Written By: Mark Reeve
Photographer: Stephen Cherry

What started as a one room design project blossomed into a full home renovation for designer Julie Metz and Mark Showell Interiors

Everyone knows one thing leads to another when it comes to interior redesigns. You change one set of drapes and it alters your focus on everything surrounding it. And that truism was more than evident when designer Julie Metz was asked to redesign the living room of a client’s Delaware Bay beach house. That one room led to the renovation of the entire five-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bath Lewes home as well as creation of an entirely new lower level. When all was complete, there wasn’t a single room in this coastal showpiece untouched by Metz’s creative vision.

Working with Rehoboth Beach’s Mark Showell Interiors for more than 13 years, Metz, an Art Institute of Philadelphia graduate, greets every project as an adventure. “The challenge was that it was a dark house. Very heavy. The customer wanted it to feel very cottage and more Hamptons like,” Metz said. “The second part of the challenge was that the client really wanted us to focus on the living room area. But the whole first floor was a unit, so there was no stopping point. The first floor is really one big room. We didn’t want it to feel chopped up, so we worked around the client’s painting in the living room for color scheme and tone throughout the house. We thought it was a great focal point.”

To wallpaper the living room, dining room and hallways on the first floor, the designers chose an Osbourne & Little product called Faubourg, a light yellow paper patterned with random vertical lines that mimic beadboard’s elongating properties. The pattern gave the space a higher feel and added airiness, when combined with the repainting of all the woodwork and bookcases in a creamy white.

“We love wallpaper because it takes that ‘new’ look off of drywall. We use that a lot,” said Metz.

Along with the unifying wallpaper, the existing wide plank, heart pine flooring helped connect the entire main level. The living room rug was replaced with a Merida Meridian Hemp Grass Parquet natural fiber rug with a dark green Jute border.

“It kept the room from being so formal. It gives you texture and wears very well too,” Metz explained. “I don’t recommend people try this, but I have actually spilled red wine on mine and it’s come out with club soda and water.”

Custom slipcovers were created for the living room sofa, mixing Brunschwig & Fils Tournier Rose cotton print with a sunny J M Paquet fabric from its Palm Springs Natural group. Covers for the room’s chairs mixed J M Paquet’s Lemonade with a Lee Jofa Carnforth plaid piping around the curves. Before she finished with the room, even the client’s bookshelves came under Metz’s scrutiny.

“We chose accessories for the bookcase. I came over with a truckload and she was very overwhelmed when I said I had to go back and get more,” Julie remembered. “We included her individual photos and mixed them with what I thought were more personal statements so it felt like their home. We wanted to make it cottagy but sophisticated.”

The light, natural look carries through into the foyer and stairways, with stairs covered in Merida Meridian Chinese Seagrass runners. A custom foyer rug created by Vermillion Rugs was made of a light fiber with a border approximating the Brunschwig & Fils sofa pattern. The entryway’s focal point is a columned credenza the clients already had, which Metz painted creamy white to match the rest of the first floor scheme. The designer admitted her customer showed considerable trust by allowing the overpainting of asizable furniture piece.

“I give a lot of credit to the client. She didn’t micromanage. She allowed us to get it done,” Metz said. “Once Mark and I start conceptualizing and creating, it is like art on a canvas. Everything flows and melds together, just like it should. And when a client trusts us, then it’s magic. It’s when we get the best result.”

The kitchen cabinetry was repainted the creamy white of the living room woodwork, with new appliances and fixtures installed for a fresh look, and natural stone countertops replacing the original laminate. In the dining room, the client’s original hardwood table was retained. However, heavy armchairs were replaced with light painted Windsors. A single-tiered chandelier was replaced with a more elegant double-tiered one, and the room’s window was framed with two stylish half-round tables. To help unify the dining room with the adjacent living room, Metz added skirted chairs at both ends of the dining table that pulled in the print from the living room.

“That adds weight and it’s nice to get some upholstery in that room,” Metz explains. “It gives some substance so you don’t just see all chair and table legs.With the main floor complete, the master bedroom suite was next. “They wanted a king sized bed. But it’s a strange room because the ceiling is partially vaulted with beams. It wasn’t balanced,” Metz explained. “Mark and I were playing with different ideas and came up with an angle concept. Angling gave it interest and the bed didn’t look like it was forced into that area with a lot of empty space in the rest of the room. It took the whole room off center so it didn’t look so strange.”

Like most waterfront homes in coastal regions, the Lewes house was originally raised above ground level, with only a small storage area under the structure. At one point, a study was created by enclosing a portion of the area. At the time the main level and the upstairs were redone, the client decided to go for broke and add a whole new lower level.

Architect Donna P. Thomas and builder Jeff Bennett of J. M. Bennett Construction, who were both contractors for the original structure, created the new level by enclosing the rest of the area under the house for a new bath, bedroom and enclosed garage.

The HVAC system under the first floor necessitated a lot of bulkheading in the new construction, which created structural cuts and angles in the lower level’s new bathroom. To baffle the myriad angles and cut-ins, Metz selected a wallpaper by Scalamandre called Mikinos, a marine life pattern made to mimic mosaics. It was the perfect choice to even the room’s multifaceted surfaces.

“The wallpaper was picked to disguise the bulkheading and the angles. And I think it did that,” Metz said. “We also chose a frameless shower door to make the room seem larger and less cut up.”

Flooring also presented a challenge when Metz learned the existing terra cotta tiles in the study were no longer manufactured. Wanting to keep the natural feel as well as mesh with the rest of the home’s design, a limestone-styled, handmade looking tile was installed throughout the basement to preserve a continuous effect for larger space perception.

Metz eventually provided makeovers for all five bedrooms, as well as beautiful bathroom redesigns with natural stone counters, undermounted sinks and marine inspired treatments. The result was a bright, harmonious and open environment perfect for a spacious refuge on the Delaware coast.

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