This home was originally built by Silas Fulton, a freeman of color in 1860. The first floor was later converted into a store, then in 1890 it was expanded and divided into two side by side townhouses. It was in a rough part of town through the 1990's, briefly became an inn, then was purchased by the current owner for his use as a part time private home. This was a dream client- we had no furniture to design around, and as it is just to be used as a part time residence some encumbrances didn’t exist that would if this was a full time residence- for example we eliminated a terrible closet that ruined the second floor landing- unfortunately it was the only closet! The client gave limited direction- he wanted to use as much original fabric as possible, and where we didn’t have original materials he wanted to find vintage materials to replace them. This meant we got to shop for antique lighting, antique interior doors to match the three we had left, and reproduction hardware to match the one original set that was still extant. On the flip side this wasn’t supposed to be a museum piece, it had been remodeled so many times already that there was no possibility of putting it back to an ‘original’ so we had creative license to have fun and make it a comfortable space to live in. Probably the most notable feature of the space was discovered during demo. We discovered original haint blue paint on the ceiling structure of the front of the house. The space that is now the living and dining room is from the original structure, and it was built by a free man of color. Haint blue was a traditional paint color used to ward off evil spirits, the use of which was imported by slaves from Africa. We had no idea it was hiding above the popcorn ceilings, and it’s discovery drove many of the color decisions we made in the rest of the space.