ENCORE

In a River Vale colonial, a designer created such a delightful TV room that she was called back two years later when it was time to tackle the living room.

TEXT by MARISA SANDORA CARR DESIGN by JENNIFER VREELAND PHOTOGRAPHY by KYLE CALDWELL

“I love mixing color and pattern and having it all work together,” says Jennifer Vreeland of JV Design. “The homeowners definitely wanted color, but they didn’t want it to be dark, so we used a soothing palette of cream with orange and blue accents.”

YOU KNOW IT’S A GOOD FIT WHEN EVEN THE DOG LOVES YOUR

designer. That’s what a River Vale homeowner thought when he embarked on a second project with Jennifer Vreeland of JV Design. “She gets to know you, your family and your style, your likes and dislikes, and it makes everything so easy,” he says.

The family was introduced to Vreeland back in 2018 by their builder, Bill Keller of Cedar Cliff Construction in Harrington Park, who was hired to build a kitchen addition and open up the first floor of their center-hall colonial in River Vale. At that time, Vreeland designed a serene TV room off the kitchen, which quickly became the go-to spot for the couple’s two girls, now 10 and 7. Previously the room sported a large, red-brick fireplace, so Vreeland’s first order of business was to update it with black granite and a custom TV surround, resulting in a more modern, clean feel. She created another focal point in the room with a gallery wall featuring framed family photos. The family was thrilled with the end result, so they called Vreeland again two years later when they were ready to update their formal living room.

Old, mismatched furniture and kids’ toys dominated that space, and “the room had become a catch-all,” recalls the homeowner. Vreeland created different seating areas in the large room, with the homeowner’s grandmother’s piano along one wall and a custom blue chair along the opposite. In the middle, an Ethan Allen couch anchors the room, along with two armchairs sporting an orange, geometric fabric and a blue bench, which ties in the blue from the TV room. “The blues and oranges are so refreshing and welcoming,” says the homeowner. “You just don’t see that all the time. Jennifer took the room from a dark, ugly space to this open, light room with beautiful fabrics and textures. She transformed it from the ugliest room of the house to our favorite.”

The homeowner next plans to have Vreeland work on the first-floor bathroom, so the family—and Charlie the Bolognese, her canine fan—will happily be seeing her again.

This page: A seating area perfect for enjoying a good book was created with a custom-made blue settee sporting suede leather. The fiddle-leaf fig tree in the corner adds a natural element to the room. Opposite page: Tables in various metal finishes were paired with natural wood to create a layered look. “It’s nice to mix styles and make it look eclectic,” says Vreeland, who also mixed geometric and floral prints in the room.