Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1495454
armchairs for seating. Above the table is a dazzling gold-gilt Venetian mirror — one of a showstopping pair that hang on either side of the window. "They made sense in that space and became part of the art," Dorsey says. "That's a piece of what we do with clients: How can we come in and keep what works?" When the dining room's ornately carved chairs and crystal chandelier felt too formal, Dorsey played it down by adding vintage distressed leather Cab chairs from Cassina and reworking the chandelier into a floor lamp. "We used the chandelier in a modern way so that it feels more like sculpture," he says. A curved sofa the homeowner had purchased for another part of the house was recovered in cream bouclé and moved into a sitting area off the main bedroom — the perfect spot. "It's an amazing room that she never knew what to do with," says Dorsey, who finished the seating area with a Brutalist coffee table and a rustic wood desk he discovered in Round Top. The ceiling beams were painted white to soften things a bit. A pair of dreamy plum mohair chairs offers unexpected color amid the bedroom's soothing gray palette, and an upholstered custom screen behind the bed is tall enough to balance the big space and is articulated to embrace the side tables. "At the end of the day, everything we did changed the way the home lived and that made the homeowner happy — that was the best thing about it," Dorsey says. The family room with a Knoll Saarinen table and Barcelona chaise, and vintage furnishings including a pair of Venetian mirrors.