Small Wonder

How a designer and mother of three found paradisein 950 square feet.

While Quint finished these living areas sparingly, she took the opposite tack in the dining room, deliberately flouting this room's demure dimensions with larger, almost oversize pieces, a trick designers use to create a sense of intimacy within a room. The warm salmon hue makes for an inviting atmosphere, but it took Quint three months to find the perfect shade. She daubed more than a dozen different colors onto the walls before she realized that the color she wanted was already in the window coverings she'd chosen, and after a few quick comparisons she found the perfect match.

Quint fostered a sense of relationship in the main rooms, but for her bedroom she craved a sense of sanctuary. The requirements for this room were very simple: "It just had to make me happy," she says. By happy she means a place where she can indulge her fondness for decadent design, and the bedroom reigns as the most indulgent of the four major rooms. The light sconce mounted on the mirror is in the French Art Deco style. The chair is a James Mont Greek key chair. Quint, who hates "flouncy beds," ordered spare, classic, custom-designed Italian linen with a Greek key motif. But the room's biggest extravagance is the draperies. Quint selected featherlight wools in cream, purple, and black, then had them sewn into panels with a 15-inch French pleat at the top. "They are like a woman's dress," she says, "tailored to the waist, then billowy and beautiful." And functional in a way you might not expect. "My bedroom is my haven," she says. "To have those drapes framing that garden view means the world to me."

For now, the home offers Quint a blend of togetherness and sanctuary while she advances her business—and watches her children grow. "It's smaller than I will eventually need," says Quint, "but for now it's all I want. I love the connectedness it gives us as a family."

Patrick Soran is a Denver-based freelance writer.