Crystalrose Manor

Crystalrose Manor is an elegant, whimsical and feminine home, mostly in shades of blue. The client likes the way light blue and dark wood contrast with each other, and that was the inspiration for much of the house: pale blue walls between dark beams and pillars, with wood paneling and wainscoting throughout the ground floor.

The entry hall opens on a round seat heaped with pink flowers, under a chandelier and lamps of blue glass hung with glowing blue lanterns. A staircase climbs to a fountain on display beneath three arched windows, floating lanterns above it and rose trellises either side. A bookshelf stands under a transom window, window alcoves either side of the front doors hold a guest book and a music player, and along the windows are pots for growing the client's beloved Thavnarian onions. Paintings of the area around the Empyreum, where the home is located, hang here and throughout the house.

Coming into the living room, curved walls define a nook for a seat and a round table with books, and a letter lies on the table as if put down carelessly by someone arriving home. Two leather wingback chairs face the fireplace, and a long window seat runs beneath the windows. A cozy spot to drink tea is nestled into a corner by the room's raised platform — a leather sofa, a carved armchair and a low table laid with a blue-and-white tea set — and the platform itself holds more formal seating: two navy and gold settees facing each other across a table of letters and a lit candle, beside a globe and a grandfather clock.

The dining room and kitchen are connected. Benches sit in marble-arched alcoves along the dining room wall, and an elaborate meal is laid out on the huge table: a roast dodo on a platter at its centre, candelabras, honey pots and a tea set among the place settings. In the kitchen, a long counter with a tile backsplash runs under a row of arched windows hung with teal curtains. Rose trellises climb either side, bringing the eye upward, framing the space and adding a sense of whimsy, and the darker wall at the back gives the room depth and grounds it.

Upstairs, a gallery looks down over the entry hall. The bedroom introduces purple to the palette, breaking up the mostly-blue house — purple curtains and rugs, and purple-leaved trees — and fanciful moon-and-star decorations hang among the curtains. Comfy cushions are scattered on the floor in front of the fireplace, a small desk sits in its own alcove with a window, and the four-poster bed stands under a marble arch at the end of the room.

In the dressing room and powder room, angled walls wrap around the vanity, and a long vanity follows their angles, holding makeup and accessories — an open cosmetics case, a palette of makeup, and a pink hat and a necklace on stands. Blue glass canopies hang over the windows and the arch to the bath, strings of crystals run along the walls, and a flowering tree grows from a round stone table. Across the room a wardrobe glows blue beside open shelves between more rose trellises, and a marble arch leads through to the bath: a white tub on gold feet under blue curtains, between glowing blue flower lamps.