Designer Emily Yeates adds depth and charm to a previously pale interior.
By Nora Burba Trulsson | Photography by Jenny Flynn
The house in the Arcadia Lite neighborhood of Phoenix was everything Katy and Mark McIntosh wanted—a light-filled new build with plenty of room for their two teen boys and two large dogs, a backyard with a pool and a site within walking distance of favorite restaurants. It was also around the corner from their previous house, so they didn’t have to take months to settle into the neighborhood.
But there was a downside. “It was a beautiful home,” explains Katy of the modern farmhouse-style residence, “but it seemed like every square inch of the interior was white.” Blinded by the hue, Katy made a stab at color correcting the setting, using furniture from the couple’s previous house. “It just wasn’t working,” she remembers. “I realized I needed serious guidance.”
Through a builder, the couple found interior designer Emily Yeates, who assessed the situation and made suggestions. “Katy and Mark have personalities,” Yeates explains, “and the house should reflect that. They needed furnishings that were in proportion to the scale of the rooms—you didn’t want to feel like you were the last Tic Tac in the container when you walked around the rooms. Plus, the kitchen wasn’t as fun as it could have been.”
Concentrating on the great room, kitchen and primary suite, Yeates went to work, getting the go-ahead from the couple to push the envelope with some ideas. Using the existing oak flooring, the interior designer gave the kitchen a visual boost by repainting the cabinetry a deep olive green and replacing the bland backsplash with three-dimensional tile. In the adjacent great room, Yeates specified a new, plush custom sectional that echoes the cabinetry color and gave the previously neutral bookshelves a boost by applying patterned wallpaper to the back panels.
A new, colorful hand-blown glass light fixture adds a crowning touch above the great room’s deeply hued coffee table. It’s one of several light fixtures that Yeates replaced, adding interest and bringing down the scale of the home’s high ceilings. “All of the old fixtures are still sitting in our garage,” says Katy with a smile, “including the black farmhouse-style lights, ropes and exposed bulbs. We’ll get around to repurposing them soon.”
In the primary suite, a new boucle sleigh bed is framed against a wall done in a sea foam green grass cloth. Yeates also went for some sly humor by having custom Roman shades crafted out of a modern toile fabric, where 19th-century pastoral figures wield modern-day technology, such as selfie sticks, laptops and headphones. “I actually got a little giddy when I found this fabric,” laughs Yeates. “It’s so much fun.”
In the primary bath, mural wallpaper of a landscape scene, more grass cloth and a custom area rug were simple fixes for the previously pale setting.
The finished look is rich and inviting. “I told Emily that I wanted this to look like a home, not just a pretty space,” says Katy. “I wanted warmth, depth, and that’s what we achieved.”
SOURCES
Interior designer: Emily Yeates, Urban Revival, Phoenix, urbanrevivalphx.com. Remodeling builder: Rebuild The Block, Phoenix, rebuildtheblock.net.
