My Houzz: Creative Color in a Seattle Craftsman

There’s truth to the idea that artists help one another. Sometimes they even help you find your home. When Edward Mossheart, a psychotherapist, decided to start his own practice in Seattle, a move from rural Ellensburg, Washington, was in order. “We had one month to find a home,” says his wife, Brittany Faulkner, an artist, a life coach and an executive assistant at the nonprofit health organization PATH. “When we looked at this rental home, the owner, a glass artist, was apologetic, saying there was “one weird thing” about the home: It had a studio attached to the back. For Faulkner, that was an unexpected surprise and a bonus. “When my husband saw the studio, he knew all bets were off,” she says. “This was going to be it.” Now going on year five in the Craftsman home, the Mossheart-Faulkner family has no plans to move. “It was amazing we found this house,” Faulkner says. A rental home with an art studio, she knows, is a very special find.

Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: Brittany Faulkner, husband Edward Mossheart, daughter Sophia and border collie–standard poodle, Ruby
Location: Seattle
Size: 3 bedrooms (1 is used as an office), 2 bathrooms
Year built: 1922

A palette of soft green, purple and yellow stands out against cloudy Seattle skies. “This house is actually painted in colors very similar to the colors of our previous home in Ellensburg,” Faulkner says. When the family saw this house, it already looked like home.


The casement windows on this classic Craftsman porch open out onto the porch, allowing for a wonderful warm-weather connection between indoors and out. The pop of orange in a secondhand table provides contrast with the soft colors of the home and echoes the orange pendant lamp that can be seen through the front windows.


The living room windows open outward as well, giving this compact home the feel of a substantially larger space. “In the summer we have both the dining room and living room windows wide open,” Faulkner says.

The original art on the window wall includes a dog icon (top), commissioned from Mary Francis Dondelinger, an iconographer. Faulkner made the egg tempera icon below it as a gift for her husband.

The Buddha next to the fireplace shelves is a traditional Tibetan figure.

Wall paint: Suntan Yellow, Benjamin Moore; chairs: Sansaco Home Furnishings




The mantel holds original art by Faulkner as well as a collection of crystals, seedpods and bones. “Ed used to be a geodetic surveyor and spent a lot of time in the mountains,” Faulkner says. Mossheart found the large whale vertebra below on a beach in La Push, Washington.

The art above the Crate & Barrel sofa is also by Faulkner.


Every room in the home is painted a different color. “We had just painted our Ellensburg home with essentially the same colors, which is really amazing,” Faulkner says. She loves to look through room openings and see the entire palette. “I really enjoy seeing the juxtaposition of colors,” she says.

For the dining room, the home’s owner painted the walls a warm Benjamin Moore red, then mixed her own color and layered it on top.

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The compact kitchen opens up into the dining room, which makes full use of the large, original windows overlooking the porch. “Pay attention to your ‘see-throughs,’” Faulkner says. “That’s what we’ve learned to do. We always have something pretty to look at out on the porch, so we can see it when we’re inside the house.” It’s another way to draw the eye out of the house, making it feel larger.


A mellow green similar to the home’s exterior paint bridges the gap between white upper cabinets and medium-toned-wood lower cabinets. The linoleum floor has proven hard-wearing and durable, as has the original art hung above the sink: an early work by daughter Sophia’s godmother, abstract painter Laura Thorne.

The stick propped up in the foreground holds personal significance. It was made by Mossheart from materials from central Washington and was blessed by Yakima Nation elders.


A short hall off the kitchen leads to the art studio — a strikingly different space with its high ceilings, white walls and plentiful windows.


Half of the large space is set up for visits by Faulkner’s life-coaching clients; the other is dedicated to art. Large southern windows, French doors, northern clerestory windows and several skylights wash the space in gentle, even light.

Rug: Ikea


Bold red chairs, given to Faulkner by a friend, do much to liven up a studio corner. Faulkner’s mixed-media panels adorn the walls. Stacks of unfinished pieces begun during an artist’s residency rest on the floor.


Taking center stage in the studio are nesting tables (at left) that Faulkner designed with help from two carpenters. They fit nicely over flat files, which normally take up a great amount of room, and free up floor space.


Faulkner’s studio shows that it’s possible to have one space with two entirely different purposes. “I’ve since moved my life coaching to an outside office,” Faulkner says, “but it started here. That’s specifically why we set the room up this way. Now we use the sitting area for our family.”


The bathroom off the studio continues the home’s theme of nature-inspired color, with tawny walls, mustard trim and green linoleum. It could have been a stark studio bathroom, but the colors warm it up.


Faulkner and daughter Sophia take a break with their “giant lap dog,” Ruby, on their front porch.

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URL: My Houzz: Creative Color in a Seattle Craftsman http://www.decor-ideas.org/cases-view-id-24843.html