THE TULIP COTTAGE

An interior designer creates a home sweet home of her own by transforming a bungalow into a cottage that’s full of feminine and stylish details—including tulips.

An interior designer transforms a bungalow into a cottage full of feminine and stylish details, to create a home sweet home of her own.

Creating beautiful homes is part of Lisa Michael’s DNA. Her father was a residential builder, and her mother was a hobbyist interior designer. “It’s innately in my blood,” she says. Lisa’s aesthetic sensibilities first found expression as a fashion designer. After running a clothing label for several years, she decided to apply her skills to interior design. She took a two-year course, got handson experience and eventually founded Lisa Michael Interiors, a boutique design firm based in Delray Beach, Florida. Of course, she needed a home of her own and saw loads of potential in a 1951 bungalow (which she named Tulip Cottage), despite its multiple types of flooring, dark rooms and closed-off kitchen. Over the course of 12 years, she’s transformed the space into a charming cottage that’s an extension of her artistic soul.

telling a story.”

“When I work, I’m always

“There wasn’t even a place for me to eat. I needed to turn the bungalow back into a house and contain

my work environment

.”

TOTALLY TULIP TILES. When facing the kitchen, mesmerizing tilework greets the eye in the form of four Annie Selke tulip tiles set against a gleaming wall of mother-of-pearl tiles. “The Annie Selke tiles are framed out in limestone, which gives it the pattern in the middle,” Lisa says. “It was tricky because the mother-of-pearl tiles couldn’t be trimmed down, so I had to make sure everything fit just right.”

|OPPOSITE| DIVINE DETAILS. Details reveal themselves when you look at Lisa’s custom bar area. There’s a bump-out detail on the edge of the counter and open shelves float overhead, anchored by intricate white brackets. “I added the bump-out detail to the counter to give it a feminine feel,” Lisa says. “And I fell in love with the brackets because they reminded me of the lacelike iron balconies you see in New Orleans.”

NATURAL FLOW

Light and layout were two big priorities for Lisa. With those aspects in mind, she completely renovated the residence. “The interior is essentially a new home,” she says. Originally, the kitchen disappeared into a black pit off the living room (and had an unfortunately placed door to a carport right in the middle of it), and the rest of the areas were cramped and tight. And since there was no intuitive layout, Lisa’s work studio sprawled over the entire home. “There wasn’t even a place for me to eat,” Lisa says. “I needed to turn the bungalow back into a house and contain my work environment.” She created an artful flow that’s conducive to both

living and working by opening up the kitchen, floating the fireplace in the living room, enclosing a porch and adding pocket doors between the bedroom and the living room. The new layout allows natural movement throughout the home and has areas designated for every aspect of Lisa’s life. “Now it all flows,” she says. “I love spooling out from my bedroom into the main rooms of the house and feeling very uninhibited by any spatial restrictions.”

LIGHT FACTOR

Light is another emphasis for Lisa’s home, as much a part of it as any piece of furniture. “The house was like a dungeon,” Lisa says. “There weren’t enough openings.” A new layout changed the home’s lighting dynamic, and she emphasized it even more by adding sliding French doors to the side patio, carefully placing lighting features and capturing and playing with light in unexpected ways—like using a mother-of-pearl backsplash in the kitchen. The shimmering backsplash both reflects and holds the home’s light, turning from translucent luminosity to golden warmth as the day descends. Unique lighting fixtures were another way for Lisa to add layers of light to the home. Vintage 1970s tulip sconces in the kitchen pay homage to the cottage’s name while adding dreamy tones of light, and whether it’s on or off, an abalone chandelier in the living room shimmers with light.

The Tulip Cottage is a masterpiece of design. “When I work, I’m always telling a story,” Lisa says. The Tulip Cottage tells her story—and it’s truly a beautiful tale.

LOVELY LIVING. When Lisa designs for clients, she purchases and plans pieces according to the designs. But when it comes to her own home, her process is different. “For myself, it’s more of an editing situation,” she says. “I use stuff that I’ve collected, whether it’s from a yard sale or a store.” The approach creates a unique, eclectic look that’s all her own.

|ABOVE| FRESH AS A FLOWER. Lisa’s cottage is called Tulip Cottage. “It really named itself,” Lisa says. “There are the vintage tulip sconces in the kitchen and the tulip pattern in the Annie Selke tile. I love that if I move out of the home, someone who moves into it could look around and understand why its named Tulip Cottage.” |OPPOSITE| GOING GREEN. Originally this room was a porch, which Lisa enclosed and converted into a dining and entertaining area. At first, Lisa wanted natural wood ceilings but was unable to sufficiently remove the pre-existing paint. “I couldn’t have an exposed wood ceiling here, so I sought an alternative that would give the warm feeling that natural wood gives,” she says. “This mossy green paint really spoke to me. It’s a beautiful color that gives that same sense of warmth, and it draws the eye up when you step into the area.”

ELEGANTLY ECLECTIC. The dining area, which was originally a porch that Lisa had enclosed, has a fascinatingly global feel with a gorgeous Moroccan-inspired table, woven chairs and coordinating drapes.

POCKET DOORS. To improve the layout of the home, Lisa opened a wall between the bedroom and the living area and had pocket doors installed. “That was one of the design features that really improved the flow of the home,” she says.

|RIGHT| OLD WORLD INSPO. The bathroom décor was inspired by a trip to St. Augustine, the oldest city in the United States. “I stayed at an inn there and was so taken by the architecture and décor,” Lisa says. A cerused oak vanity provides Old World charm, while a coppery gold wallpaper adds warmth.