Photography by David Kreutz
Twenty years ago, in search of more space, Carol and Jack Goralnik left their too-small Clayton home for a 60-year-old two-story “traditional” in Ladue. But only months into the new-home mission, they were expecting their third child, and Carol realized it wasn’t meant to be a three-kid house. “There wasn’t room around the breakfast table,” she said.
No panic. They bumped out the back of the house, created a wall of windows to allow more space and light and demolished the garage and driveway to add a family room, breakfast room and mudroom. A complete hideaway apartment topped the new garage located at the back of the house.
There was room for growing together, and all was quiet on the renovation front until 11 years ago, when Carol, a serious artist now graduated from the to-and-fro of an elementary school mom, became engrossed in imprinting her interiors.
Enter interior designer (and owner of Fibercations) Dana Romeis as coach and field guide. The two have since taken “traditional” and translated it into Primitive and Modern meets Family and Art, with a Dash of Red. “The transitions really mattered to me when I started working on the house,” Goralnik said. “I’m used to working one piece of art at a time, but here you are in three dimensions all at once, and I wanted it to be interesting from everywhere you stood.”
They opened the kitchen, Goralnik’s stronghold, to create a circular flow throughout the first floor. It became an interior floating space with handcrafted cherry cabinets, black granite countertops and a deep stainless steel sink that hides a multitude of dirty dishes from guests’ view. Around the eating island, handcrafted stools with dozens of details in natural, mixed woods represent the hobbies and passions of the family members.
The center hall powder room makes clean use of angled space, with its considerable round stone sink, sous-mirror window box and single Euro light. To the hall’s immediate right, the family room (once home to a purple couch) embraces a step-down rectangular space. It includes artwork (some of Goralnik’s), a Noguchi-style light that duskily lights the seating area and a double-sided fireplace. Miniature flat-sided houses and trees march across sills and moldings. Small, primitive artisan cradles stand still in time on the walls. Doll chairs march up the hall stairs in wall cutouts. Some of Goralnik’s own work augments the white walls and niches.
Up the steps and into the breakfast room, a trestle table owns the area, standing close to the (other side of the) fireplace, where the family’s handprints are glazed into its surround. More windows, undressed. The area is earthy and simple. Just on the other side of the wall is the tidiest mudroom.
The kitchen leads to the dining room, where a glass-topped table is largely pebbled with nearly a dozen artisan balls dyed in indigo and rinsed in a river. They leave a worn look and balance the dining room shapes—the round overhead light, the curved backs of the chairs and, on the walls, 19th century Japanese raincoats and a trio of large, slotted faux-stone sculptures.
The sunroom? With three walls of windows dressed in filmy gray-taupe cocktail silk that changes the nighttime blackness of the windows to something sensual, the sunroom has no lack of familiar treasures and art finds. Two huge mortars, one topped with glass and the other full of some seasonal sparkle (strawberry corn), create a usable coffee table. The shag leather rug on the floor is black.
Goralnik’s passion for hand-used, handcrafted, hand-worn objects and materials has steered the elemental surprises throughout the home.
And Lewis Carroll might see something of his Looking Glass tales in the living room, still in process, where the scale soars from full-length windows and a wall of books and fireplace to the Klismo chairs, in which the diminutive Goralnik can happily touch her feet to the floor. Large rectangles of solid wood are cleverly joined to turn lazy Susan-style, putting a new spin on “coffee table.” It, too, is custom. Goralnik loves the wood, the slight butterfly pattern in one of the pieces. The rug? Six years in the (thought) process, it will resemble a weaving, something innate to Goralnik’s own work.
As the house progresses, Goralnik only briefly considers a second-floor makeover. Their “baby,” now a high school senior, will be graduating and leaving for college. And although Jack gives carte blanche to Carol’s home instincts, she will stop at making over the master bath upstairs. “I can’t do it to Jack,” she says. “We’re doing the yard instead.”
10 tips from interior designer Dana Romeis
1. To begin a renovation, concentrate on the room/rooms where you spend the most time. Carol Goralnik’s spot is the kitchen.
2. “Personalizing” a house reflects a lifetime of collection and accumulation and travels. Relax—it is not accomplished in six months.
3. Good mistakes happen. To warm up the Goralnik’s dining room, the walls were seamlessly covered with string cloth. The effect did not satisfy, but metallic paint layered over it produced sensational results.
4. Neutral vs. white: There is typing paper white and there is white that feels like light is glowing behind it. The latter is excellent background for artwork at the Goralnik’s home.
5. For power and subtlety, use what you have. Maybe it is photos. Goralnik uses cradles, miniature wood cutouts, sculptures, etc.
6. All kitchens are not created equal. The Goralniks' kitchen is not a gourmet space, it is a family place.
7. Light the task, the work surface, the walls and artwork; do not light the floor (unless it is a safety issue).
8. Budget will help determine floor choices. Goralnik wanted to keep the parquet that already was in place.
9. It is dangerous to follow color trends when doing a permanent makeover. When using a favorite color in more than one place, use layers of that color, changing its intensity and nuance.
10. Don’t be afraid. If it makes you happy to look at it, you’ve been successful.
