By Jillian Diamond
While Shoshanna Shapiro had done interior design work before opening her firm, Sho and Co, she considered herself a mom first and a designer second. In a way, she was the perfect designer to create a house for another mother whose child had recently gone off to college.
Because her child had moved out and she was moving into a new home, the client, who is also a businesswoman, wanted a space that felt custom to her and that could support working and entertaining guests in equal measure.
“It’s a higher-end neighborhood with good-sized homes, but they’re all production-built,” Shapiro says of Mt. Prospect, the North Potomac neighborhood where the house is located. “She wanted to elevate her home beyond that, so she wanted to create a luxury feel.”
High-class dining
One of the most notable rooms in the finished build is the dining room, which has a sophisticated air due to its incorporation of dark colors and its standout feature, the wine racks built into the wall. They give the homeowner a convenient place to store her wine collection as well as incorporating it directly into the decor, as the bottles are highlighted with unique wallpaper not used anywhere else.
Shapiro notes that the wine rack was a special request from the client, who had seen something similar online.
“She gave us an image for inspiration,” she says. “I took the general guidelines of what she liked about it and created something custom that was completely different.”
The dining table was also custom-built by a local woodworker, in part so it would fit the overall aesthetic of the house but also to fit the size of the room. The dining room is oversized, so a larger table was needed to fill the space.
Works of art
One feature present throughout the house is the use of wall art. From upholstered headboards to a uniquely-shaped statement mirror, art installations are everywhere. The client wanted to add a sense of character to her house, and even some of the more standard pieces of furniture like the chandeliers have an artistic flair.
Shapiro often puts her background as an artist to good use by making her own artwork to decorate her builds if she can’t find what she’s looking for in a store. For this house, she created acrylic chain links in one of the secondary bedrooms which serve as both a decoration and a light source.
These pieces of artwork aren’t just added for the sake of it, though. They’re meant to either serve a practical purpose or guide a viewer’s eye through the room.
“The worst thing you could do is sticking something on a wall that has no purpose whatsoever,” Shapiro says.
