Skip to content

Home of the Week: Classic Style Meets Colorful Accents

Bursts of brightness and sophisticated patterns liven up this traditional Medina home

By Lauren Mang September 30, 2014

officeweb_0

Each week, we’re featuring one Seattle-area home that we think is interesting, inspiring or just a downright feast for the eyes. Some of them are actually on the market, while other homes will offer enviable style tips–courtesy of their ingenious owners or designers–that you can steal for your own abode.

This week’s masterpiece comes to us from savvy interior designer Graciela Rutkowski, owner of GR Lifestyle Co., which includes design firm GR Interiors, and store, GR Home, near University Village. “I’m self-taught,” Rutkowski told Seattle magazine’s lifestyle editor Ali Brownrigg in a May 2014 interview. “That means that I’m not limited to what’s ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in design…my focus is on the customer…and finding the right solution.”

For this 4,480-square-foot Medina abode–that’s featured on Porch.com–Rutkowski freshened practically every room in the house, from the living room and bathroom to the home office and the kitchen (we’re mad for the kitchen’s all-white palette with just a jolt of orange on the barstools). Overall, the home has a neutral and very classic shell, but is then energized with citrusy hues, rich browns and standout patterns. Keep scrolling for more swell snapshots.


Cook in this kitchen? Don’t mind if we do.


Window coverings get the royal treatment with Shumacher’s Imperial Trellis pattern (see below for the wallcovering version in the bathroom)


I suspect I’d do more scotch-drinking and reading Jane Austen in this home office than I would actual work


You can never go wrong with Shumacher wallcoverings. This one: Imperial Trellis in soft aqua

Have a home or a room in your home that you’d like considered for Seattle mag’s Home of the Week? Email a few pictures and a little information about it to lauren.mang@tigeroak.com.

 

Follow Us

Blueprints for Building Community

Blueprints for Building Community

After tragedy struck a local restaurateur family, one of their daughters stepped in to complete the design for her brother’s unfinished home.

Although he was just 35 when a heart attack took his life, Khoa Pham’s imprint on Seattle’s international district was such that the city quickly designated April 21 as a memorial day in his honor. With his rescue pitbull, Pinky, by his side, Pham cut a colorful figure through Little Saigon and became well known…

Tuft Stuff

Tuft Stuff

Tuft Ruft turns fiber art into a social, hands-on experience in Pioneer Square.

It all started with a bout of pandemic boredom. Like many, when COVID-19 hit, recent graduate Carrie Xiao found herself stuck at home, with extra time on her hands. One day, while scrolling social media, she discovered tufting: a textile manufacturing technique that creates a garment or rug with a “pile,” or raised surface. After…

Collaborating Cultures

Collaborating Cultures

Looking to build a home to welcome family and friends, one Kirkland couple turns to a sister to design a modern house with influences from the wife’s Thai heritage.

For many years, when homeowners planned to build or remodel, architects and designers advised them to think first and foremost about resale value. From the number of bedrooms to the materials, appliances, and finishes in the kitchens and bathrooms, homes were often treated solely as an investment, with an eye to future sales. In recent…

Whale Of A Remodel

Whale Of A Remodel

The transformation of an Orcas Island home takes advantage of remarkable views

For many years, Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders entertained his Orcas Island neighbors with breathtaking acrobatics in his vintage airplane. Anders and his wife, Valerie, had purchased a five-acre compound on the isolated western edge of the island for its mesmerizing view, a subject he knew something about. As a member of the first human…