My Houzz: A Seattle Cottage With Decades of Memories
A lifetime of experiences and adventures makes for a home filled with color, meaning and stories
Carla Madrigal is in her seventh decade and now lives in what is just her second home in the past 42 years. For 38 years, she lived in a spacious Victorian rental in San Francisco. But when life necessitated a change 4½ years ago, she and husband Ben LeFebvre moved north to Seattle to buy a compact 1924 cottage in the city’s Ballard neighborhood. In this small house, Carla and Ben went about making a home that is not so much decorated as created, filled with art and objects they made, received, found or discovered. Bursting with stories, it functions as a living history space where the owners’ past colorfully decorates the present.
BEFORE: This is a photo of the home as it looked in the 1920s. Madrigal and LeFebvre speculate that it was originally a fisherman’s cottage built elsewhere in the water-oriented community of Ballard, then moved in its entirety, stone chimney and all, to its current location.
The front of the home has gone from standard “box” to a colorful cottage with portico and welcoming front porch.
The colorful prayer flags, purple porch posts and whimsical iron birds hint at the interior’s creative, out-of-the-ordinary nature.
To walk into Madrigal and LeFebvre’s home is to walk into the story of their lives. Although a friend jokes that the home is an example of not putting anything away, that is actually its defining feature. The home openly presents a lifetime of experiences and memories that are all present and accounted for. Items are used for everyday living while also providing a narrative of what the homeowners have experienced.
Wall paint: Custom mix, Behr
Wall paint: Custom mix, Behr
There are stories about the couple everywhere you look. The furniture often acts not just as places to sit or set something down, but as easels and stands to hold items from the homeowners’ childhoods and adult lives. The sofa, a bright red — Madrigal’s favorite “incredible, rich color” — holds pillows made by a friend, while the center chest, made by the man who raised Madrigal, acts as both a coffee table and display space for meaningful books and art.
Center and right art over fireplace and hat on form: Julie B. Smiley
Center and right art over fireplace and hat on form: Julie B. Smiley
The stone fireplace is functional, but it’s also the perfect backdrop for embroidery art done by Madrigal; drawings of one of her favorite subjects, cats; and chosen rocks and books.
Madrigal, a geotechnical/geologic illustrator and now an embroidery artist with a shop on Etsy, has a natural aesthetic. To have a home with its memories on display, a unifying thread must make a kind of unconscious order out of potential chaos. In this case, the color red weaves throughout the home, and clusters of objects become vignettes with a logical sense of story. Here, bold ceramics by Ondine Wolfe Crispin, Madrigal’s artist daughter, combine with wooden eggs made by Madrigal and a vintage wooden horse, one of her son’s first birthday presents.
A large ceramic vase by Madrigal’s daughter anchors the living room’s bookcase. Mixing the books horizontally and vertically and tucking in meaningful objects results in a space that reads as a creation as opposed to simply storage.
Having lived in both Bangkok and Canada as a child, Madrigal feels both cultures’ influences. Two sculptures from her time in Bangkok share space with art from Canadian Northwest indigenous people.
Also sharing the top shelf is a wooden duck decoy. LeFebvre, a conceptual physics teacher at Seattle’s O’Dea High School, knew he had his family’s blessing to marry Madrigal when his dad gave her one of the decoys from his cherished collection.
The “Here Comes the Sun” plaque was made by friends while Madrigal was visiting the eastern tip of Vancouver Island in 1971. Now it stands as a reminder of that time.
Also sharing the top shelf is a wooden duck decoy. LeFebvre, a conceptual physics teacher at Seattle’s O’Dea High School, knew he had his family’s blessing to marry Madrigal when his dad gave her one of the decoys from his cherished collection.
The “Here Comes the Sun” plaque was made by friends while Madrigal was visiting the eastern tip of Vancouver Island in 1971. Now it stands as a reminder of that time.
Sometimes the reason for an item in the home is the memories it represents. A rocking chair lays claim to floor space to hold a well-loved bear from Madrigal’s childhood and another bear made out of fabric used in World War I.
Textiles are everywhere in the home: draped over chairs, sofas and beds, tucked into unexpected places and hanging from the walls. The message is clear: They are more important than the piece of furniture beneath. The story and memory are the reasons for the inclusion of an item in the home. Chairs, unless they are connected to an experience, are just places to sit.
Painting to left of front door: Kenneth Washburn
Painting to left of front door: Kenneth Washburn
A small alcove off the living room sports its original wood paneling. The walls and second bookcase offer more opportunities to display items from the past, from ceiling to floor. “Mongolian yurts are covered like this,” Madrigal says. “It’s very womb-like.”
A large photograph by Elena Dorfman anchors this wall covered primarily with cherished photos and Madrigal’s daughter’s childhood paintings. The vintage type tray was being thrown away when Madrigal asked if she could have it. It’s now filled with tiny items tucked into the spaces by Madrigal, family and friends. “I don’t even know where some of the things came from,” she says.
The opposite side of the alcove has been turned into a reading corner. Sharing the space are a bird print by Madrigal’s daughter, childhood embroidery by Madrigal (she turned it over and embroidered her own design on the back) and sweaters she knit her children when they were young.
The basement serves as a home office, bedroom and guest bedroom. A collection of repurposed ties embroidered by Madrigal shows off her handiwork and also helps enliven a divider in the basement’s largest room.
The home office features more works by Madrigal’s daughter, friends and local artists.
Corralling collections into interesting-looking containers helps keep them on hand and in view. Madrigal collects cards, as they are “also a way to buy art,” and displays found objects such as a porcelain doll’s head she found in the backyard of her previous home, a moon accessory from an old boyfriend and small carvings she saved from her parents’ art shop.
The color red, featured in splashes upstairs, continues downstairs, where it gets full reign on entire walls.
A basement shelf is a perfect place for a distillation of the homeowner’s past, passions and favorites: a pair of sneakers from the years Madrigal wore shoes she painted herself, samples of her embroidery, collected sand dollars, art by her friends and daughter and photos of loved ones.
The guest bedroom is relatively unadorned but still makes a statement with its mix of saturated color and whimsical collection of books.
This extra bedroom reflects Madrigal’s love of cats and birds, color and art.
Wall paint: Custom mix, Behr
Wall paint: Custom mix, Behr
The art above the bed was found on the street in San Francisco. Although the canvas wasn’t primed properly, causing it to flake, Madrigal enjoys the organic look that’s given the piece.
At the top of the basement stairs is this quiet kitchen vignette, featuring ceramics by Madrigal, prints by her daughter and vintage textiles.
Wall paint: custom mix, Behr
Wall paint: custom mix, Behr
Clay magnets hand-painted by Madrigal cover the refrigerator and photos of New York City’s High Line taken by her daughter rest above the far window.
A folding screen in the kitchen adds one more punch of red and acts as yet another display space. The giraffe painting is by artist Jay Muir. An embroidery square was passed between Madrigal and a friend to create a shared art piece and now is part of the display. A first-place ribbon won by a friend for her photo of Peter the cat hangs to the side, and a drawing of a toucan made by a student LeFebvre met while visiting Costa Rica also graces the screen, below a framed art piece created by an autistic child.
BEFORE: Madrigal found a number of photos from the city of Seattle archives that show the home’s evolution over the years. In this photo, the original basic house has been painted and a fence added.
BEFORE: New siding has replaced the original and a more substantial fence now encloses the yard.
BEFORE: The siding has changed once again, and the four small front windows have been replaced with two larger windows.
BEFORE: A portico has been built, adding dimension and interest to the home’s front. The fence has changed, from one of decoration to one designed for privacy.
BEFORE: Nearly unrecognizable from its original state, the home at this point has received an enlarged portico, front porch and columns, siding, paint and landscaping. The original stone chimney has remained throughout the home’s evolution.
Madrigal, left, and LeFebvre, stand surrounded by many of the elements that make their home so compelling: color, art, creativity and a sense of past and place. “I look at home as a breadcrumb history of my walk through life,” Madrigal says.
My Houzz is a series in which we visit and photograph creative, personality-filled homes and the people who inhabit them. Share your home with us and see more projects.
Browse more homes by style: Apartments | Barn Homes | Colorful Homes | Contemporary Homes | Eclectic Homes | Farmhouses | Floating Homes | Guesthouses | Homes Around the World | Lofts | Midcentury Homes | Modern Homes | Ranch Homes | Small Homes | Townhouses | Traditional Homes | Transitional Homes | Vacation Homes
My Houzz is a series in which we visit and photograph creative, personality-filled homes and the people who inhabit them. Share your home with us and see more projects.
Browse more homes by style: Apartments | Barn Homes | Colorful Homes | Contemporary Homes | Eclectic Homes | Farmhouses | Floating Homes | Guesthouses | Homes Around the World | Lofts | Midcentury Homes | Modern Homes | Ranch Homes | Small Homes | Townhouses | Traditional Homes | Transitional Homes | Vacation Homes
Who lives here: Carla Madrigal and Ben LeFebvre and their two cats, Peter and Pumpkin
Location: Seattle, Washington
Size: 1,400 square feet (130 square meters); three bedrooms, two bathrooms
Year built: 1924
Although the footprint of the home hasn’t changed much since it was built, it has undergone a front-facing metamorphosis over the decades.
Porch post paint: Purple Passion, Valspar