Photography by Donovan Roberts Witmer
For the past 15 years, Alison McIndoe of A.k. Interiors has shared her passion for perfection and design with everyone from local homeowners to business owners, restaurateurs and patrons. In our new series “At Home with Designers” we sat down with Alison to get the scoop on her personal style in her Lancaster home, which is filled with family history, fabulous accents and functional spaces.
Living Room
Rather than completely remodel her kitchen, Alison chose to simply reface the cabinets and coordinate the open floor plan of her living and dining room with the existing scheme. Black and tones of beige in varied patterns and textures tie it all together. Surprisingly, she pairs a zebra rug and reupholstered chars in metallic and patent leather with striped and jeweled pillows mixed with brocade wall art, and it all looks perfectly in place. As an “inexpensive way to get dramatic large scale wall art,” Alison loves to use wallpaper as art. For this project, she used hollow core closet doors from a big box store covered in wallpaper. “I love wall coverings, but rather than commit…” she can easily change the hangings if she tires of the look. She did commit to one classic pattern, black and beige polka dot paper, that comes up to chair rail height to meet pearly paint. “I like my glitz!” she says.
Basement/Bedroom
Collections of sentiment add character to the classy basement, which functions as her 12-year-old son Cole’s space. His “man cave” features a sitting room and TV/gaming area as well as his bedroom. A magnifying glass collection started with one Cole inherited from his grandfather, which he added to over the years while his mom shopped for clients. A vignette of pictures shows shots of New York City, where Alison’s brother (Cole’s uncle) lives, as well as a portrait of her father (Cole’s grandfather). Beneath it, she refinished a chest of drawers from her grandparents’ bedroom. Its vintage lines fit just as much today as the metallic stag head and rhino, which, coupled with vintage inspired seltzer bottles, give the space “sort of a gentleman’s club kind of feel,” adds Alison. Objects given to Cole by his uncle adorn the walls—such as a sword, a collection of rocks, and Star Wars figurines displayed in a numbered shadowbox shelf. Alison says she has a thing for mixing the old and the new with vintage pieces that have been passed down—even the new items look like they’ve always been there.
Dining Room
Alison likes a space to look like pieces were acquired over time, not perfectly matching. The heirloom hutch that was her mom’s as well as the mahogany piece in her living room play well with bargain finds, like accessories and the dining room chairs she found at Home Goods. She designed the custom dining room table and had the base made by a local wood worker.
Office/Sitting Room
“It’s not a big house, so having rooms that are multi-functional helps,” explains Alison. A custom built desk doubles as a buffet for entertaining, while the unexpected blue leopard print skirt adds style and function, hiding her computer when it’s not in use. “I love color,” she says, but she keeps main pieces neutral and classic.