The moment designer Carrie Armstrong walked into Hope Galley and Bill Kurpiel’s McLean home, it was clear they were entertainers. “They had disco ball cups and a wine fridge in the corner,” says the owner of Lapis Ray Interiors. “Hope was buying cowboy hats for her daughter’s birthday party. She’s a force. She’s an extraordinary host who goes all out and does everything with passion. But the design of their home didn’t reflect who she is. The furniture was all generic retail. There was nothing distinctive about it.”
The starting point for Armstrong’s 2024 redesign of the family’s dining and living areas was a sentimental object—a saddle (not pictured) that had belonged to Galley’s father. It became the impetus for a handful of subtle Western elements, including leather chairs, fringed suede ottomans and a “hide-on-hair Dalmatian print” coffee table by Made Goods.
“The hide is the star of the living room,” Armstrong says. “I knew her personality could handle that.”
The dining room, once a hodgepodge of bland furniture, is now anchored by a large, round table by Made Goods, with a dramatic Schumacher wallpaper on the ceiling and a close-up portrait of a horse.
A functional, wall-mounted wine rack doubles as an architectural element, and two buffets provide plenty of storage for party accessories.
The conversational living room features a particularly ingenious pet solution: custom console tables on either side of the fireplace that double as dog crates for the owners’ three pooches.
“They had seen something like this but didn’t know where to source them,” Armstrong says. “Boulderbarks, a company in Colorado, made them for us.”