Classic & contemporary
A traditional home in Ellicott City gets a fresh, modern update
It was a match made on houzz.com. In 2015, Ellicott City resident Ann Summers was exploring the website where home professionals showcase their work, looking for inspiration for the two-story Colonial home that she and husband Douglas Jarrett bought in 1994.
“Every time I would save something, it was [the work of ] Elizabeth Reich in Baltimore. So one day I just picked up the phone and called her. She came over and we talked, and I loved her ideas, and we went from there,” Summers says.
An interior redesign unfolded over the next two years as Reich, a designer at Jenkins Baer Associates in Baltimore, and Summers created an updated look for the home’s living room, dining room, first-floor master bedroom suite, foyer, study and half-bath.
Summers and Jarrett had repainted, but little else had been updated since the four-bedroom, 31⁄2-bath, 3,900-square-foot home had been built in 1989. A 2008 renovation delivered the couple’s dream kitchen: an open floor plan with ample counter space and an island, perfect for the large family gatherings the couple host. But it also had Summers turning a new eye toward the adjacent dining and living rooms.
Key to the home’s new look would be incorporating the traditional, handcrafted furniture and decorative items that Summers and Jarrett had collected.
Reich “was willing to work with what I had. I have some items that are family pieces and … they have meaning to me. Liz worked with them, and that was important to me,” Summers says. The result is a fresh take on a traditional home. Reich relied on simple fabrics, using patterns with layers to provide texture. She incorporated new furniture with clean, modern lines. And she mixed simple patterns together, all tactics that tend to make traditional design feel more modern.
Reich started with a few simple construction changes to make the rooms feel larger and provide more natural light in the dining and living