Designer’s DIY luxe
Big renovation leaves cottage refined, relaxed — and ready for a family
The listing for the tiny two-bedroom, one-bath in Portola Valley may have deterred many families from considering the Cape Cod-style dwelling. But during their house hunt several years ago, Erica and Mathew Johnston decided to check out the place on a whim. “It’s actually in our price range, so let’s just take a chance and go,” she recalls telling her husband.
To their surprise — and delight — the cottage, as she lovingly refers to it, was larger than advertised. And they realized that with some updates it could work well for their family of four, which includes 8-year-old son Cole and 3-year-old daughter Chloe.
From what Johnston has been able to gather, the home was built in 1905 and, after suffering fire damage, was augmented over the years. Size aside, however, there were additional features that might have scared off potential buyers — like the carpeting in the bathroom and an incongruous rock garden.
Designer Erica Johnston’s attic office, above, in the Portola Valley home she spent a year remodeling.
Johnston, a San Jose native, has a resume that includes stints with Frog Design and One King’s Lane, as well as her own luxe children’s decor company, Pemberley Rose (www.pemberleyrose.com), which she launched after the home remodel. She spearheaded the year-long renovation (during which the family remained in the house) that added a bathroom and yielded refined yet relaxed interiors that showcase her talent for budget-friendly schemes.
“If you invest in good bones, the things that you put in the space look more luxe,” Johnston says, noting the glossy, dark-stained wood floors and graceful light fixtures. Layering in fabrics such as silk, linen and velvet also adds elegance.
In the open-plan living, dining and kitchen area, a soft palette of off-whites, grays and taupes provides cohesion. The ivory sofa may seem like an unthinkable choice for a household with two young kids, but Scotchgarding the fabric has increased its longevity. On the wall behind the sofa, the framed maps are from a book that cost her just a buck.
The pair of curved-back chairs and jute rug are One Kings Lane buys. A tufted armchair from Zentique, adorned with a pillow by an Etsy seller who upcycles fur coats, sits adjacent to a vintage Louis Vuitton trunk from eBay.
The dining room is anchored by a $200 table that Johnston plucked from a Restoration Hardware warehouse sale and then painted herself. Nearby, a Baker cabinet picked up on clearance houses vintage leather-bound books, silver serve ware, mini busts and other decorative objects. “A lot of trolling on eBay,” as Johnston puts it, paid off with the marbletopped Louis XVI commode.
To save money, the couple refaced the existing kitchen cabinetry, replacing just the doors and hardware. The room’s focal point is the Calacatta marble subway-tile backsplash that extends to the ceiling to frame the windows above the farmhouse sink.
The master bedroom, which shares a converted attic space with Johnstone’s home office, is furnished with an upholstered headboard, flanked by nightstands procured on eBay. The two matching table lamps were closeout specials from Circa Lighting.
Johnston re-covered an oval-back Louis XVI side chair with gray velvet purchased from Amazon, while another chair was an $80 Craigslist score that she paired with a toile fabric remnant. To accessorize, she turned to the Alameda flea market and art books; the use of gold frames — Aaron Brothers is a favorite source — imparts a high-end aesthetic.
But when she was decorating Cole’s and Chloe’s bedrooms, Johnston had trouble finding pieces that fit her criteria. “I’m a big believer in only buying something once and having it work from baby to teen, hopefully,” she says.
“I was looking for items that were timeless, that you could style different ways — making them more traditional or more modern,” she continues. “But all the bedding out there for kids, unless you went really plain — solid colors or white — seemed like such a statement on their own.” Often, the motifs were too juvenile or too trendy, making them difficult to mix with other elements.
So Johnston took matters into her own hands with Pemberley Rose after being inspired by a drawing of a ballerina she had sketched for invitations to Chloe’s first birthday. The company specializes in decor for children — prints, bedding and wallpaper, many of which are based on hand-drawn illustrations.
Chloe’s Restoration Hardware baby/child bed, which was a gift, is dressed in Pemberley Rose’s velvet-trimmed linen bedding. In Cole’s room, Pemberley Rose’s London Calling removable wallpaper — a pattern that feels both whimsical and heritage, says Johnston — serves as the backdrop.
In retrospect, Johnston acknowledges that overseeing the home’s renovation — acting as contractor and interior designer — stretched the timeline, but she’d happily undertake it all again. “It has a vintage charm that I think is hard to come by,” she says. “It makes me feel so good every time I look at it, knowing we made it this way.”
“If you invest in good bones, the things that you put in the space look more luxe.”
Erica Johnston, interior designer