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Text by Tony DiMartino •
Styling By Janna Lufkin •
Photography by Mike Jensen
That house really needs someone to take care of it,” Laura Zeck would
say to herself each time she passed the huge, dilapidated old dwelling on a busy
Seattle street.
Built in 1904, it had been deserted for years, slowly
deteriorating from stately manor to nursing home to crack den to gutted shell.
But Laura, an artist and interior designer, could see its potential. “One
day, I was on my way to get a tamale and I saw a ‘for sale’ sign,” she recalls.
She and husband Jesse Doquilo, a graphic designer and furniture maker, were
looking for a place where they could live and work, and the house, with 4,300
square feet and five bedrooms, promised ample studio space. So they bought
it. “We figured it would take us a year or two at most to renovate the place,”
Laura says. “That was five years ago, and we’re still not finished.”
Dining in Style
(a) In the dining room, orange walls glow under candlelight.
“The right color can be just like a glass of wine—it relaxes guests and makes
them feel open and chatty.“ Laura’s paintings were inspired by her collection of
vintage figurines. The Italian dining table easily seats 10.
Edgy
(b) In the foyer, Laura, Jesse, Grace, and Moby get ready for a walk in the
park. The chair, made by Jesse, includes strips of “live,” or unfinished, tree
bark. That’s one of Laura’s oil paintings on the wall.
Eat. Paint, Love
(c) In the foyer, Jesse’s black walnut lovers’ bench holds
a vase made of
woven magazine pages. That’s part of Laura’s chine collé (a
layered
printing technique) series on the wall. (d) An old steel sign from a thrift store strikes
a
conceptual contrast to the dining room walls, which are anything but
brown.
Enchanted Woods
(e) The insides of the cabinets are from Ikea, but Jesse made
the doors and side panels from zebrawood, Brazilian rosewood, and teak.
Thrift-store educational charts from Guatemala adorn the walls.
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