As many couples discover, house-hunting priorities shift drastically when you become a parent: Suddenly, living in a neighborhood with great schools and other young families seems a whole lot more important than sunbathed, loftlike rooms. Traci and Bill Fleming—parents of daughter Piper, 5, and son Mason, 3—discovered this two years ago, when they started looking for a home in South Pasadena, California. Sure, the area's Craftsman bungalows from the early 20th century didn't exactly jibe with the couple's modern furniture and contemporary art. But Traci, the cofounder of children's-furniture line Nurseryworks, and Bill, a criminal defense attorney, were wooed by the quaint, family-friendly neighborhood with a good elementary school right around the corner.
They ended up buying a 1909 bungalow that was about 30 percent smaller than their previous home in Pasadena. "When we first walked inside, I thought the rooms felt a little dark and cramped. But I also actually liked the idea of not having too much space," says Traci. "And we were confident we could respectfully infuse our own style into the house."
To maximize the bungalow's space and utility—and to help navigate the restrictions imposed by the historic district's strict planning board—the Flemings hired residential designer Jill Salter and interior designer Tamara Kaye-Honey, friends and fellow parents, to oversee the remodeling. One of their top priorities was lightening up the space. Salter opened up some of the rooms by knocking down walls and adding windows, and the wood paneling, a Craftsman signature, was painted high-gloss white. (To take the paneling down altogether, says Traci, would have been architectural "blasphemy.") The oak floors, too, were triple-bleached to add light and mask scratches. "We try to do the no-shoes thing," says Traci, who like Bill is from North Carolina. "But that doesn't always happen. Actually, the adults are the problem. California kids love to be barefoot."
The Flemings also saw the dark rooms as a chance to experiment with something new for them: pattern and color. Sunny wallpaper seemingly widens a skinny hallway, floral upholstery freshens up a pair of chairs in the living room, and even the front door is now painted—with the planning board's approval—canary yellow. "Kids bring so much punch to your life. I wanted the backdrop to mirror what we were living every day," says Traci. "Plus, patterns hide crayon and pen marks."
Next Page: Experimenting with Pattern and Color
