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The big picture.

Article Excerpt
Yvonne Tocquigny is a busy executive, the owner of Austin-based Tocquigny Advertising, Interactive + Marketing, one of the largest interactive ad agencies in the country. Until recently she lived in a big fusty house, but the single mother of two (a boy and a girl who are both away at school) decided to downsize to a 2500-square-foot cottage. "My house feels like a glamorous California bungalow," says Tocquigny. "I bought it because it is both private and transparent. There is light coming in from all directions, and private gardens that shelter it from the street."

She ditched most of her furniture and asked Austin-based interior designer Fern Santini to help her start afresh. The process included getting new furniture and unpacking a stunning collection of engravings that Tocquigny had collected over the years, mostly on trips to London, but had never displayed. "I didn't want the inside of my house to compete with the natural beauty outside," explains Tocquigny. "Even at night, when the front courtyard garden is lit, you can see green ferns, palms, and even a Satsuma orange tree from the living room." Santini responded to the dramatic natural surroundings by creating a serene interior. "We ended up basing our design," says Santini, "on the subtle tones in Yvonne's collection of English engravings."

The galley-style kitchen is less than 350 square feet (wee by McMansion standards), but Santini maximized utility in the compact room by fashioning a breakfast area out of an awkward space at the end of the room. Instead of a welter of space-hogging chairs around the table, the linen-upholstered banquette can easily seat four, and a fifth can pull up a chair. In the optical illusion department, the banquette's horizontal line makes the long narrow room appear wider. Ebonized floors, stained a velvety charcoal, create the impression that the floor goes on forever.

CHEAP TRICK

Building custom cabinets can be a pricey operations, not to mention really messy. Santini kept the kitchen's cabinets but remade their doors. She also replaced the frumpy slate tile countertops with a slab of limestone, sealed to prevent staining, and remade all the drawers. The wood cabinets got three new coats of misty green paint and minimalist hardware for no-muss, no-fuss appeal.

WHAT ROOM IS THIS?

Kitchens can be so predictable and utilitarian--Santini tossed in a posh fringed pillow as...

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