Text by Lauren Eberle
When Wendy Morrison purchased her North Carolina cottage in 2012, she could see past its decade of renter neglect. Mustard yellow walls, a leaking roof, and worn floors didn’t dissuade her. Instead, she found motivation in the idea of her home’s first family, embracing the energy of the 1920s middle-class life. “From the start, my focus was preserving the integrity of this home’s history,” Wendy recalls.
Her neighborhood is decidedly bohemian, with eclectic boutiques, creative cafés, and architectural restoration. So when it came time to revive her 1927 cottage, Wendy wanted to blend many of the home’s original features with an inviting, livable space for her own busy family.
In the dining room, white wainscoting is a trick of the eye that the homeowner says she picked up from years of reading design magazines. “I wanted to break up the chocolate-cherry-painted rooms without such a significant investment, so I painted the wall a high-gloss white and then glued boards and upside-down molding to create the effect of wainscoting,” she reveals.
In her daughter’s room, color is king. “I’ve redesigned her room many, many times in her short life,” Wendy says. “For this space, I let her have her say.” A fresh ice-blue-and-gray motif has timeless style, while a vintage-mount ram’s head makes counting sheep a breeze.
Authentic yet updated and curated yet cozy, Wendy’s home reflects a passion for design combined with clever ingenuity, too. “I pour a lot of love into my home,” Wendy says. “This is where I can really be an artist.”
