In some cases a piece of furniture does more than anchor a room– it creates a relationship and sparks a home remodelling. For Waltham, Massachusetts– based homeowner Amanda Knorr, creator of Knosen Antiques, and Utah interior designer Meta Coleman, a shared love of antique wood sleigh beds stimulated a deliberately slow-paced restoration of the 1930s Cape Cod– design home that Knorr shares with her hubby, David Senft, and boy. “I resembled, ‘Oh, this is my person,'” Knorr recalls of her early conversations with Coleman.
Coleman created the mudroom cabinetry with detailing inspired by Knorr’s antiques and Farrow & Ball’s folky, moody Gable wallpaper, which the property owner notes looks noticeably like a farm down the street from their house. Once the official dining-room, the area now bridges both sides of the home as an entry foyer, furnished with a classic tramp art games table, a vintage Tuareg mat, and a built-in bench topped with a striped Girard Studio cushion.
Over five years, the set collected home furnishings, art, and antiques to shape a welcoming ode to the past– snug and emotional, sentimental and nature-filled, with earthy colors balanced out by vibrant, saturated moments of Americana. Like squirrels preparing a winter cache, they collected things patiently, including layers over time.In the son’s bed room, a sleigh bed from Knosen Antiques takes pride of location, where Mark Hearld’s Squirrel & Sunflower wallpaper sends out a parade of forest creatures marching across the walls. The option feels particularly fitting for a child who, when the job started in 2020, was a three-year-old whose pockets were perpetually filled with acorns, pinecones, rocks, and sticks. Motivated by his little trove of treasures– and maybe their own gathering instincts– Knorr and Coleman threaded a squirrel concept silently throughout the home, with acorn details appearing in a number of rooms.
With coziness a directing goal for Knorr’s home, Coleman suggested decreasing the skyrocketing vaulted ceiling of the ’90s extension so it would feel more symmetrical and well balanced together with the initial 1930s architecture. Now, Knorr says, “I can not envision it any other method.” In the living-room above, Coleman combined a vintage sofa reupholstered in fabric from Svenskt Tenn with Adam Bray for Soane blue linen throw pillows, an Adirondack side table sourced at the Brimfield Antique Flea Market, and an antique art nouveau bookcase. “I do not ever desire my house to feel museum-like,” Knorr says. “You can put your feet up on that couch, you can spill something, and it’s going to be fine.”