DESIGN by KRISTIN REGEN, KR INTERIOR DESIGN
PHOTOGRAPHY by MEGHAN BALCOM
TEXT by MARISA SANDORA CARR
When Solange and Steve Burgermeister first saw their classic center-hall colonial in Summit, they immediately fell in love. The problem was, everybody else who was house hunting in Summit did too—the property got 21 offers. The Burgermeisters, who were looking to move within town for more space, had already lost out in bidding wars on a few other houses; they were determined not to let that happen again. “When we went in with our offer, we went in hard, and I’m so grateful it worked out,” says Solange.
The house had great bones and was across the street from a park, so the location was ideal for a family with three young children. But the prior owner had lived there for 30 years and most of the interior was dated, save the kitchen, which had been redone. Solange turned to her friend Kristin Regen of KR Interior Design in Summit and Bay Head for help. “She wanted to start with the living room and dining room, what people see when they first come into the house,” Regen says. Originally, the living room was yellow, the dining room was red, and the foyer that connects them featured country-looking wallpaper. Plus, there were heavy, floral window treatments everywhere. The goal was to lighten things up, says Regen, who says of her client: “She wanted it airy and bright, a little coastal, though not extremely, since Summit is obviously not on the coast.”
Walls were painted Simply White by Benjamin Moore, and the yellowish floors on the first floor were stained a darker shade to provide contrast. In the living room, Solange was determined to have a white couch, despite people telling her she was crazy, having three little boys. Regen suggested a sectional from Lovesac, which features washable covers that can easily be replaced if stained or damaged.
“We have two cats, which we’ve had since before we had kids, and they love to tear up our furniture,” says Solange. “So Kristin had to keep that in mind for all of the materials—three boys and two destructive cats. Thankfully, she’s a cat owner herself, so she understood where I was coming from. Are the cats scratching at the couch? Definitely—but in my head, I have new covers ready.”
The blue, hand-tufted, wool rug is from Pottery Barn and is “also pretty good about hiding stuff,” says Solange. The classic slipper chair from Crate & Barrel features performance linen and is flanked by a rattan side table from Article. “They had a pretty tight budget, so we bought a lot of retail things,” says Regen. Light wood tones on the Crate & Barrel coffee table and West Elm console table behind the sofa keep the look light and bright.
In the dining room, Regen removed a chair rail and added wainscoting and a neutral taupe grasscloth wallpaper for texture, plus a beachy, two-toned jute rug from Surya. The dining table was the Burgermeisters’s from their previous home, and Regen surrounded it with gold-tone chairs from West Elm that featured dark-green, distressed-velvet cushions.
But the showstopper is the chandelier from Visual Comfort, made of clear, swirled glass balls. “It was double or triple the original budget,” Solange says, “but we know this is going to be in this house forever, so we said, ‘Let’s go for it.’ We loved her choice so much. I could stare at that all day.”
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