When homeowner and interior designerIli Hidalgo-Nilssonwalked into this Atlanta-area townhouse, she quickly started a to-do list.
The rooms were builder bland, but they boasted great volume and lightand potential.
Some projects were big, like gutting the kitchen and master bathboth dated and lacking the pizzazz Ili loves.
Credit: Jeff Herr Photography, Inc
Others updates were small, such as swapping out nondescript light fixtures for fun ones.
The result: a modernized look that brought the home’s millwork to the foreground.
Ili lined the entry with a runner crafted from a piece of leftover stair carpeting.
A few genius (and budget-friendly) moves relaxed the stairway in the home.
Ili cut the finials off the newel posts and had the decorative knobs removed from the spindles.
Ili isn’t afraid to repurpose rooms to work the way a family lives.
She practiced what she teaches in her own townhouse by turning thedining roominto her office.
To enhance the room’s playfulness, she installed metallic-patterned wallpaper and painted the ceiling a dark gray.
Theliving roomfireplace is in an awkward corner location, so Ili went against convention and downplayed it.
Credit: Jeff Herr
She streamlined the mantel and toned down the surround, replacing brown marble with gray-and-white rift-cut Carrara marble.
A bar-style island separated the original kitchen from adjoining rooms.
To foster a more open layout and improve traffic flow, Ili brought in a rectangular island.
Moving the refrigerator to the range wall created room for statement-makingnavy-blue cabinetsthat allow small appliances to be tucked away.
Ili created a view into her life with agallery wallin the sunroom-turned-dining room.
Mirrors bring an interactive element to the grouping.
Ili added an emerald green vanity to her powder room for a fun and unexpected twist.
But in a trick-of-the-eye, she framed only the outside edge of each window with draperies.
The tactic makes the two windows seem like a single unit and downplays the king headboard overlapping the windows.
Credit: Jeff Herr Photography Inc
Credit: Jeff Herr
