My House Beautiful
Rich palette the foundation for display of art
A willingness to compromise brings couple a colourful, comfortable home.
During their courtship, Jana Rieger and her husband Chris each maintained their own condominiums. Jana’s taste is contemporary, Chris’s is more traditional.
“I love modern furniture,” says Jana, citing a white couch she got on sale at Ikea when she was a starving PhD student.
After deciding to tie the knot in 2007, the pair toured about 70 homes before finally agreeing on a location and a house they could both love.
The couple was content with the plain-Jane, whiteand-black exterior and reclaimed hardwood flooring of the 3,000-square-foot, twoand-a-half storey, A-frame in Cloverdale.
But they were intimidated by the open layout. Jana also couldn’t stomach the previous owner’s passion for red.
“Everything that is now brown was Coca-Cola red,” she says, gesturing to the beams and pillars running the length of the home, and to parts of the kitchen.
Most worrisome, the main floor was a long, open rectangle.
“We had no idea how to room things off,” says Jana. “We thought, if we try to do this ourselves, we’ll ruin it.”
So they enlisted interior designer/referee Al Black, from Above the Bank Interiors, for advice and guidance on how to marry their possessions and esthetics. The result is a comfortable yet elegant home that blends vibrant colours, favourite pieces of art, functional design and cosiness.
Jana says they had agreed on “yellow everything,” but under Black’s influence, were soon smitten with a palette of mandarin orange, rich browns and emerald greens.
“I love it, but I wouldn’t have thought of it on my own,” says Jana, adding that Black also chose accessories such as rugs and small tables, “to essentially help us create different rooms within this one room.”
The trio’s designing success begins at the front entranceway, where a one-of-a-kind glass panel functions both as art and as a separation between the entry from the living area.
Local artisan Manola Borrajo-Giner, known simply as Manola, was commissioned to create the floor-to-ceiling screen with its Tuscan-style image of two trees in a sky of swirling orange and red sky.
A second, smaller glass panel of white birches, also by Manola, is inset above the nearby fireplace mantel, and co-ordinates perfectly with the tile surround. It was a Christmas present to Jana from Chris.
Art that the couple acquired on their honeymoon in Africa is prominent throughout the main floor. Above the dark chocolate, custom-made leather couches in the living room, are striking, three-dimensional pieces they discovered in a small village along the coast of Namibia. An artist named Robyn used natural materials, including foot-long porcupine quills, to form bush-like bouquets inside a textured, mustard-coloured frame of paint and sand.
The room’s vibrant colour scheme balances beautifully with the deep, rich brown and natural wood finish of a coffee table by Edmonton designer Christopher Clayton.
A large, espresso-coloured, wooden dining table gleams under a wrought-iron chandelier and its swirled globes of hand-blown glass in ambers and browns.
Original art the couple picked up on other getaways, including work by Canadian artists Nikol Haskova and Richard Mravik, is displayed throughout the home.
A still-life by Lloyd minster born Grant Leier, featuring blue pears and other luscious fruit, hangs above a unique hutch re-purposed from a teak Chinese ox cart. A Leier of white magnolias with blue eyes hangs above the kitchen’s granite-topped bar.
The couple designed the Lshaped bar to eliminate the need for an additional table. It also creates extra storage, including space for a builtin wine fridge and a “secret” mechanized panel that Chris uses for liquor and cigars.
East-facing windows create perfect conditions for growing and displaying another of Chris’s passions — orchids. A white “moth,” with pink tinges, blooms above the sink.
Up an oak staircase lined with colourful and fragrant blooms, is an inviting, second-floor office. During the day, Jana works as a professor in rehab medicine, but in her free time she moonlights as a writer, and is currently working on a novel about research fraud.
Down the hallway, soothing teal-coloured walls line the large master bedroom. Bedside lighting fixtures, with hand-blown glass globes that resemble musical treble-clefs, contrast with the simple, dark, wooden bed frame. A kennel in matching wood is for Max, the couple’s beloved schnauzer.
Only a alterations, including textured “feminine” grey wallpaper that contrasts with the original slate, were required to update the ensuite bathroom, featuring a large soaker tub and walk-in glass shower.
Jana jokes that she rarely ventures to the final half-floor of the home, where construction entrepreneur Chris has his office and toy-lined man cave.
The sloping A-shaped ceiling and shelves overflowing with CDs and heavy tomes create a space that lives up to its name. A wooden propeller, from his deceased pilot father’s first plane, rests on a shelf.
At the far end, a private nook houses some of Chris’s “bachelor” possessions, including a heavy leather armchair from his mom, and large telescope for stargazing — creating the perfect roost for dreaming about future adventures that can only add to the treasures already filling this house.