Show House Part 5: Annnnnd we're back! : Annie Elliott Design

Hello, Gentle Readers! When we last left our heroine…

Preparations for the ASPIRE House are in full swing (again!)! I encourage you to go back and read my last blog post about the show house, just to get your head back in it. *I* had to. I couldn’t remember where I’d left off because I wrote that post IN MARCH. A lifetime ago.

Remember this?

Tania Lee Illustration of Annie Elliott Design's ASPIRE House room — A portion of Tania Lee‘s beautiful rendering of our space as envisioned when we applied to the ASPIRE House

In my last blog entry about the show house, I mentioned an unexpected bonus space. Here it is: the little hallway leading to our bedroom:

Hallway into Annie Elliott's room in the ASPIRE show house — Looking through our bonus hallway into the bedroom

These were taken early last week — which was the first time we saw the floors, by the way. Here’s another picture of that hallway:

Hallway with small chandelier leading to bedroom — Put a bird on it! That’s the Diego pendant from Circa, who is a sponsor of ASPIRE House

Circa Lighting's Diego pendant chandelier — Diego Petite Classical Perching Bird Pendant, designed by Chapman & Myers for Circa Lighting

I believe this little hallway was the result of a late architectural change. I’ve seen designers assigned spaces this small in other show houses, so theoretically, the hallway could have gone to someone else. Happily, it didn’t.

SOME designers would have declared this a throwaway space, slapped a coat of paint on it, hung a picture, and called it a day.

Well, Gentle Readers, as you know, Amy and I are not just ANY designers ;)

Interior designers Amy Oliver Beaupre and Annie Elliott — Senior Designer Amy Oliver Beaupré and me

No, we couldn’t help ourselves and went (further) over budget to select a few things to make it special. (If you guessed that wallpaper is one of those things, you would be correct.)

I don’t want to spoil it for you, but I’m dying to show you just a glimpse, because I literally — literally — gasped (I’m a gasper) when our wallpaper installer sent us pictures. So just a peek…

Mural wallpaper in a hallway — Are you dying?!? This is the English Parks wallcovering from Mural Sources

Meanwhile, in the bedroom itself, we painted the ceiling a similar color to the walls to make the soffits less noticeable. Light pink. It’s a little thing, but it makes a difference.

Circa lighting's Piaf chandelier in an empty room — Early last week. That’s the Piaf Large Chandelier by Thomas O’Brien via Circa Lighting. Isn’t it cool? It’s in the Swedish Gray finish

And the wallcovering, which you can glimpse in the hallway picture above, looks fantastic. It’s blush, not brown as it looks in the picture — Haruki Sisal by Schumacher. Thank you again, Schumacher. We were going to paint, but…you know what a sucker I am for grasscloth.

Room with light pink grasscloth wallpaper — So pretty!!! So empty. Furniture will be delivered this week

The new dates for ASPIRE House McLean are August 21 – September 14 — Wednesdays through Sundays. (We’re photographing it in early August, thus the crunch right now.) Please put it on your calendars, and I’ll keep you posted!

Annie Elliott Design is based in Washington, DC, but we travel for fun projects. Annie’s design work and insights have appeared in numerous local and national publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Washingtonian Magazine.

Show House Part 5: Annnnnd we’re back!