FORMAL ROOMS

trim pieces were made and fitted on site.

The new cooking galley is simple and straightforward. Cabinets, made of the same cherry as the paneling, stretch to the ceiling, as they often did in Victorian butler's pantries. (See the photo on p. 20.) A tall rolling ladder on a rail provides access to uppermost cabinets. The design avoids making the room too perfect, too fitted—too modern. For example, utensil drawers were fashioned from an old tiger-maple violin case that sits on the table. An adjoining closet was returned to its original configuration, becoming a walk-in pantry for extra storage.

Colorful windows fitted with vintage Addison glass throw a rainbow of red, blue, purple, and gold into the warm wood room. A SubZero refrigerator is camouflaged beneath fitted cherry panels. The La Cornue stove in royalpurple enamel is an elegant accent. The high-ceilinged parlor on the main floor got the treatment it deserved. Already nicely fitted with wood and plaster trim, the room was hung with roomset wallpapers from Bradbury & Bradbury's Victorian ‘Neo-Classical’ collection, in a colorway that complemens the stone-grey paint chosen by previous owners. (The cottage has never had a formal dining room.) A tiny bathroom carved from a closet in an earlier era was transformed with marble wainscoting and classic ‘Italian Panorama’ wallpaper from Iksel of Paris. The original Crane soaking tub remains. The husband cultivates species rhododendrons. The couple's terraced yard is planted with rare species, like the creamy-white and intensely fragrant ‘Hunstein’s Secret’, the saturated-yellow R.macabeanum, and the massive-leaved R.sinogrande. Like the cottage, the backyard is a small, lovely retreat. The bedroom opens to the “inner sanctum.” A multihued Joseph’s Coat rose clambers over a trellis in the back garden. Salvaged marble moulding makes a handy shelf for backyard plants.