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To invite lounging and lingering (especially from the kids) in the breakfast nook, Stevie McFadden chose a slipcovered, freestanding banquette from Rowe, a large round table from Mercana and a pendant light lined in brass to give a warm glow over the table; all items are from her Flourish Spaces shop.
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The couple converted an old closet into a wet bar. The interior is painted Benjamin Moore Duxbury Gray, the natural grasscloth wallpaper is by Phillip Jeffries, and the lamp is from Port 68; all are from Flourish Spaces. McFadden found the print of Bill Murray in full military regalia on Etsy.
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McFadden says that keeping the art, drapes and walls in the dining room simple allowed her to repurpose a vibrant rug that she found on Etsy eight years ago. Stephens discovered the vintage Knoll table base on Facebook Marketplace and then found a marble ellipse top to fit the table and the room perfectly.
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The giant cow head in the laundry room is one of a pair discovered at Class & Trash — the other is hanging in McFadden’s cousin’s house in Charleston, South Carolina. An election poster from her father’s campaign for mayor of his town and a cycling poster from Stephens’ collection add vintage touches.
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The slipcovered Ellory swivel chairs in the sitting area are by Rowe, the printed jute rug is by Erin Gates, and the side table is from South and English; all are from Flourish Spaces. The Simon Pearce lamp was a wedding gift from a friend.
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McFadden says they opted to forgo upper cabinets in the kitchen so they could display art and photos. The painting is a souvenir of a trip they took to South Africa with her family, and the photo depicts her great-grandfather peeling potatoes for Sunday supper.
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In the primary bedroom, vintage artwork found at local shops and estate sales over time is mixed with a tiny block print done by their daughter at age 8. The hutch, discovered on Facebook Marketplace, holds a selection of McFadden’s favorite books.
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The sconces in the powder room are Thomas O’Brien for Visual Comfort. The art was discovered at Arts in the Park in 2022, and the mirror was found at the annual Curtain Call consignment sale benefiting Caritas.
Call it the home that love built.
Stevie McFadden and Rob Stephens both attended the same hot yoga class in 2021, but McFadden, an interior decorator, paid more attention to Stephens after she realized he had been parked next to her in the studio’s lot. His truck sported the name of his company, RiverWest Contractors.
“I’m always on the hunt for a good contractor,” she says, laughing.
As he and McFadden were embarking on a relationship, Stephens learned he and his two teens needed to vacate their small rental house off Cherokee Road in Richmond’s South Side. “I knew I wanted to be over here; we love being close to the [James] river,” he says.
Eventually, the right house surfaced: a 1967 Dutch Colonial in Bon Air being sold by its original owner. The floor plan wasn’t ideal and the interior was dated, but Stephens and McFadden — by then fully coupled — saw its potential.
“The dining room had bicentennial fox chase wallpaper,” McFadden says with a laugh, “but under the green shag carpeting was pristine wood floor.”
The two focused on satisfying everyone’s needs: Stephens re-crafted first-floor spaces for today’s expectations and the blended family’s priorities, and McFadden filled the interior with a mix of new, old and personal touches.
“We really ruminated over what we wanted to put in this space,” she says.
The new downstairs floor plan accommodates the family’s lifestyle. The large kitchen has an ample cooking area with an oversized island and separate sitting space, so everyone can be present while engaged in their own tasks. A sitting room near the entry shrank in size, allowing for an enlarged family room behind it and an opportunity to create a new full bathroom. That bathroom was joined to an existing three-season room; voila: a downstairs primary suite.
“We wanted the kids to have something very comfortable, to be able to spread out,” Stephens says, “and we wanted to have a first-floor primary so our daughter could have the primary suite upstairs.”
While Stephens says he gave McFadden a blank slate to design the interiors — “I know you’re gifted, and I trust you,” he says — McFadden says there is “some alignment of taste in the Venn diagram” of what each appreciates.
“I always appreciate good design when it’s unexpected,” she adds, pointing to the dining room, where clear acrylic Ghost chairs, originally owned by Stephens, surround an Eero Saarinen table base topped with an oval marble slab that Stephens convinced McFadden to try. “Modern design always felt cold to me,” she says. “I would have never picked [this combination], but I love the way it looks, especially in that small room.”
McFadden sought a middle-of-the-road path elsewhere in the house. “I feel I tend toward maximalism, and I wanted to be careful,” she says, which led her to employ a simple color palette, relying on art and furniture to add eye-catching accents.
The kitchen, for example, features a dramatic wood-and-glass cabinet — sourced from a Habitat for Humanity Restore — that nearly touches the 9-foot ceiling. The 9-foot-long island has an open base with baskets, not the standard full-box design. Seating around the table includes a padded banquette. “I really wanted the kitchen to feel like a room with furniture, where we could live,” she says.
In the family room, a 92-inch re-covered midcentury sofa fits perfectly under oversized windows and is flanked by matching chests. “I love putting chests around because they double as storage,” McFadden says. “The kids love raiding Rob’s sock drawer, so one is the sock chest; the bottom drawer is for communal socks, and the top drawer is for orphans.” (Photos occupy the middle drawer.)
Much of the art in the home holds personal attachments. A print above the family room fireplace used to hang above McFadden’s grandmother’s stereo system. Stephens’ 1970 pop art poster of a Heinz ketchup bottle is prominently displayed in the kitchen. A work by Stephens’ daughter hangs above the fireplace in the couple’s downstairs bedroom. They’re now adding to the decor with items discovered on shared excursions, such as a rug from a Paris flea market placed in front of the new wet bar that fits nicely in a repurposed closet. Another find from that Paris trip: decorative wallpaper for the powder room. “I made Rob carry the rolls as his carry-on when we flew home,” McFadden says, laughing.
Now, she says, the house reminds her of the one she grew up in — traditional and comfortable. “Your house should look like you live there,” she says. “You can tell when a house feels personal, when somebody really loves the things that are in there that might be unexpected.”
Stephens says, “For me, this house is about layers; every layer is rich, and you don’t have to peel back delicate things to get to the rich. It’s lush, thick warmth.”
While the interior appears to be complete, the couple agrees the tinkering will continue. “We’ll probably always still be doing things to it,” McFadden notes.
“The only thing worse than being the friend with the truck,” Stephens adds wryly, “is being the husband with the truck.”
