This Week’s Find: Union Jacks and Bold Design in Bloomingdale

• August 21, 2019

by Nena Perry-Brown

This Week's Find is being sold by its developer-designer owner and has a bold interior reflecting years of customization and curation.

Yvette Freeman, who owns vintage furniture and interior design business Foundry, purchased this Bloomingdale Harry Wardman rowhouse in 2013 and completely restored and updated the interior. The result is bold and highly textural, drawing inspiration from Freeman's personal artwork and sentimental objects, and departing from tradition with dark paint and custom-printed wallpaper. 

One of the first sources of inspiration is "Bad Betty", a graffiti-style painting sourced from a mural on an elementary school in Russia, which currently anchors the Inkwell Black-accented dining area at the front of the house. Other rooms in the house were similarly designed around specific items Freeman wanted to highlight, such as the skylit, nautical-themed third bedroom/library with a map-covered ceiling, inspired by a handcrafted wood-and-metal model boat.

The owner's suite has contrasting wallpapers, custom window treatments, double-height ceilings and custom restored shutters partitioning off a bay window nook. The skylit upstairs landing has a windowpane mural on one side and an exposed brick accent wall on the other, and the second bedroom has balcony access.

In a nod to a recurring theme in Freeman's furnishings business, two of the most prominent design features of the listing are Union Jack flags painted by local artist Kelly Towles: a traditional one spanning the basement ceiling, and a graffiti-inspired one on the roll-top door providing alley access to a two-car parking pad. 

Freeman is willing to sell custom furniture and other elements of the interior separately to whomever purchases the house — Bad Betty (and the other art in the house), however, is not on the market.

Additional photos, courtesy of HomeVisit, are below.

• Address: 1954 2nd Street NW (map)
• Price: $1,495,000
• Bedrooms: Three
• Bathrooms: 3.5
• Square Feet: 3,252
• Year Built: 1906
• Listing Agent: Joseph Freeman, McWilliams|Ballard

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/this-weeks-find-union-jacks-and-bold-design-in-bloomingdale/15782