When Samantha Demetriou and Michael Raumer bought their house in Pimmit Hills in late 2020, they moved in with a mix of hand-me-down furniture and budget items from their previous (and considerably smaller) starter home in Arlington.
They were expecting their first child in the fall of 2022 when they hired Rose Ramseur, owner of Primrose Design, to make their main level more cohesive and functional. “Was I in full-on nesting mode? Pretty much,” Demetriou says. “We had this big, open area that encompasses the kitchen, family room and front hallway, but we didn’t have the ability to visualize the space as a whole. We needed a pro.”
As a practical matter, the couple’s aging dog was slipping on the hardwood floors. Ramseur arrived to find a maze of yoga mats they had put down to give their pooch more traction.
The family room had some fun elements, including a textured stone fireplace and a coffered ceiling, but the espresso-stained floors that spanned the entire first floor made everything feel dark. “The main goal was to lighten and brighten,” Ramseur says.
She started with new floor coverings, including a 12-by-15-foot wool rug from Pakistan that is now a unifying element in the family room. Picking up on its calm colors, she introduced a light wood coffee table, a tan leather swivel chair and a sand-colored sofa in an easy-to-clean performance fabric.
Painting the inset parts of the ceiling an ethereal blue “made it more of a design feature,” adds the designer, whose studio is in Merrifield.
The casual dining area between the family room and kitchen is modern and simple, with wipeable pleather chairs from Moe’s Home Collection (a necessity in a household that now includes two young kids) and a sturdy oak table from Williams Sonoma Home. “The design is contemporary,” Ramseur says, “but also family- friendly.”