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Houzz Tour: A Creative Family Home Accessorised With Bold Artwork
Designer Raji Radhakrishnan has brought her distinctive style home to create a bold and unique space
Before its most recent renovation, this home had a classic exterior and a modern heart. Located just outside Washington, DC, it was built in 2002 in a Georgian manor style. Inside, the living area was mainly one open space. When interior designer Raji Radhakrishnan and her family moved in 10 years ago, she started to put her style into the structure. ‘It has been my design lab, and it’s gone through various incarnations,’ she says. The latest one, completed last year, was all about enclosing some of the spaces and making them more private and adding architectural details that gave the interior some weight.
Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here Interior designer Raji Radhakrishnan and her family
Location Northern Virginia, USA
Size 4 bedrooms, 3½ bathrooms
Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here Interior designer Raji Radhakrishnan and her family
Location Northern Virginia, USA
Size 4 bedrooms, 3½ bathrooms
Prior to the redesign, Radhakrishnan says that when visitors came through the front door, they could view the entire first floor. ‘You could see all the way back to the family room. Sometimes I like to be back there in my pyjamas relaxing with my cereal, and I wanted more privacy,’ she says. ‘Also, I like classical architecture, and I wanted to bring some of the feeling of the outside in.’ She started by creating an enclosed entrance; a hexagonal foyer with a wooden sculpture at the centre, which the designer chose for its large scale and graceful curves. Not only does it make a dramatic statement, it helps screen the family room. From this foyer you can enter the rest of the house through portals outlined with brawny and period-appropriate plastering. ‘There wasn’t much moulding at all before the redesign,’ she says. ‘The ceilings are high here, so something large felt appropriate.’
The glimpse of the eight-sided family room you catch around the sculpture doesn’t reveal one of Radhakrishnan’s more novel design moves: floor-to-ceiling photo murals – her company now manufactures the wall coverings. The one seen here is a shot the designer took of the London underground. ‘I love 1930s and 1940s era French furniture,’ Radhakrishnan says. ‘I like the lines of Georgian architecture, and I used some of the fundamentals of it, but I didn’t think I needed to be a slave to a federalist style – especially since this is a new house. For me the classic lines were just a starting point, and I mixed in different styles.’
‘I think the mural brings a sense of motion and modernity to the room,’ Radhakrishnan says.
Check out more photographic murals
Check out more photographic murals
Her affinity for art deco-era furniture from France was born of a lifetime of travel. ‘I grew up in India, where I studied classical dance and went on several international tours,’ she says. ‘The many cities I visited then influence my aesthetic today.’ The artwork throughout the house is the result of a long marriage. ‘My husband and I started gifting art to each other back when we could spend pennies and shop at car-boot sales,’ she says.
Another large mural shows a portion of Louis-Léopold Boilly’s meta-painting depicting a crowd viewing an artwork illustrating the coronation of Empress Josephine, the wife of Napoleon. ‘I’ve always enjoyed watching people,’ Radhakrishnan says. ‘I love looking at the expressions of the people in the painting.’
The designer says that blowing the image up to mural size has created the ultimate people-watching experience; viewers can study the small gestures and expressions on the painted spectators. Because the mural and furniture are powerful, the designer used a quiet wool rug, white save for some subtle black lines, to balance things out.
In the same room, a vintage lithograph by Al Held crowns a console Radhakrishnan designed by placing a mirror behind an architectural artefact. ‘It was once the ironwork on a French balcony,’ she says. As for the chair by Marc Newson and the Carl Hansen sconces. ‘You have to have seating and lighting, so why not make your choices the most interesting possible?’ she adds.
Take a look at some more white schemes
Take a look at some more white schemes
When guests come, this dining table can be expanded to seat 12, but on other occasions it is kept small. ‘Only during the holidays do we have a large number of people around the table,’ Radhakrishnan says. ‘Keeping the table to its smallest size makes entertaining for small groups more casual.’ The blue sofa brings additional function to the space. ‘I love tucking seating into a dining room,’ the designer says. ‘It makes it so much more usable. Guests sit here before and after a meal. I often talk to my kids here.’
Radhakrishnan tweaked the kitchen by removing the doors of the upper cabinets, painting their backs blue and making them work as shelving. ‘I love my white serving ware,’ she says. ‘Putting them against blue allows the pieces to stand out.’
The house is mainly white, so Radhakrishnan added some relief by painting the library black. ‘It breaks the monotony,’ she says. The designer, inspired by a Richard Serra painting, added black swirls around the base of the light fixture. ‘I think it keeps the white piece from getting lost on the white ceiling,’ she says, adding that she also painted the shade on the floor lamp.
Upstairs, the mural behind the bed comes from a sketch the designer found on an old book plate. ‘I photographed it and enlarged it,’ she says. ‘Here I’ve framed it with moulding so it floats on the wall.’ When asked if her latest redesign is the final one, Radhakrishnan doesn’t make any promises. ‘This may be to the dismay of my family, but I like to change things,’ she says. ‘I can’t help it, because it’s so fun to play around.’
My Houzz is a series in which we visit and photograph creative, personality-filled homes and the people who inhabit them. If you would like your home to be featured, send some photos to ukeditor@houzz.com.
My Houzz is a series in which we visit and photograph creative, personality-filled homes and the people who inhabit them. If you would like your home to be featured, send some photos to ukeditor@houzz.com.