A couple in the East Side suburbs cried when their eldest child left for college. But through the tears, they saw opportunity: a chance to renovate the teen suite in their 1928 Georgian colonial. Their daughter had outgrown the dated decor of the baby-blue bedroom and sitting area, originally relegated to maid’s quarters. And the bathroom shower was leaking into the garage below. They envisioned the suite doubling as dedicated guest accommodations — a luxury they’d never had — during her extended absences.
“They wanted to freshen it up and make it more modern but still respect the style of the home,” says Nikki Pulver of Shaker Interiors in Shaker Heights. “They needed to gut the whole shower and redo the bathroom anyway. So it was good timing. We could have it done by the time she came back for fall break.”
Pulver delivered a suite that was irresistibly fresh and fun, yet grown-up enough for any adult the couple might host. They requested that Pulver incorporate purple, their daughter’s favorite color, in the design.
“I didn’t want it to feel too feminine, so we brought in some navy and green as well,” she says. “Purple became the accent.” Inspiration came in the form of Quadrille Home Couture’s Kalamkari wallpaper, a selection hand-printed in a lavender, green and navy pattern inspired by Indian Kalamkari art.
“Once I found that, we were off to the races,” Pulver says.
Sign Up to Receive the Cleveland Magazine Daily Newsletter Six Days a Week
Pulver prepared the suite for its next phase of life by ordering contractors to remove the built-ins surrounding the existing bed’s headboard. The homeowners, she explains, wanted a cleaner look in a room that already had adequate closet storage space. She retained the wall’s feature status by covering it in the aforementioned Quadrille paper, the pattern of which was repeated on the hand-printed linen used to make the Roman shades. The remaining woodwork was painted white, and the balance of the bedroom and sitting room were papered in a Thibaut spring-green geometric wallpaper rendered in vinyl.
“There are a lot of corners in that (bedroom),” Pulver notes. “I find, especially in a young person’s bedroom, that those corners can get dirty and beat up. If I can do a vinyl wallpaper, it is so user friendly. It’s washable, it’s cleanable. It doesn’t mar like paint.”
“It also brought in another pattern,” she adds, one of a smaller scale that added dimension to the suite.
Pulver covered the hardwood floors with a cream berber carpeting to warm feet treading over the unheated garage. It provided a neutral base for colorful furnishings covered in performance fabrics. She uses them whenever possible.
“They’re much easier to maintain and clean,” she says. “And they’re genuinely more durable.”
READ MORE: This Westlake Basketball Bedroom Is a Buzzer Beater
Cerused-oak, antique-mirror nightstands flank a bed that features a headboard upholstered in a custom indoor-outdoor acrylic boldly zigzagged in grass green and white, its curves defined by a navy welt. The white pillow shams are monogrammed in a design inspired by the Quadrille wallpaper, a feature that stands out on a bed simply made up with a navy coverlet, navy-trimmed white duvet and white tailored bed skirt.
Pulver topped a built-in window seat under the bedroom’s dormer window with a cushion covered in a navy-and-white polka dot and finished with a purple welt. The same treatment was used to reupholster a pair of unused armchairs found in another part of the house. Pulver stationed one on either side of a mirror-topped brass table in the sitting room. Tasseled rattan ottomans painted navy complete the seating arrangement.
READ MORE: An Aurora "Zen Den" Is the Children's Creative Oasis
The leaky shower was gutted, rebuilt and waterproofed with a Schluter-brand system. Pulver finished it in a textured white picket tile that not only provides a stunning contrast to a bathroom freshly painted navy, but picks up the white starburst pattern in the navy tile on the heated floor.
“(In) a good tile job, everything looks plumb and square,” Pulver says. “That can be hard to achieve if you’re working in an old house where you don’t have plumb-and-square walls. For this bathroom, getting the tile to line up and look so crisp was the most challenging part.”
The wall behind the existing white marble-topped vanity was covered in the same Quadrille paper hung in the bedroom. Pulver points out the strip of picket tile edged in quarter-round pencil liner that protectively separates the frameless shower door from the paper.
“We had very good venting in the shower,” she adds. “And we have a backsplash (behind) the sink.”
Finishing touches include a bobbin-style mirror Pulver had made in England and painted to match the green in the wallpaper, swing-arm sconces flanking the bed and window seat, and a lavender throw draped over the back of a sitting room chair. A framed chalkboard still hangs in the sitting room, a remnant from when the space served as a study. Pulver kept it at the homeowners’ request.
“(Their daughter) loves her chalkboard,” Pulver says. “She loves to doodle. She still wanted the room to feel like hers. That was important to her.”
For more updates about Cleveland, sign up for our Cleveland Magazine Daily newsletter, delivered to your inbox six times a week.
Cleveland Magazine is also available in print, publishing 12 times a year with immersive features, helpful guides and beautiful photography and design.
