Family Bonds

A young couple breathes new life into a Colonial Revival in Brookline.

Photograph by Michael Piazza

Photograph by Michael Piazza

The couple’s rescue dogs, Jax and Lily, lounge on the Kravet sectional in the great room under a photograph by Yoav Horesh.

brookline colonial revival

Photograph by Michael Piazza

Left: A piano from the 1920s serves as a focal point in the great room. Right: To add visual interest to the second-floor office, the walls and ceiling were clad in rustic French oak paneling by Hakwood.

To improve the layout, the team pulled down a few walls—like those in the great room, which they turned into a combination living, TV, and music room. A nearly 100-year-old piano, discovered by a client of Shayleen’s, sits beneath a crystal chandelier that came with the house. (“It’s a little bit glam, a little Liberace,” Ken Dietz says.) Shayleen and Juliana also installed a pocket door to keep their two rescue dogs, Jax and Lily, from doing any unsupervised lounging on the upholstered furniture.

In the kitchen, Juliana added walls, and, in the process, more cabinetry. “Shay is a really good cook and I love to bake, but in our old place, my baking stuff would mix in with her cooking stuff. We were always bumping into each other,” she says. A long island topped with recycled stone runs almost the length of the room, offering both ample elbow room and a communal dining space.

The second and third floors were reimagined with kids in mind. The couple turned two bedrooms and a bath into a master bedroom suite, and added a laundry room. The master bathroom wallpaper, an embossed floral pattern, reminded Shayleen of a hibiscus tattoo on Juliana’s upper arm.