row with a local crew between playdates, carpooling, and business meetings. Rooms are used communally. At one end of the loftlike living room, a dining table composed of two simple maple trestles made by a woodworker friend serves for dinner parties, family suppers, and homework. Lily and her pals push the Marimekko fabric runner to the side and spread out their books. Furniture is moved from room to room as Gorman rethinks the use of space. Eve's Metroshelf changing table (initially Lily's) has done duty as a bookcase and a kitchen island.
Though Gorman's approach is flexible, it isn't anything goes. Yes, there's a purple plastic baby walker lurking in the living room, and the high chair is a $49 plastic Evenflo model that Gorman chose because it has casters and can roll from kitchen counter to dining table. But this author of a book titled The Artful Table, which explains how to pull together sophisticated settings, refuses to let kid stuff take over. She regularly weeds out books and toys her children outgrow, passing them on to charity. She keeps the kids' art supplies in her studio and allows them to work only there, where she can supervise. She confines Eve's rattles, stuffed animals, and teething rings to a low galvanized-steel tub in the living room and a Shakerlike wood box in the master bedroom. "Part of the fun for her is to dig everything out of the box and put it all back in again," Gorman says.
And then there's the white sofa in the living room, a recent addition to an informal mix of furnishings that includes an Eames rocker and a steel-and-woven-rubber Italian chaise. Gorman is hell-bent on keeping the new piece clean. "I yell anytime anyone comes near it with food or drink," she admits cheerfully. "I don't buy a lot of furniture, but I've always picked what I loved. I want the things around me to be beautiful, even if I do have a couple of kids."
