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City and Country Style
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City style: Polished wood furniture,
plush damasks, velvets, needlepoint,
leopard prints, and nailhead-trimmed
leather.
City and Country Style
(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: MAY/JUNE 2004)
RICK AND DANA ANDERSON and their children lead double lives. In suburban Chicago they pursue the familiar city life. Deadlines. Homework. Responsibilities.
But four hours north in Door County, Wisconsin, they assume a different pace. On the 12 acres surrounding the family's country home, an 1895 log cabin they remodeled themselves, life revolves around fishing, fresh-picked zucchini, hanging in the hammock, and watching the sunlight fade as the stars emerge.
Though both homes display Dana's decorating themes of using easy-care furnishings, antiques, and colors that feel old and warm, the materials in each home are clearly chosen for different ways of life.
The family spends the school year at their Cape Cod in Illinois, where Rick is co-owner of a design/building firm. The house exemplifies one of Dana's approaches to decorating: Use what you love. "I don't ever really have a plan," she says. "I find pieces that are interesting and I'm drawn to, and I start putting it all together."
Easy care and elegance combine in elements such as Oriental rugs in dark colors, which reduce wear and tear on the pine floors and hide dog hair at the same time. Formal, but soft, upholstery fabrics in rich colors and vintage patterns distinguish the living room furnishings, providing comfortable seating for guests and kids.
"It's a house where people hang out," Rick says. "The furniture and antiques are all supposed to be used. That's what makes it a warm family home."
Vintage pastels from an English paint company set a soft, livable tone for the rooms. "The colors are more antique-looking and not so vibrant," Dana says.
Despite the home's inviting style, the city gets stressful. So when the Andersons had the chance to buy property in Door County, they didn't hesitate. Rick had eyed the place since boyhood, when he spent summers at the home his parents still own nearby.
The property includes eight buildings, including the main house. "It only measured about 20x20 feet," Rick says, "but the farmer raised 11 or 12 kids in that house." Additions in the early 1900s and 1960s supplied extra bedrooms, a kitchen, a bath, and a back porch/breakfast area. But most of the log structure remains unchanged.
The rustic look of original rough-hewn logs survives in the outbuildings, too, which include a guest house, two barns now used as display and storage space for Dana's antiques business, and sheds that provide storage and playhouses for the kids.
