1980s condo gets a new lease on life
Seattle ‘box’ turns into contemporary urban sanctuary
With experience comes empowerment: You know yourself. You know your style (and your baggage). You know you can navigate stormy skies and land somewhere considerably sunnier: your true place.
Eight years ago, interior designer Kristine Donovick picked up a whole lot of experience. She had gone through a divorce, and it was time to simplify — and maybe shake things up a bit.
Donovick was moving from a stately Georgian in the Magnolia neighborhood in Seattle and “really wanted a box” this time around. A 1980s-era Capitol Hill condominium checked the box, box, all right, and then some: “It didn’t feel like an apartment,” she says. “It had good bones and the greatest floor plan and a great part of the city: not downtown, just right.” It also was perched right above Interstate 5.
“Everyone said you shouldn’t buy on the freeway,” she says.
Donovick listened to herself instead. She bought it. She married an architect. And then they totally remodeled the whole condo into a true classic, contemporary sanctuary. By simplifying design and flow, cleaning up lines, straightening soffits and injecting strong architectural elements, they created a lovely urban oasis of serenity.
“I like the challenge of something new — traditional, transitional; it’s interesting to me,” Donovick says. “There’s definitely a thread of continuity. I love classic; it’s beautiful.”
This “quiet approach” left plenty of room, spatially and aesthetically, for a carefully curated decor of things they love: their eclectic, extensive art collection and, at floor level, pup companions Maddy and Marley.
“We both love primitive, beautiful Japanese pieces. And we enjoy artifacts as special things we found,” she says. “Contemporary is the most beautiful with the mix of antiques and period pieces. To come into a condo, it’s a high priority to display your favorite things. You sift once you downsize. It felt good.”
Donovick and her husband, who have six grown children between them, also own a home on Whidbey Island, with a distinctly different vibe: “big plank floors, lots of fir, very open.”
“It’s the best of both worlds,” she says. “We have our urban/sophisticated space here — symphony and the arts — and we turn into beachcombers there. When we walk out our door (on Whidbey), it’s like a private beach.”
Here, even on the Zenlike outdoor deck looking toward Lake Union, the downtown skyline and that busy freeway, it’s still private, and peaceful, on purpose.
On both levels, the condo’s open, clean outlook subtly frames simple cabinetry, tech lighting and quiet organic finish materials.
In the living room, the custom fireplace facade of wenge wood (typically a mahogany color, Donovick says) has been bleached and softly whitewashed. “I like the interest of the grain, the simple mass,” she says. “That feel travels through here.”
In the completely redone kitchen, custom white oak cabinets hide all the appliances, discreet blackenedsteel cabinet pulls gently blend right in, and the black honed soapstone countertops and backsplash whisper tranquillity.
“We kind of live in here; it’s kind of a family room when the kids come,” she says. “The idea is very architectural and quiet. We’re both so busy with careers, we like to come home to quiet.”
Everywhere, everything means something: her husband’s binocular collection on the living room window sill, the Tibetan timber over the dining table, the hallway’s wood-and-bronze “Traveling Man” artwork they picked up in Paris.
“We really evaluated: What is really important to us?” Donovick says. “We’re at that point where we don’t need a lot. We’re surrounded by things we really love. To release all this other stuff we had has been really liberating.”
Also liberating and empowering: designing your own space as an experience of your experience.
“Design evolves and reflects your life,” Donovick says. “At this stage, it’s been fairly easy to design. Early, it was harder expressing myself to so many, with a fulltime career and as a fulltime mother. But this time I had a very strong vision. At this stage in your career, you kind of know what you’re doing. I love what I do. Neither of us is really talking about retirement.
“We have a very full, wonderful life.”